Henry_Wirz

Henry Wirz

Heinrich Hartmann Wirz, better known as Henry Wirz (November 1822 – November 10, 1865) was a Confederate officer tried and executed in the aftermath of the American Civil War for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of Camp Sumter, the Confederate prisoner of war camp in Andersonville, Georgia.

Medical career and family

Born in Zürich, Switzerland, Wirz graduated from college in Zurich. He later went to medical schools in Paris and at the University of Berlin, obtaining two medical degrees. Wirz practiced medicine for a time before he emigrated to the U.S. in 1849 which was, as with many Forty-Eighters, probably in connection with the failed Revolutions of 1848 in the German states and elsewhere, or the Swiss Sonderbund war. Wirz, who had married in 1845 and had two children, was imprisoned briefly in the late 1840s for unknown reasons.

He established a medical practice in Kentucky where he married a Methodist widow named Wolfe. Along with her two daughters they moved to Louisiana. In 1855 his wife gave birth to their daughter Cora. By 1861, Wirz had a successful medical practice.

Civil War

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861 Wirz enlisted as a private in Company A, Fourth-Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers of the Confederate States Army. He took part in the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862, during which he was severely wounded by a minie ball and lost the use of his right arm. Wirz subsequently served on detached duty as a prison guard in Alabama, then transferred to help guard Federal prisoners incarcerated at Richmond, Virginia. Because of his injury, Wirz was assigned to the staff of General John Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner of war camps.

In February, 1864, the Confederate government established Camp Sumter, a large military prison near the small railroad depot of Andersonville, Georgia, to house Union prisoners of war. In March, Wirz took command of Camp Sumter where he remained for over a year.

Though wooden barracks were originally planned, the Confederates incarcerated the prisoners in a vast, rectangular, open-air stockade originally encompassing sixteen and a half acres, which had been intended as only a temporary facility pending prisoner exchanges with the north. The prison suffered an extreme lack of food, tools and medical supplies, severe overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions and a lack of potable water. At its peak in August 1864, the camp held approximately 32,000 Union prisoners, making it the fifth largest city in the Confederacy. The monthly mortality rate from disease and malnutrition reached 3000. Around 45,000 prisoners were incarcerated during the camp's 14-month existence, of whom 13,000 (28%) died.

Trial and execution

Wirz was arrested in May, 1865 by a contingent of federal cavalry and taken by rail to Washington, D.C., where the federal government intended to place him on trial for conspiring to impair the lives of Union prisoners of war.

In July 1865, the trial convened in the Capitol building and lasted two months, dominating the front pages of newspapers across the United States. The court heard the testimony of former inmates, ex-Confederate officers and even nearby residents of Andersonville. Finally, 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. Wirz was hanged and later buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C. He was survived by his wife and one daughter.

Henry Wirz was the only man tried, convicted and executed for war crimes during the Civil War. His conviction is controversial still today.

Many people today feel that Wirz was unfairly tried and convicted because of the fact that the South had low food rations, which this was out of Wirz's control. In fact, in many instances, the South was unable to feed its own soldiers as the war progressed. Additionally, many historians have reported over the years that Union prison camps were just as harsh as anything experienced in Andersonville, yet no trials addressing the conditions in Federal prison camps were ever held. Wirz's trial and conviction also served to overshadow the many atrocities that were perpetrated at the Union prison camps.

Popular culture

Wirz's trial was depicted in the 1970 television film The Andersonville Trial, directed by George C. Scott who had appeared in the Broadway play by Saul Levitt upon which it was based. It featured Richard Basehart as Wirz and William Shatner as chief government prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel N.P. Chipman. The film centered upon the question of whether Wirz should have been condemned for following orders, in a parallel with the then-current controversy over the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.

TNT's 1996 Movie, Andersonville, Jan Triska played Wirz.

Notes

References

Chipman, Norton, P. The Tragedy of Andersonville; Trial of Captain Henry Wirz, the Prison Keeper, (Sacramento, 1911).
Futch, Ovid. History of Andersonville Prison, (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968).
Harper, Frank. Andersonville: The Trial of Captain Henry Wirz, MA Thesis, (University of Northern Colorado, 1986).