friend, Jefferson Davis.  He pried and spied around into every man’s bedroom and family circle, to discover traces of Union sentiment.  The wildest tales malice and vindictiveness could concoct found welcome reception in his ears.  He was only too willing to believe, that he might find excuse for harrying and persecuting.  He arrested, insulted, imprisoned, banished, and shot people, until the patience even of the citizens of Richmond gave way, and pressure was brought upon Jefferson Davis to secure the suppression of his satellite.  For a long while Davis resisted, but at last yielded, and transferred Winder to the office of Commissary General of Prisoners.  The delight of the Richmond people was great.  One of the papers expressed it in an article, the key note of which was: 

“Thank God that Richmond is at last rid of old Winder.  God have mercy upon those to whom he has been sent.”

Remorseless and cruel as his conduct of the office of Provost Marshal General was, it gave little hint of the extent to which he would go in that of Commissary General of Prisoners.  Before, he was restrained somewhat by public opinion and the laws of the land.  These no longer deterred him.  From the time he assumed command of all the Prisons east of the Mississippi—­some time in the Fall of 1863—­until death removed him, January 1, 1865—­certainly not less than twenty-five thousand incarcerated men died in the most horrible manner that the mind can conceive.  He cannot be accused of exaggeration, when, surveying the thousands of new graves at Andersonville, he could say with a quiet chuckle that he was “doing more to kill off the Yankees than twenty regiments at the front.”  No twenty regiments in the Rebel Army ever succeeded in slaying anything like thirteen thousand Yankees in six months, or any other time.  His cold blooded cruelty was such as to disgust even the Rebel officers.  Colonel D. T. Chandler, of the Rebel War Department, sent on a tour of inspection to Andersonville, reported back, under date of August 5, 1864: 

“My duty requires me respectfully to recommend a change in the officer in command of the post, Brigadier General John H. Winder, and the substitution in his place of some one who unites both energy and good judgment with some feelings of humanity and consideration for the welfare and comfort, as far as is consistent with their safe keeping, of the vast number of unfortunates placed under his control; some one who, at least, will not advocate deliberately, and in cold blood, the propriety of leaving them in their present condition until their number is sufficiently reduced by death to make the present arrangements suffice for their accommodation, and who will not consider it a matter of self-laudation and boasting that he has never been inside of the Stockade—­a place the horrors of which it is difficult to describe, and which is a disgrace to civilization—­the condition of which he might, by the exercise of a little energy and judgment, even with the limited means at his command, have considerably improved.”