Andersonville / Father Peter Whelan

Andersonville, also, Father Peter Whelan. . (Side 1): , The city of Andersonville was incorporated in 1853 as the village center of a small farming community. It came to national attention when Camp Sumter Prison opened here in 1864 and especially when its commandant, Capt. Henry Wirz, was tried for alleged crimes against humanity in 1865. , Today, the community proclaims itself a “Civil War Village” and honors both the memory of Union soldiers who suffered here and Confederate soldiers who did their duty while experiencing illness and death in numbers comparable to their unfortunate prisoners. , (Continued on other side), (Side 2): , Father Peter Whelan , (1802-1871) , (Continued from other side). Father Whelan was an Irish priest serving the Diocese of Savannah at the outbreak of the War Between the States. He volunteered to serve as chaplain to CSA troops at Ft. Pulaski and was taken as a POW when the fort fell to Union forces. After being held over a year at Governor's Island and Ft. Delaware, he returned to Savannah where he answered the plea to minister to the prisoners held at Camp Sumter. Whelan came to Andersonville on 16 June 1864 and he remained here for four months daily tending to the needs of prisoners in the stockade. After the war, Whelan publicly defended Capt. Wirz as an innocent scapegoat. His life was cut short by a lung disease he contracted here and died on 6 February 1871. He was remembered by Confederate and Union soldiers alike as truly a “Good Samaritan.”