Henry Wirz (born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz; November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Confederate States Army officer, doctor, and convicted war criminal best known for commanding Andersonville Prison during the American Civil War. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Wirz immigrated to the United States in 1849 after being exiled from the canton of Zurich following a conviction of embezzlement and fraud. He worked in a Massachusetts factory for five years before moving south to Kentucky to begin a career in medicine; specializing in homeopathy, Wirz divided his time between the two states. In 1854, he moved to Louisiana with his new wife and her two daughters, working as an overseer on a slave plantation.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Wirz enlisted in the Confederate army. In 1862, he was promoted to captain and placed in charge of managing Confederate prisoner-of-war camps. Two years later, he was made commandant of the newly-built Camp Sumter, where approximately 45,000 Union prisoners of war were kept and nearly 13,000 Union prisoners died during the camp's 14-month existence. Following the Confederate defeat in 1865, Wirz was arrested and tried by the U.S. government on charges of mistreating and murdering Union POWs in the camp. Found guilty of conspiracy and murder, he was executed by hanging in the Old Capitol Prison. Wirz's legacy has been contested since his death, with many Southerners viewing his post-war trial as being a form of victor's justice.
Early life and career
Wirz was born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz on November 25, 1823, in Zurich, Switzerland, to Johann Caspar Wirz, a master tailor and member of Zurich's city council, and Sophie Barbara Philipp. Wirz received elementary and secondary education, and he aspired to become a physician but his family did not possess funds to pay for his medical education. Instead, he was educated as a merchant in Zurich and Turin from 1840 until 1842, when he began working at the department store of Zurich. He married Emilie Oschwald in 1845 and had two children.
In 1847, Wirz was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of embezzlement and fraud. He was released the next year and his sentence was commuted to 12 years of exile from the canton of Zurich, but his wife refused to emigrate and obtained a divorce in 1853.Arch Fredric Blakey. Wirz, Henry, American National Biography Online, February 2000. Retrieved November 25, 2015. Wirz first went to Moscow, in 1848, 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.Captain Henry Wirz, National Park Service There, he learned to perform small surgeries and cast fractures. 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.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.
In 1854, Wirz married the Methodist widow Elizabeth Wolfe (née Savells). Along with her two daughters, they moved to Louisiana, where Wolfe gave birth to their daughter. In 1856, Wirz became acquainted with Levin R. Marshall, the owner of the slave plantation "Cabin Teele", who employed him as its overseer and where he set up a practice for homeopathic medicine.
Civil War Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the 37-year-old Wirz enlisted as a private in Company A (Madison Infantry), 4th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry of the Confederate army in Madison Parish.Bergeron, Arthur W. Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861–1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989, pp. 157–158. Shortly before his death, he said that he had taken part in the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862, as an aide-de-camp to General Joseph E. Johnston, during which he was wounded by a Minie ball and lost the use of his right arm. That account is disputed by historians, one of whom says the injury may have actually occurred during a six-thousand mile mission to track down missing records of Union prisoners. That journey and a subsequent three months of rehabilitation at his home were completed by the end of 1862.
After returning to his unit on June 12, 1862, Wirz was promoted to captain "for bravery on the field of battle." Because of his injury, Wirz was assigned to the staff of General John H. Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, as his adjutant.Soldier Details: Wirz, Henry, General and Staff Officers, Non-Regimental Enlisted Men, CSA, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database, National Park Service Later accounts by Wirz's daughter alleged that Confederate President Jefferson Davis made Captain Wirz a "special minister" and sent him to Europe carrying secret dispatches to Confederate commissioners James M. Mason in England and John Slidell in France. Wirz returned from Europe in January 1864 and reported to Richmond, Virginia, where he began working for General Winder in the prison department. Wirz initially served on detached duty as a prison commandant in Alabama, but was 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 near the small railroad depot of Anderson (now Andersonville) in south-western Georgia, built to house Union prisoners-of-war. In April 1864, Wirz arrived at Camp Sumter and remained there for over a year holding the post of commandant of the stockade and its interior. Wirz was praised by his many superiors and even by some prisoners and was even recommended for but not promoted to major.Page, Haley. (1908). p. 187.
Camp Sumter had not been constructed to its full plan and was quickly overwhelmed by the influx of Union prisoners. Though wooden barracks were originally planned, the Confederates incarcerated the prisoners in a vast rectangular open-air stockade originally encompassing , which had been intended as only a temporary prison pending exchanges of prisoners with the Union. The prisoners gave this place the name "Andersonville", which became the colloquial name for the camp. Camp Sumter suffered from severe overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and an extreme lack of food, tools, medical supplies, and potable water.See, e.g. testimony of Dorence Atwater; United States Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, Virginia, North Carolina , South Carolina section, pg. 279-288 Wirz recognized that the conditions were inadequate and petitioned his superiors to provide more support but 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.
At its peak in August 1864 after its expansion to 26 acres, the prison held some 33,000 Union prisoners – around four times more than any other Confederate prison – with little more than patchy tents for shelter. The same summer saw more than 100 prisoners die of disease, exposure, or malnutrition every day. Around 45,000 prisoners were incarcerated during the camp's 14-month existence, of whom close to 13,000 (28%) died.
Trial and execution
Wirz was arrested by a contingent of the 4th U.S. Cavalry on May 7, 1865, in Andersonville. He was taken first to Macon, Georgia, and then by rail to Washington, D.C., arriving there on May 10, 1865, where he was held in the Old Capitol Prison since the federal government decided to put him on trial for conspiring to impair the lives of Union prisoners of war. A special military commission was convened with Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace presiding. The other members were Gershom Mott; John W. Geary; Lorenzo Thomas; Francis Fessenden; Edward S. Bragg; John F. Ballier, U.S. Volunteers; T. Allcock, 4th New York Artillery; and John H. Stibbs, 12th Iowa Volunteers. Col. Norton P. Chipman served as Judge Advocate. During the trial gangrene prevented Wirz from sitting and he spent the trial on a couch.
Charges The military tribunal took place between August 23 and October 18, 1865,Trial of Henry Wirz, A Congressionally Mandated Report Summarizing the Military Commission's Proceedings, United States. 40th Congress, 2d Session. 1867–1868. House Executive Document No. 23, December 7, 1867. was held in the United States Court of Claims, and dominated the front pages of newspapers across the United States. Wirz was charged with "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, then held and being prisoners of war within the lines of the so-called Confederate States, and in the military prisons thereof, to the end that the armies of the United States might be weakened and impaired, in violation of the laws and customs of war" and for "violation of the laws of war, to impair and injure the health and to destroy the lives—by subjecting to torture and great suffering; by confining in unhealthy and unwholesome quarters; by exposing to the inclemency of winter and to the dews and burning sun of summer; by compelling the use of impure water; and by furnishing insufficient and unwholesome food—of large numbers of Federal prisoners."United States Congressional serial set, Issue 3794, p. 785. Wirz was accused of committing 13 acts of personal cruelty and murders in August 1864: by revolver (specifications 1, 3, 4), by physically stomping and kicking the victim (specification 2), by confining prisoners in stocks (specifications 5, 6), by beating a prisoner with a revolver (specification 13) and by chaining prisoners together (specification 7). Wirz was also charged with ordering guards to fire on prisoners with muskets (specifications 8, 9, 10, 12) and to have dogs attack a prisoner (specification 11).Court Martial of Henry Wirz, Charges and Specifications
Testimonies The National Park Service lists 158 witnesses who testified at the trial, including former Camp Sumter prisoners, ex-Confederate soldiers, and residents of nearby Andersonville. According to Benjamin G. Cloyd, 145 testified that they did not observe Wirz kill any prisoners; others failed to identify specific victims.Cloyd, Benjamin G. Haunted by Atrocity: Civil War Prisons in American Memory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. Twelve said that they witnessed cruelty on the part of Wirz. One witness, Felix de la Baume, who claimed to be a descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette, identified under oath a victim allegedly killed personally by Wirz. Among those giving testimony was Father Peter Whelan, a Catholic priest who worked with the inmates, who testified on Wirz's behalf. A former Andersonville guard named James Duncan was called to testify for the defence, but was arrested when he tried to give evidence for allegedly causing the death of a prisoner at Andersonville.
Verdict
In early November 1865, the Military Commission found Wirz guilty of criminal conspiracy as charged, along with 10 of 13 specifications of acts of personal cruelty, and sentenced him to death. He was acquitted of specifications 4, 10, and 13.
In his report on the trial, the Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, who had prosecuted the Lincoln assassination trials, vilified Wirz and pronounced that "his work of death seems to have been a saturnalia of enjoyment for the prisoner [Wirz], who amid these savage orgies evidenced such exultation and mingled with them such nameless blasphemy and ribald jest, as at times to exhibit him rather as a demon than a man."