"of all the ministers in Georgia accessible to Andersonville, only one could hear this sentence, 'I was sick and in prison and you visited me,' and that one is a Catholic." Back In Savannah When the elderly priest returned to Savannah he faced internal and external changes. He was then suffering from a lung ailment he contracted at Andersonville. In Savannah, despondency was everywhere. Many families had lost loved ones, and the end of the Confederacy seemed close at hand. Federal prisoners, by the thousands, began arriving in the city and were in need of care. Whelan was still Vicar General when Sherman's forces arrived in December. Immediately east of Savannah's Catholic cemetery on the Thunderbolt Road, the federal engineers began reconstruction of the old Confederate earthworks. While digging the new trenches, they invaded the cemetery, opened some graves, and destroyed or covered up some monuments. Among the graves that were disturbed was that of the first bishop of Savannah, Francis Gartland. To prevent desecration, some women removed his remains and buried them temporarily in the convent garden of the Sisters of Mercy. The bodies of another bishop, two priests, and four nuns were also rescued. Whelan was the first to protest with a letter to General Quincy Gillmore, whom he had known at Fort Pulaski: "It must be…an extreme military necessity when the ashes of the dead are disturbed…. Might can effect it, but does Right sanction it?" His appeal for the situation to be corrected was followed with messages from Bishop Verot to Gillmore and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Investigations took place, more letters were exchanged, and eventually the matter was resolved. Post-war Trial of Henry Wirz As Federal ex-prisoners were gradually returning to their homes in the North. The details of the horrors of Andersonville quickly circulated, and the leaders of the Confederacy came under fire. Since General Winder, the commandant, was dead, the cry for expiation began to focus on Captain Wirz, who had been in charge of affairs within the stockade. On May 7, 1865, the accused was arrested and brought to Washington, where a military tribunal placed him on trial, convicted and sentenced him to death. Among the 160 witnesses summoned to testify were Fathers Hamilton and Whelan. Hamilton described conditions in the prison, but both priests said that Wirz had even seemed anxious to have their services. He had received them with