They prove that he was in no way responsible for conditions at the Andersonville military prison.
.
The two letters below, which were written by
Jefferson Davis to
Colonel R. H. Chilton, of
Richmond, make certain the contention of the
Southern historians of the war that a report made in August, 1864, by
Colonel Z. T. Chandler on conditions in Andersonville Prison was not forwarded to
Mr. Davis and that he did not know of the report until after the close of the war.
Chandler, who had been sent by the
Confederate War Department to inspect
Andersonville, reported that conditions there were bad, chiefly on account of the lack of proper sanitation and the crowding of too many prisoners into the stockade.
He recommended that numbers of the prisoners be removed to other places.
This report, the records show, reached the
Confederate War Department, where it was read by
Colonel R. H. Chilton, who forwarded it to
Judge J. A. Campbell,
Assistant Secretary of War.
Campbell was much impressed by the contents of the report, and is said to have declared to
Chilton that he intended to see
President Davis about the matter.
The report then went to the
Secretary of War, by whom it should have been forwarded to
Davis.
It was not forwarded, however, and
Campbell did not carry out his intention of seeing
Mr. Davis.
The prisoners were soon moved, but they would probably have been moved earlier had
Davis seen the Chandler report.
In 1865 when
Wirz, the Commandant at
Andersonville, was tried and hanged, a strong effort was made to prove that
Mr. Davis had known of this report and that he had deliberately
