WORSE THAN WIRZ?
By Ed Churchill

Much has been written about the Andersonville stockade and its infamous "pen-master", Captain Henry Wirz- the only Confederate officer convicted of "war crimes" after the Civil War. Yet according to some Yankee prisoners of war who were transferred to another Confederate prison camp at Florence, S.C. after their stay at Andersonville, their "jailer" there was worse than Wirz.

Florence, South Carolina was an important railroad junction approximately 100 miles north of Charleston. It was selected as the site of a new prison camp in September of 1864, shortly after Sherman's capture of Atlanta, because the Confederate authorities feared that Sherman's cavalry might raid Andersonville, free and arm the POW's, then turn them loose on the country-side.

By the time Lt. Col. John Iverson, of the 5th Georgia Infantry assumed overall command at Florence (on the 10th of October, 1864) conditions there had deteriorated to the point approaching that at Andersonville. The officer in charge of the stockade (a position comparable to that of Wirz) was a Lt. Thomas Barrett, also of the 5th Georgia. Iverson was considered a rather compassionate fellow who allowed the POW's to trade with the guards and also go out on wood-cutting details, but Barrett was indicted by prisoner Warren Lee Goss as " a rough, green, conceited brute who never spoke without blasphemy and never gave a civil word or did a kind deed for any prisoner."

Barrett was evidently a mean-spirited little redhead, ill-suited tempermentally to his assignment. Sgt. Robert H. Kellogg of the 16th Connecticut Volunteers wrote that he "delighted in drawing his pistol and firing it over the heads of the crowd." Comparing him to Wirz, Kellogg's opinion was that "it seemed that a greater wretch never lived. Captain Wirz surpassed him in cruel inventions to enhanse [sic] our misery, but he did not equal him in coarse brutality. Like Captain W. he constantly used the most profane and blasphemous language."

Another POW, Sgt. S.S. Boggs of the 21st Illinois, described Barrett as "a low, ill-born wretch of the most brutal type." Slaves continued to work on the stockade and out buildings even after it was occupied and Kellogg noted that Barrett "seemed to delight in being present when a slave was to be tied up by the thumbs and whipped, and he took pride in showing the guards how he could knock down and kick the poor, helpless imbecile prisoners, who were so idiotic that they could not understand him, and would stand and stare vacantly when he spoke to them."

There was a suttler's store inside the stockade, but for those who had to get by solely on the rations provided, the fare was meager in the extreme (mostly sourgum syrup and cornmeal). No meat or fresh vegatables were served. Boggs described how he tried tricking the Confederates into issuing him extra rations: "I tried what was called "flanking" for rations. This was done by being counted in several different thousands. As soon as I was numbered in the thousand I belonged to, I would slip over to a thousand which was not yet counted, stand in line and be listed there, thus getting two rations, or rather beating the Rebels out of one ration."

Apparently that was common practice. "This became practiced by so many that [Lt. Barrett] caught one man and ordered him to be stripped of his clothes; he then tied him over a barrel and, with a leather whip with five or six hard lashes (called the "cat"), he cut the miserable man's back into shreds, and he was dead before they got him untied."

"Barrett then swore that he was going to do every man who was playing that game just as he did this man. He ordered the thousand to fall in line and made them go to the east side of the small creek, intending to count them as they recrossed; but his counting qualities were so bad that he got puzzled before the first thousand was half over, so he gave it up for that day, saying he would take another day for it."

Boggs wrote that when he arrived, "Some were too sick and weak to make anything but a hole in the ground big enough to back into, and some did not have this much."Those prisoners "fortunate" enough to have been the early arrivals occupied the area west of the putrid stream which traversed the middle of the stockade, where they had been able to procure wood from tree stumps to improvise shelters with. Some of the later arrivals tried building "beehive" huts out of mud brick, but the bricks always softened and melted- causing the entire hut to collapse each time it rained. According to Boggs, when their beehive shelters collapsed the occupants would be trapped inside and smothered. "If this happened in the night, their cries and moans would go unheeded, so common were the cries of distress and miserty."

Since rain also flooded the "back-in" holes they dug to sleep in, most later arrivals had no shelter whatsoever. Although the stockade was within a quarter mile of an "extensive forest", the "wry-faced man with fiery red hair" refused to allow work parties to leave the pen to procure fire wood.

Echoing his fellow POW's assessment, Boggs wrote that, "Barrett was the most brutal fool I ever met. On the least provocation, he would become so enraged that he would stamp and swear at everybody near him."

At one point he "discovered some freshly dug earth near the creek [and] swore there was a tunnel being dug some place, and [that] he intended to find it or starve the whole camp to death. He notified us that when we would surrender those tunnel-workers he would issue rations, and not before. That day passed away and no rations came in; the second came and went the same [way]; men were dying like starved sheep. The poor fellows would go to the creek and drink as full of water as they could hold, trying to keep their stomachs filled, to prevent the grinding that only those have felt who have gone four or five days without food."

"The third day four men volunteered to start a sham tunnel and own it, to satisfy the cowardly fool, reasoning that it was better for a few to suffer punishment than to starve all to death. Those brave fellows acknowledged that they had started a tunnel. Barrett put them in irons, saying to them with an oath: "I appoint tomorrow as a day on which you will remember me."

"He then caused to be issued two-thirds of a pint of raw rice to each man; many of the prisoners having no fuel or means of cooking, ate their share raw; some were not able to chew the hard grains, their teeth being lost from scurvy. The scene that followed cannot be described. In the course of several hours many who had ravenously devoured the raw rice were suffering and dying in all the agonies of cramp colic. Barrett stood on top of the gate gleefully looking at the scene, saying: "I'll learn you to look out for these fellows that is trying to dig outen here; and [you'd better] tell me in time, or I'll starve the last d----d one of you to death; You can't fool with me; I'm h--l when I start, you'll find out."

"The next morning Barrett, after hardening his heart with villainous whiskey, brought out our comrades to be tortured for something they were not guilty of. Their hands were tied behind their backs, a small rope drawn tightly around each thumb, the rope [was] then passed over a log the ends of which rested on two cabins occupied by the Rebel officers. Barrett and his assistants [then pulled] on the rope until the victims are raised from the ground, thus twisting the muscles of the arms and shoulders, producing the most terrible agony. The poor fellows screamed with pain and begged the guards, "for God's sake, to shoot them"; Barrett all the while showering from his tongue the most bitter invectives he could master. After a time, three fainted away, and their heads hung limply forward; the fourth sets his teeth hard together his muscles contracted, and his body and face take on a horrible set appearance."

"When Barrett is satisfied, the men are taken down. One is dead, two recover and the other is incurable with lockjaw, from which he died [the] next day. The two who recover are turned into the pen and given some corn-meal, the first they had eaten for nearly four days. All this was done under the eyes of [General] John H. Winder, Jeff Davis' friend and counselor."

Prior to his death of a heart attack (at Florence on February 7, 1865) Winder was Superintendent of all Confederate prisons east of the Mississippi. Had he survived the war, like Wirz, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted for the "war crimes" committed at both Andersonville and Florence.

Yet, in his defense, Jefferson Davis wrote in his memoirs that Winder was "a man too brave to be cruel to anything within his power, too well-bred and well-born to be influenced by low and sordid motives." And as for Henry Wirz, Davis believed: "This unfortunate man...under the severe temptation to which he was exposed before his execution [to implicate Davis, in exchange for clemency for himself], exhibited honor and fidelity strongly in contrast with his tempters and persecutors."

Sgt. Boggs tells us that Barrett "continued in command of the interior of the prison until ...March [1865], when the few survivors of his cruelty were sent to our lines."

After the Confederate surrender Barrett fled to Germany, where he married and remained living for a number of years. But he eventually returned home for, according to Boggs, "We never knew what became of [him] until about two years ago, [when] a comrade living in Augusta, Ga. stated through the "National Tribune" that Barrett was living at that place." Boggs was appalled that he'd not been punished. "How such a murderer can go unpunished is more than we can understand. If one of us, who [all] suffered worse than death at his hands, should happen to come into his presence, and Barrett should suddenly take the lockjaw and die, we should be hunted to the end of the earth and executed as a murderer."

Iverson, Barrett and three other Confederate officers who had been at Florence were actually proposed to be tried for their "crimes", but nothing ever came of that proposal. 2738 POW's who perished at Florence were buried in mass graves on the nearby plantation of Dr. James H. Jarrott, which was purchased by the government and made into a National Cemetery after the war.

Scant evidence of the old Florence stockade remains today. Part of the site is located on private property, less than a quarter mile southeast of the cemetery, along National Cemetery Road. The dirt road leading to the stockade site is flanked by a small monument placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to honor the Confederate guards who died there. But there is a movement underway to purchase the land, clear away the scrub pines and brush, and establish a memorial park, with a monument listing the names of those prisoners known to have died there. Anyone with information concerning Union or Confederate soldiers who may have perished at Florence is encouraged to contact the Cemetery Committee, Old Darlington District Chapter, South Carolina Genealogical Society, PO Box 175, Hartsville, SC 29551.

Those interested in contributing to the restoration of the site may contact the Friends of the Florence Stockade, RFD #1, Box 93, Calais, Maine 04619.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Author Ed Churchill's great-grandfather, Sgt. Henry Murray of Company E, 7th PA. Reserves, survived both the Andersonville & Florence prison camps and lived until 1895.

His knowledge of the war is extensive (particularly the eastern theater of operations) and his enthusiasm quite contagious -- as you'll learn for yourself if you accompany him on one of our tours. Visit Billy & Johnny Tours for more information.

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