Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/206

198 Not content with this, Colonel Chandler testifies that he went to the War Office himself, and had an interview with the Assistant Secretary, J. A. Campbell, who then wrote below General Cooper's endorsement the following:

Thus was the horrible condition of things at Andersonville brought home to the Secretary of War, one of the confidential advisers of the President, who was daily in consultation with him. If all was being done for the prisoners that could be done, how came such reports to be made? But what was the result? A few days after this report was sent in, Winder, the beast, the cruel, heartless coward—the man of whom the Richmond Examiner said, when he was ordered from that city to Andersonville, "Thank God that Richmond is at last rid of old Winder; God have mercy upon those to whom he has been sent"—this man was promoted by Mr. Davis, and made Commissary-General of all the prisons and prisoners in the Confederacy. We come now to a question which we challenge Mr. Davis to answer. Did he know of, or had his attention been called to, Colonel Chandler's report when he promoted General Winder? Dare he deny having made this latter appointment as a reward to Winder for his faithful services at Andersonville?

A writer in the Sauk Rapids Sentinel adds the statement (which is certainly news in this latitude) that upon this report General Winder was "indignantly removed by the Secretary of War," and that when he carried the order removing him to the President he not only reinstated him, but "immediately added to his power and opportunities for barbarity by promoting him to the office of Commissary-General of all of the prisons and prisoners of the Southern Confederacy." This is, indeed, a terrible arraignment of Mr. Davis, if it were true, but there is really not one word of truth in any statement of that character. Mr. Davis not only never saw Colonel Chandler's report, but absolutely never heard of it until last year.

We are fortunate in being able to give a clear statement of the history of Colonel Chandler's report, and to show that so far from being proof of any purposed cruelty to prisoners on the part of the Confederate Government, the circumstances afford the strongest proof of just the reverse. We inclosed the slip from the Sauk Rapids Sentinel to Hon. R. G. H. Kean, who was chief clerk of the Confederate War Department.