Henry Wirz

Henry Wirz

Henry Wirz
Born (1823-11-25)November 25, 1823
Zurich, Switzerland
Died November 10, 1865(1865-11-10) (aged 41)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington, D.C., U.S.
Allegiance  Confederate States
Service/branch  Confederate Army
Years of service 1861–65
Rank Captain
Commands held Andersonville Prison
Battles/wars

American Civil War

Heinrich Hartmann Wirz[1] better known as Henry Wirz (November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Swiss-born Confederate officer in the American Civil War. He is best known for his command of Camp Sumter, the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia; he was tried and executed after the war for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp.

Career and family

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, to Hans Caspar Wirz and Sophie Barbara Philipp, Henry Wirz received elementary and secondary education. He aspired to become a physician, but his family did not possess funds to pay for medical school. Instead, he became a merchant and worked in Zurich and Torino, Italy. Wirz, who had married Emilie Oschwald in 1845 and had two children,[2] received a four-year prison term in April 1847 for inability to return money that he borrowed. The court commuted his sentence to 12-year forcible emigration. His wife refused to emigrate and obtained a divorce in 1853.[3]

In 1848 Wirz went to Russia and the next year to the United States, where he found employment in a factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. After five years he moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and worked as a doctor's assistant. He tried to establish his own homeopathic medicine practice in Cadiz, Kentucky, and also worked as superintendent of a water cure clinic in Northampton, Massachusetts.[4]

In 1854 he married a Methodist widow named Elizabeth Wolfe, who stayed by his side to the end of his life. Along with her two daughters, they moved to Louisiana, where his wife in 1855 gave birth to their daughter Cora. In Louisiana Wirz worked for Levin Marshall as a plantation overseer and physician. By 1861 he had successfully navigated his transition to a new life in America.[5][6]

Civil War

Wirz enlisted as a private in Company A, Fourth Battalion of the Louisiana Volunteers of the Confederate army in May 1861.[7] He took part in the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862, during which he was wounded by a minie ball and lost the use of his right arm. After returning to his unit on June 12, 1862, Wirz was promoted to captain "for bravery on the field of battle".[8] Because of his injury, he was assigned to the staff of Gen. John H. Winder, who was in charge of Confederate POW camps.[5]

Confederate President Jefferson Davis made Capt. Wirz a Special Minister and sent him to Europe carrying secret dispatches to Confederate Commissioners James Mason in England, and John Slidell in France.[8] Wirz returned from Europe in January 1864 and reported back to Richmond, Virginia, where he began working for Gen. Winder in the prison department. Wirz then served on detached duty as a prison guard in Alabama, then transferred to help guard Union prisoners incarcerated at Richmond.

Camp Sumter

In February 1864 the Confederate government established Camp Sumter, a large military prison in Georgia near the small railroad depot of Anderson (as it was called then), to house Union prisoners of war. In April 1864 Wirz took command of Camp Sumter, where he remained for over a year.[5] Shortly before the end of the war, Wirz was promoted to the rank of major.

Though wooden barracks were originally planned, the Confederates incarcerated the prisoners in a vast, rectangular, open-air stockade originally encompassing 16-1/2 acres, which had been intended as only a temporary prison pending exchanges of prisoners with the North. The prisoners gave this place the name Andersonville. The prison suffered an extreme lack of food, tools and medical supplies, severe overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions and a lack of potable water.

Wirz recognized that the conditions were inadequate and petitioned his superiors to provide more support; this was denied. In July 1864 he sent five prisoners to the Union with a petition written by the inmates asking the government to negotiate their release.[9]

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, dysentery and malnutrition reached 3,000. Around 45,000 prisoners were incarcerated during the camp's 14-month existence, of whom close to 13,000 (28%) died.[10]

Trial and execution

The execution of Wirz near the U.S. Capitol moments after the trap door was sprung.
Wirz' grave marker at Mount Olivet Cemetery, denoting him as a "hero" and a "martyr".
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Wirz was arrested by a contingent of U.S. cavalry in May 1865, taken by rail to Washington, D.C., and held in the Old Capitol Prison, where the federal government intended to place him on trial for conspiring to impair the lives of Union prisoners of war.[5] A military tribunal was convened with Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace presiding. The other members of the commission were Gershom Mott, John W. Geary, Lorenzo Thomas, Francis Fessenden, Edward S. Bragg, John F. Ballier, T. Allcock and John H. Stibbs. Norton P. Chipman served as prosecutor.[11]

The military tribunal took place between August 23 and October 18, 1865,[12] held in the Court of Federal Claims, dominating the front pages of newspapers across the United States. The court heard the testimony of former inmates, ex-Confederate officers and even residents of nearby Andersonville. Among those giving testimony was Father Peter Whelan, a Catholic priest who worked with the inmates, who testified on Wirz's behalf.[13] Also among those called to testify was Robert E. Lee. According to Fitzhugh Lee, in his biography of his uncle, "[Lee] knew the captain had done all that was possible with the resources at his disposal; subsistence for them had been most difficult to procure, their exchange for an equal number of Southerners had been refused, while the Federal blockade kept out medical supplies."[14]

The charges against him were for "combining, confederating, and conspiring, together with John H. Winder, Richard B. Winder, Joseph [Isaiah H.] White, W.S. Winder, R.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 stomping 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).[15] All murders occurred in 1864.

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 11).[16] Wirz was found guilty of all charges except the murder in specification 4.[17]

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.[18] 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. It is also claimed that his real name was Felix Oesser and that he was a deserter from the 7th New York (Steuben) regiment.[18]

In early November 1865 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.[19]

In a letter to U.S. 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 in 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 10:32 a.m. on November 10, 1865, at the Old Capitol Prison, by the U.S. Capitol,[20] the present-day site of the Supreme Court of the United States. His neck did not break from the fall, and the crowd of 250 spectators watched as he writhed and slowly suffocated. He was buried in the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C. He was survived by his wife and one daughter.

Eleven days after the execution, it was claimed that the star witness from the trial had perjured himself. He was not Felix de la Baume from France, but Felix Oeser, born in Saxony, Prussia. He was actually a deserter from the 7th New York Volunteers.[21]

Wirz was one of two men tried, convicted and executed for war crimes during the Civil War (the other being Confederate guerrilla Champ Ferguson). Confederate soldiers Robert Cobb Kennedy and John Yates Beall were executed for spying and Marcellus Jerome Clarke and Henry C. Magruder were executed for being guerrillas). Wirz's conviction remains controversial even today.[10][21] Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans annually march to a Wirz memorial, along with supporters of a congressional pardon for Wirz.[22]

Some writers have suggested Wirz's trial was unfair.[23] Even some of his former prisoners conceded that the little support he received from the Confederate government in terms of food, water and medical supplies made the conditions at Andersonville beyond his scope of responsibility. The trial, one of the nation's most famous early war crimes tribunals, created enduring moral and legal notions and established the precedent that certain wartime behavior is unacceptable, regardless if committed under the orders of superiors or on one's own.[24] In a 1980 study, the historian Morgan D. Peoples refers to Wirz as a "scapegoat".[25]

In popular culture

In Saul Levitt's 1959 play The Andersonville Trial, Wirz was first played by Herbert Berghof. When the play was recreated for an episode of PBS's 1970-71 season of Hollywood Television Theatre, Wirz was portrayed by Richard Basehart. Wirz was portrayed by actor Jan Tříska in the American film Andersonville (1996).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Heinrich Hartmann Wirz". Us-civilwar.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-10. Retrieved 2008-11-28.
  2. ↑ "Andersonville Prison". Trutv.com. Retrieved 2008-11-28.
  3. ↑ Arch Fredric Blakey. Wirz, Henry, American National Biography Online, February 2000. Retrieved November 25, 2015.
  4. ↑ Tomes, R., & Smith, B. G. (1862). The war with the South: A history of the late rebellion, with biographical sketches of leading statesmen and distinguished naval and military commanders, etc. New York: Virtue & Yorston, Volume III, p. 685.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Henry Wirz". Archived from the original on 2007-10-06. Retrieved 2008-11-28.
  6. ↑ "Wirz Trial Home Page". UMKC School of Law.
  7. ↑ U.S. National Archives. "Compiled Service Record of Henry Wirz, Fourth Battalion of Louisiana Infantry". Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Louisiana. Footnote. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  8. 1 2 Captain Henry Wirz
  9. ↑ Jon Rice. "Scopes Trial Home Page – UMKC School of Law". Law2.umkc.edu. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
  10. 1 2 "Andersonville: Prisoner of War Camp-Reading 1". Nps.gov. Archived from the original on November 18, 2007. Retrieved 2008-11-28.
  11. ↑ Trial of Henry Wirz.
  12. ↑ Trial of Henry Wirz
  13. ↑ "Witnesses Who Testified at the Trial of Henry Wirz". National Park Service. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  14. ↑ Lee, Fitzhugh, "General Lee," p. 407
  15. ↑ "The Norfolk Post. (Norfolk, Va.), 24 Aug. 1865". Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  16. ↑ Court Martial of Henry Wirz, Charges and Specifications
  17. ↑ Henry Wirz Court Martial, FINDING OF THE COURT
  18. 1 2 "Myth: The Mystery of Felix de la Baume". National Park Service. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  19. ↑ "A summary of the trial of Henry Wirz" (PDF). Library of Congress. House of Representatives. 1866. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  20. ↑ Scopes Trial Home Page – UMKC School of Law
  21. 1 2 Drew, Troy; Carnes, Bill; Rice, John. "Wirz Trial Home Page". Law.umkc.edu. UMKC School of Law. Retrieved 2011-03-13.
  22. ↑ Horwitz, Tony, Confederates in the Attic.
  23. ↑ Heidler, David Stephen et al. Encyclopedia Of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, NY: Norton, 2001. "Wirz did not receive a fair trial. Nevertheless, he was found guilty and sentenced to death."
  24. ↑ History TV Shows – History.com
  25. ↑ Morgan D. Peoples, "Henry Wirz: The Scapegoat of Andersonville", North Louisiana History, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Fall 1980), pp. 3–18.

References

External links

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