Trial of captain henry wirz

All of the anguish of Andersonville required someone to blame, someone to hate. And all of the blame was laid upon its commander, Major Henry Wirz. He was an easy man to hate, a foreigner who spoke poor English Tales of every sort of torture were told, many of them imagined, more greatly exaggerated, but the public listened and believed. Inevitably, someone had to pay for the horrors. Winder was dead, and that left Wirz.

Wirz became the classic victim of circumstance.. Page says it more concisely:. All the accumulated passions of the war were concentrated on this one man. He was a magnet that drew the Northern wrath to satiety. We are deeply in the debt of Lt. James Madison Page for his courage in telling the unpopular truth at a time when few wanted to hear it. In that regard, perhaps things have not changed much since Page published " The True Story of Andersonville Prison" in Though many Northerners conspired to hang an innocent man, many others, men who had been prisoners of Wirz at Andersonville , came forward in a courageous effort to save their soldier-brother.

Many Union veterans testified on Wirz's behalf, and many others were denied the opportunity. For these Northern men of principle, the sons and daughters of the South should be forever grateful. James Madison Page was no watered-down Yankee. He believed steadfastly in the Union cause and, after his release from Andersonville in December of , rejoined his unit and marched in the Grand Review in Washington at the close of the war.

Page wrote his book and defended Wirz's memory with a passion, for one simple reason: he believed that Wirz was innocent. Page sincerely admired his former opponents in the South, and was devoted to the cause of healing the wounds of the war. He felt empathy with Southerners for suffering the degradations of defeat. He lauded the Southern soldier for his bravery in battle and the Southern woman for her sacrifices at home.

Winder, R. Stevenson, and others unknown, to injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States', and for 'Murder, in violation of the laws and customs of war'. The 13 murders committed by Wirz personally were by revolver specifications 1, 3, 4 , by physically stamping and kicking the victim specification 2 , and by confining prisoners in stocks specifications 5, 6 , by beating a prisoner with a revolver specification 13 and by chaining prisoners together specification 7.

All murders occurred in Wirz was also charged with ordering guards to fire on prisoners with muskets specification 8, 9, 10, 12 , and to have dogs attack escaped prisoners specification Some of the evidence was hearsay, but there was one witness whose testimony was particularly damning.

His name was Felix de la Baume, and he claimed to be a descendant of the heroic Marquis de Lafayette. He was able to name a victim killed directly by Wirz.

This eyewitness was a skilled orator and his story was so compelling that he was given a written commendation signed by all the members of the commission for his part in the trial. He was also rewarded with a position in the department of the Interior while the trial was still in progress. Another witness was in Andersonville with his father.

He described his father as having scurvy, and not being able to stand. Because he could not stand, Wirz repeatedly stomped and kicked him, and his father died a few days later. In early November , the commission announced that it had found Wirz guilty of conspiracy as charged, along with 11 of 13 counts of murder.

He was sentenced to death. In a letter to President Andrew Johnson , Wirz asked for clemency, but the letter went unanswered. The night before his execution, Louis Schade an attorney working on behalf of Wirz was told that a high Cabinet official wished to assure Wirz that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities committed at Andersonville, his sentence would be commuted.

Schade repeated the offer to Wirz and was told, "Mr. Schade, you know that I have always told you that I do not know anything about Jefferson Davis. He had no connection with me as to what was done at Andersonville. If I knew anything about him, I would not become a traitor against him or anybody else even to save my life.

Wirz was hanged at a. His neck did not break from the fall, and the crowd of spectators watched as he writhed and slowly suffocated. Wirz's defenders offer a variety of arguments: "War is hell" it is and "prison camps never a bed of roses" true enough ; "He did the best he could in bad circumstances" he did make some efforts to improve conditions ; "Nobody's perfect" but some fall much further from perfection than others.

Wirz's prosecutor called the commandant of Andersonville "more a demon than a man. Wirz's defenders see most of the charges against him as weak and view him a scapegoat for a tragedy that was largely out of his control.

A demon or a martyr-hero? As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. The tragedy of Andersonville was set in motion by the decision, in late October of , of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to halt the exchange of prisoners of war.

Stanton gave as his reasons Confederate violation of the agreement for exchanging prisoners, as well as Confederate mistreatment of African-American soldiers and their white officers. Colonel Chipman devoted considerable argument to defending the jurisdiction of the commission. He argued that even though the war was over, a military tribunal was justified because the South was still a rebellious, armed camp, and the threat of war was very real. Again, Chipman and the prosecution prevailed. The defense finally argued that the charges against Wirz should be dismissed because they were unconstitutionally vague and indefinite.

From the thirteen specific allegations of murder, not a single murder victim was named in the charges. All the alleged victims were referred to as an United States soldier, "whose name is unknown. Chipman did not respond to this motion, and it was denied without comment. After all defense motions were denied, three of the five defense counsel withdrew from the case.

Only Baker and Schade remained. Baker and Schade quit after complaining of the deferential treatment the commission showed prosecution witnesses. Only the pleading of Henry Wirz persuaded them to return. At the conclusion of the trial, when the defense request for time to prepare its closing argument was denied, both attorneys quite for good.

The closing argument for the defense as well as the prosecution was handled by the same man, Colonel Chipman. The prosecutions strategy was to create a "parade of horrors" as to the terrible conditions at Andersonville. All of the disease, malnutrition, filth, overcrowding, misery, and death was described in detail. To establish the conspiracy, Chipman introduced letters from Wirz to the Department of Prisons.

The letters detailed the problems existing at Andersonville, and made recommendations for improving the situation. This point was made to show knowledge on the part of the Confederate government and therefore their complicity. This documentary evidence was not viewed as the prosecution had hoped. Instead of showing a conspiracy to mistreat Union prisoners, it showed that the Confederate government, despite all of its problems late in the war, continued to regulate and inspect its prisons with a view to improving their conditions.

None of the documents were critical of Captain Wirz, and others described him as "admirably performing his duties.