may require, and I am fortified in my position by unsolicited letters
from over 3,000 surviving prisoners, warmly indorsing the account as
thoroughly accurate in every respect.

It has been charged that hatred of the South is the animus of this work.
Nothing can be farther from the truth. No one has a deeper love for
every part of our common country than I, and no one to-day will make more
efforts and sacrifices to bring the South to the same plane of social and
material development with the rest of the Nation than I will. If I could
see that the sufferings at Andersonville and elsewhere contributed in any
considerable degree to that end, and I should not regret that they had
been. Blood and tears mark every, step in the progress of the race, and
human misery seems unavoidable in securing human advancement. But I am
naturally embittered by the fruitlessness, as well as the uselessness of
the misery of Andersonville. There was never the least military or other
reason for inflicting all that wretchedness upon men, and, as far as
mortal eye can discern, no earthly good resulted from the martyrdom of
those tens of thousands. I wish I could see some hope that their
wantonly shed blood has sown seeds that will one day blossom, and bear a
rich fruitage of benefit to mankind, but it saddens me beyond expression
that I can not.

The years 1864-5 were a season of desperate battles, but in that time
many more Union soldiers were slain behind the Rebel armies, by
starvation and exposure, than were killed in front of them by cannon and
rifle. The country has heard much of the heroism and sacrifices of those
loyal youths who fell on the field of battle; but it has heard little of
the still greater number who died in prison pen. It knows full well how
grandly her sons met death in front of the serried ranks of treason, and
but little of the sublime firmness with which they endured unto the