During the American Civil War, it’s believed that there were roughly 600,000 to over 1
million people who were killed. Ultimately the Union defeated the confederacy, but as with all
conflicts there were a number of war criminals who were responsible for suffering on a large scale.
One such man who was executed for his involvement in the terrible conditions at Camp Sumter,
a camp where he was the commander of was Henry Wirz. He was a confederate states army officer,
and he was brought to the gallows in Washington DC in front of a crowd of around 200 people.
Join us today as we look at the brutal execution of Henry Wirz, remember to support our channel
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Henry Wirz was born as Hartmann Heinrich Wirz on the 25th November 1823 in Zurich in Switzerland.
His father was a master tailor, and he was educated well and he dreamed of becoming a
doctor. However his family could not afford to pay for this style of education and because of
this he became educated as a merchant, and he then also worked in a store in Zurich.
He was a married man and he had two children, but whilst still in Switzerland in 1947 he was
sentenced to four years imprisonment as he was charged with fraud and embezzlement. However
he was freed the following year and he was then sent to 12 years of exile from the Zurich area.
His wife during this time divorced him, and Henry travelled to Moscow before he
then went to America and he worked in a factory in Massachusetts. He then moved to Kentucky and
worked as an assistant to a doctor, and he would perform small surgery and also cast broken bones.
He also tried to open his own medical practice, and eh remarried in 1854. He moved to Louisiana,
but as the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Henry Wirz joined the conflict.
He enlisted as a soldier in Company A of the 4th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry of
the Confederate Army. He fought at the Battle of Seven Pines, and he served as an assistant
to high ranking Confederate generals, and he was wounded during this battle.
When he recovered he became a captain and was considered a skilled and brave solider.
But he then became part of General John H Winder’s staff who was in charge of Confederate Prisoner of
war camps, and he became his assistant. It was believed also that he may have been dispatched
to England and France to carry messages, but when he came back to American he continued to
serve as a prison commandant in Alabama. But in February 1864, the Confederates established
Camp Sumter, a huge military prison near to a railroad depot in south western Georgia.
This was built to house Union prisoners of war, and two months after it opened Wirz arrived and
he was there for a year as the commandant. He was praised to begin with by many of his
superiors and some prisoners even admired him, but as more prisoners came into Camp
Sumter the site was quickly overwhelmed. The huge transports of inmates led to
suffering with overcrowding, poor sanitation, starvation and a lack of medical supplies.
Wirz knew that the conditions were not good enough and he asked for more support from higher ups,
but this was denied and he was not allowed this. One inmate wrote of the camp, ‘As we
entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our
hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men,
now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the
heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. "Can this be hell?" "God
protect us!" and all thought that he alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place.
In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits,
and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered
the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety
was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in
the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then.’
It held around 32,000 union prisoners and around 3,000 people each month were dying
from disease dysentry and poor food. Around 13,000 inmates would die inside of the camp.
But Henry Wirz was arrested by the 4th US Cavalry on there 7th May 1865 in Andersonville.
He was taken to Washington DC where he was imprisoned at the Old Capitol Prison and he
was to be placed on trial for impairing the lives of Union prisoners of war.
A special military commission was gathered, and Wirz at this time was suffering from gangrene.
The tribunal took place between August and October 1865 and he was charged with ‘combining,
confederating and conspiring to injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military
service of the United States, and then held and being prisoners of war within the lines of the so
called confederate states, and in the military prisones thereof, to the end that the armies of
the united stated might be weakened and impairs, in violation of the laws and customs of war.’
He was also charged 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.”
He was also personally accused of 13 murders and acts of cruelty including shooting inmates,
kicking victims and forcing prisoners into the stocks, and chaining inmates together.
He was also accused of ordering executions and having dogs attack prisoners.
There were 158 people who testified, and some said they witnessed Wirz’ cruelty.
In November 1865 he was found guilty of conspiracy as charged and was then sentenced to death.
He was acquitted of some charges, and he was then sentenced to death.
There were appeals for clemency that went to the US President, but the letter was ignored.
He was offered to be spared if he implicated others in the atrocities but he would not do this.
On the 10th November 1865, Henry Wirz who was guarded by four companies of soldiers was led
to the gallows in the Old Capitol Prison Yard. Around 250 spectators had received government
issued tickets and they were watching on towards the gallows. He was led to the stairs and was led
up them and the spectators screamed and chanted, ‘remember Andersonville.’ A hood was then placed
over his head by the executioner, and the rope was fastened around his neck. His last words were
that he was being executed for simply following orders. But at 10:32am the trap door was released,
and the rope stretched under Wirz’ Weight, and he was not killed by a broken neck, but instead he
slowly strangled to death. The crowd cheered that he had died, as they had been made aware of the
conditions of Andersonville, and many despised the condemned man, and the public wanted vengeance.
Henry Wirz was the commandant of Camp Sumter who was executed became of the
conditions that occurred there. He was a man who had been considered by some
to have been a victim, and there were people who criticised his death sentences saying he was just
following orders, and he was not personally responsible for Camp Sumter’s conditions.
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