CAPTAIN WIRZ THE ONLY ONE OF THE PRISON-KEEPERS PUNISHED--HIS ARREST,
TRIAL AND EXECUTION.
Of all those more or less concerned in the barbarities practiced
upon our prisoners, but one--Captain Henry Wirz--was punished. The
Turners, at Richmond; Lieutenant Boisseux, of Belle Isle; Major Gee,
of Salisbury; Colonel Iverson and Lieutenant Barrett, of Florence; and
the many brutal miscreants about Andersonville, escaped scot free. What
became of them no one knows; they were never heard of after the close
of the war. They had sense enough to retire into obscurity, and stay
there, and this saved their lives, for each one of them had made deadly
enemies among those whom they had maltreated, who, had they known where
they were, would have walked every step of the way thither to kill them.
When the Confederacy went to pieces in April, 1865, Wirz was still
at Andersonville. General Wilson, commanding our cavalry forces, and
who had established his headquarters at Macon, Ga., learned of this,
and sent one of his staff--Captain H. E. Noyes, of the Fourth Regular
Cavalry --with a squad. of men, to arrest him. This was done on the
7th of May. Wirz protested against his arrest, claiming that he was
protected by the terms of Johnson’s surrender, and, addressed the
following letter to General Wilson:
ANDERSONVILLE, GA., May 7, 1865.
GENERAL:--It is with great reluctance that I address you these lines,
being fully aware how little time is left you to attend to such matters
as I now have the honor to lay before you, and if I could see any other
way to accomplish my object I would not intrude upon you. I am a native
of Switzerland, and was before the war a citizen of Louisiana, and by
profession a physician. Like hundreds and thousands of others, I was
carried away by the maelstrom of excitement and joined the Southern
army. I was very severely wounded at the battle of “Seven Pines,” near
Richmond, Va., and have nearly lost the use of my right arm. Unfit for
field duty, I was ordered to report to Brevet Major General John H.
Winder, in charge of the Federal prisoners of war, who ordered me to
take charge of a prison in Tuscaloosa, Ala. My health failing me, I
applied for a furlough and went to Europe, from whence I returned in
February, 1864. I was then ordered to report to the commandant of the
military prison at Andersonville, Ga., who assigned me to the command
of the interior of the prison. The duties I had to perform were arduous
and unpleasant, and I am satisfied that no man can or will justly
blame me for things that happened here, and which were beyond my power
to control. I do not think that I ought to be held responsible for
the shortness of rations, for the overcrowded state of the prison,
(which was of itself a prolific source of fearful mortality), for the
inadequate supply of clothing, want of shelter, etc., etc. Still I
now bear the odium, and men who were prisoners have seemed disposed
to wreak their vengeance upon me for what they have suffered--I, who
was only the medium, or, I may better say, the tool in the hands of my
superiors. This is my condition. I am a man with a family. I lost all
my property when the Federal army besieged Vicksburg. I have no money
at present to go to any place, and, even if I had, I know of no place
where I can go. My life is in danger, and I most respectfully ask of
you help and relief. If you will be so generous as to give me some sort
of a safe conduct, or, what I should greatly prefer, a guard to protect
myself and family against violence, I should be thankful to you, and
you may rest assured that your protection will not be given to one who
is unworthy of it. My intention is to return with my family to Europe,
as soon as I can make the arrangements. In the meantime I have the
honor General, to remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hy. WIRZ, Captain C. S. A.
Major General T. H. WILSON,
Commanding, Macon. Ga.
He was kept at Macon, under guard, until May 20, when Captain Noyes
was ordered to take him, and the hospital records of Andersonville,
to Washington. Between Macon and Cincinnati the journey was a perfect
gauntlet.
Our men were stationed all along the road, and among them everywhere
were ex-prisoners, who recognized Wirz, and made such determined
efforts to kill him that it was all that Captain Noyes, backed by a
strong guard, could do to frustrate them. At Chattanooga and Nashville
the struggle between his guards and his would-be slayers, was quite
sharp.
At Louisville, Noyes had Wirz clean-shaved, and dressed in a complete
suit of black, with a beaver hat, which so altered his appearance that
no one recognized him after that, and the rest of the journey was made
unmolested.
The authorities at Washington ordered that he be tried immediately,
by a court martial composed of Generals Lewis Wallace, Mott, Geary,
L. Thomas, Fessenden, Bragg and Baller, Colonel Allcock, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Stibbs. Colonel Chipman was Judge Advocate, and the
trial began August 23.
The prisoner was arraigned on a formidable list of charges and
specifications, which accused him of “combining, confederating, and
conspiring together with John H. Winder, Richard B. Winder, Isaiah
II. 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, there 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.” The main facts of the dense over-crowding, the lack
of sufficient shelter, the hideous mortality were cited, and to these
added a long list of specific acts of brutality, such as hunting men
down with hounds, tearing them with dogs, robbing them, confining them
in the stocks, cruelly beating and murdering them, of which Wirz was
personally guilty.
When the defendant was called upon to plead he claimed that his case
was covered by the terms of Johnston’s surrender, and furthermore, that
the country now being at peace, he could not be lawfully tried by a
court-martial. These objections being overruled, he entered a plea of
not guilty to all the charges and specifications. He had two lawyers
for counsel.
The prosecution called Captain Noyes first, who detailed the
circumstances of Wirz’s arrest, and denied that he had given any
promises of protection.
The next witness was Colonel George C. Gibbs, who commanded the
troops of the post at Andersonville. He testified that Wirz was the
commandant of the prison, and had sole authority under Winder over all
the prisoners; that there was a Dead Line there, and orders to shoot
any one who crossed it; that dogs were kept to hunt down escaping
prisoners; the dogs were the ordinary plantation dogs, mixture of hound
and cur.
Dr. J. C. Bates, who was a Surgeon of the Prison Hospital, (a Rebel),
testified that the condition of things in his division was horrible.
Nearly naked men, covered with lice, were dying on all sides. Many were
lying in the filthy sand and mud.
He went on and described the terrible condition of men--dying from
scurvy, diarrhea, gangrenous sores, and lice. He wanted to carry in
fresh vegetables for the sick, but did not dare, the orders being very
strict against such thing. He thought the prison authorities might
easily have sent in enough green corn to have stopped the scurvy;
the miasmatic effluvia from the prison was exceedingly offensive and
poisonous, so much so that when the surgeons received a slight scratch
on their persons, they carefully covered it up with court plaster,
before venturing near the prison.
A number of other Rebel Surgeons testified to substantially the same
facts. Several residents of that section of the State testified to the
plentifulness of the crops there in 1864.
In addition to these, about one hundred and fifty Union prisoners were
examined, who testified to all manner of barbarities which had come
under their personal observation. They had all seen Wirz shoot men, had
seen him knock sick and crippled men down and stamp upon them, had been
run down by him with hounds, etc. Their testimony occupies about two
thousand pages of manuscript, and is, without doubt, the most, terrible
record of crime ever laid to the account of any man.
The taking of this testimony occupied until October 18, when the
Government decided to close the case, as any further evidence would be
simply cumulative.
The prisoner presented a statement in which he denied that there had
been an accomplice in a conspiracy of John H. Winder and others, to
destroy the lives of United States soldiers; he also denied that there
had been such a conspiracy, but made the pertinent inquiry why he
alone, of all those who were charged with the conspiracy, was brought
to trial. He said that Winder has gone to the great judgment seat, to
answer for all his thoughts, words and deeds, “and surely I am not to
be held culpable for them. General Howell Cobb has received the pardon
of the President of the United States.” He further claimed that there
was no principle of law which would sanction the holding of him--a mere
subordinate --guilty, for simply obeying, as literally as possible, the
orders of his superiors.
He denied all the specific acts of cruelty alleged against him, such
as maltreating and killing prisoners with his own hands. The prisoners
killed for crossing the Dead Line, he claimed, should not be charged
against him, since they were simply punished for the violation of a
known order which formed part of the discipline, he believed, of all
military prisons. The statement that soldiers were given a furlough
for killing a Yankee prisoner, was declared to be “a mere idle, absurd
camp rumor.” As to the lack of shelter, room and rations for so many
prisoners, he claimed that the sole responsibility rested upon the
Confederate Government. There never were but two prisoners whipped by
his order, and these were for sufficient cause. He asked the Court to
consider favorably two important items in his defense: first, that he
had of his own accord taken the drummer boys from the Stockade, and
placed them where they could get purer air and better food. Second,
that no property taken from prisoners was retained by him, but was
turned over to the Prison Quartermaster.
The Court, after due deliberation, declared the prisoner guilty on all
the charges and specifications save two unimportant ones, and sentenced
him to be hanged by the neck until dead, at such time and place as the
President of the United States should direct.
November 3 President Johnson approved of the sentence, and ordered
Major General C. C. Augur to carry the same into effect on Friday,
November 10, which was done. The prisoner made frantic appeals against
the sentence; he wrote imploring letters to President Johnson, and
lying ones to the New York News, a Rebel paper. It is said that his
wife attempted to convey poison to him, that he might commit suicide
and avoid the ignomy of being hanged. When all hope was gone he nerved
himself up to meet his fate, and died, as thousands of other scoundrels
have, with calmness. His body was buried in the grounds of the Old
Capitol Prison, alongside of that of Azterodt, one of the accomplices
in the assassination of President Lincoln.