The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry Wirz
A Union Prisoner's Eyewitness Defense of Andersonville and Civil War MemoryBy James Madison Page
Length6h 15m
About this audiobook
James Madison Page's The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry Wirz is a polemical historical account of the Confederate prison camp whose name became synonymous with Civil War atrocity. Drawing upon personal experience as a Union prisoner and upon documentary and testimonial evidence, Page contests the dominant indictment of Wirz, the camp's commandant, and distinguishes the realities of wartime scarcity, administrative failure, and military policy from the image of a uniquely malicious perpetrator. The book combines prison memoir, evidentiary brief, and revisionist historical narrative; its urgent first-person perspective and prosecutorial organization place it within the postbellum literature of Civil War memory, when former participants sought to shape public judgment of the conflict and its leaders. Page writes as a former Andersonville prisoner who regarded the conventional story as historically incomplete and morally selective. His intimate knowledge of camp conditions, together with his dissatisfaction with Wirz's trial and execution, appears to have motivated this sustained effort to recover testimony favorable to the accused. Rather than treating memory as neutral, Page marshals it consciously in an argument about responsibility, justice, and the politics of remembrance. This volume is recommended to readers of Civil War history, prison memoir, military justice, and historical revisionism. It is especially valuable when read alongside contemporary accounts and modern scholarship, allowing readers to assess how evidence, personal suffering, and sectional memory interact in narratives of culpability. Page's defense does not end debate over Andersonville; it makes that debate more historically textured and intellectually necessary.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.2 (277)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon
GenreHistory
Length6 hrs 15 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 14, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1My Diary – North and South (Vol. 1&2) (Annotated)
2Preface
3Part I - Andersonville: The Prisoners and Their Keeper
4My First Soldiering
5A Sprint and a Capture
Show all chaptersShow less
6A Prisoner at Belle Isle
7From Belle Isle to Andersonville
8Daily Life at Andersonville
9"The Dead-Line" and the Death of "Poll Parrot"
10The Stanton Policy
11Execution of the Raiders
12The Mass Meeting of July Twentieth
13The Fate of a Traitor
14Billy Bowles Gives a Dinner in Baltimore
15Part II - Henry Wirz: The Man and His Trial
16The Facts of Wirz's Life
17The Accusations Against Wirz
18The Trial
19The Last Days of Wirz S Life
20Wirz's Attorney's Final Word
21The Great War Secretary
More from James Madison Page
Prisoner of War - 12 Civil War MemoirsJames Madison Page, John Azor Kellogg, David W. Stafford, George A. Lawrence, Daniel Avery Langworthy, John Levi Maile, William N. Tyler, W. H. Morgan, John McElroy, Alonzo Cooper, H. Clay Trumbull73h 57m$0.99
The True Story of Andersonville PrisonJames Madison Page6h 4m4.2 (388)$1 · $0.00
The History of Andersonville PrisonJames Madison Page6h 7m3.9 (238)$1 · $0.00
The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry WirzJames Madison Page6h 6m4.2 (247)$2 · $0.00
The True Story of Andersonville Prison (Annotated)James Madison Page6h 18m4.4 (11)$0.99 · $0.00
Die wahre Geschichte des Andersonville-GefängnissesJames Madison Page6h 43m4.2 (338)$3 · $0.00
The True Story of Andersonville PrisonJames Madison Page6h 3m4.1 (376)$1 · $0.00
The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry WirzJames Madison Page6h 4m4.3 (417)$2 · $0.00
The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3Shelby Foote58h 18m4.7 (15.1K)$30
The Two Swords of ChristRaymond Ibrahim15h 55m4.8 (442)$30
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith3h 8m4.7 (7.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The Redeemer’s ReturnArthur W. Pink13h 18m4.7 (589)$20
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass44h 9m4.7 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America (Annotated)Howard Irving Chapelle, Tappan Adney13h 9m4.8 (150)$0.99 · $0.00
I've Been to the MountaintopMartin Luther King48m4.7 (1.4K)$11 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
Saving My EnemyBob Welch9h 11m4.6 (2.3K)$20
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The True Story of Andersonville PrisonJames Madison Page6h 3m4.1 (376)$1 · $0.00
Trial by FireScott James13h 31m4.4 (1.4K)$23
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn27h 31m4.6 (6K)$53 · $0.00
The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry WirzJames Madison Page6h 4m4.3 (417)$2 · $0.00
12 Years A SlaveSolomon Northup10h 8m4.3 (308.2K)$1 · $0.00
By the Fire We CarryRebecca Nagle8h 15m4.5 (5.5K)$26 · $0.00
A Silent FuryYuri Herrera2h 1m3.9 (2K)$15
The Rape of NankingIris Chang8h 4m4.4 (98.8K)$17
In the Midst of Civilized EuropeJeffrey Veidlinger14h 45m4.4 (444)$33 · $0.00
The Great Oklahoma SwindleRussell Cobb9h 40m4.0 (762)$20
The HolocaustDan Stone10h4.3 (1.5K)$29 · $0.00
Mean Streak: A moral vacuum, a dodgy debt generator and a multi-billion-dollar government shake down - the powerful story of robodebt, WINNER of the Walkley Book Award 2025Rick Morton15h 32m4.4 (502)$33 · $0.00
Shadows at DawnKarl Jacoby10h 20m4.2 (710)$23
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn25h 56m4.5 (25.1K)$8 · $0.00
Lincoln's Last HoursCharles Augustus Leale1h 28m4.2 (638)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Novels of George Orwell (Annotated)George Orwell54h 10m4.5 (1.5K)$2 · $0.00
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on TortureSenate Select Committee on Intelligence16h 45m4.2 (506)$25 · $0.00
Come On, Man!Joe Concha7h 46m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (Summarized Edition)Harriet Beecher Stowe5h 54m4.0 (1.7K)$2
102 MinutesJim Dwyer, Kevin Flynn5h 58m4.5 (15.5K)$24 · $0.00