Exerpt from

"Henry Printz of Winchester, Virginia and his Descendants"

By Leallah Franklin 1998

John was known as "Big John Printz". He was said to have been a very quiet, gentle, philosophical kind. The head of the family. He had a big desk and a huge wood-burning stove in one end of what he called his garage.

John served in the Union Army Co. G. 6th Iowa Inf. during the Civil War. He was captured & taken prisoner. He was confined at Andersonville Prison where he caught typhoid fever in the prison camp and suffered recurrent bouts of it all his life. While in prison he met Frank Schaffer and together they made a dramatic escape from Andersonville Prison. The guards sat with rifles on high platforms over looking the swamp where the men bathed and drank from it. When anyone got out too far, the guards shot them and left the body float. John and Frank swam under water to dead bodies, slipped under them and gradually eased them out to the river. After swimming far and hiding out they found a Union Patrol (Sherman's march thru GA). John went home with his friend Frank Schaffer to Iowa and married Frank's sister Henrietta.