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Title: Ought to be Read as an Historical Document ONLY.....
Review: The author of this tome, Norton Chipman, was the Judge-Advocate at the 1865 trial of Captain Henry Wirz, the former commander of the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. The book is largely a giant compendium of reprinted testimony -- often reprinted verbatim -- from the government's own trial record. Its tone is unapologetically hostile and belligerent. Curiously, nowhere in the book does Chipman produce any direct evidence linking Wirz to the crimes the ill-fated defendant was tried and executed for; Chipman's entire case is based on thoroughly circumstantial evidence. In the end, Chipman's book is a great collectible, and a "must-have" for Civil War buffs -- but readers should only approach Chipman's work as a piece reflecting the "Bloody Shirt" of the post-Civil War era....
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