Chapter 12 Georgia:Still Prisoners of War Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 12, Horwitz left Atlanta and traveled further into Georgia. In the town of Conyers, he attended a Sons of Confederate Veterans meeting and met a woman named Mauriel Johnson, who studied Civil War diaries and letters of Confederate prisoners who often corresponded with northern women. It was common for northern women to write to Confederate prisoners, Johnson explained, and the letters they wrote were often flirtatious or even frank. Johnson had written a book about the treatment of rebel prisoners by the North and she provided Horwitz with a signed copy.

Horwitz read the book and found it was mainly intended to balance the so-called "myths" about Andersonville, a notorious Confederate prison where thousands of prisoners had died from starvation and dysentery. The commander of the prison, Henry Wirz, was...