On this day in 1865 Henry Wirz, the commander of the Confederate POW camp at Andersonville GA was executed for; “violation of the laws of war

 On this day in 1865 Henry Wirz, the commander of the Confederate POW camp at Andersonville GA was executed 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”

Wirz was the commander of the Andersonville Prison camp in Georgia, a wretched place where at any given time 45,000 American Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines were held in conditions so horrible that at one point American Servicemen were dying at the rate of 3,000 a day. Andersonville became the 5th largest city in the south...though with none of the sanitation provisions. 

Robert Kellog, a sargent from a Connecticut regiment imprisoned at Andersonville later recalled;

“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”

The 45,000 American POWs were penned in by a 19 foot tall fence that enclosed just over sixteen acres on swampy marshland partially drained by a small creek that was both the prisoner’s water supply and sewage system. In addition to starvation, dysentery and cholera were rampant in the camp. Shelter was scarce more than an inadequate number of tarps strung on tent poles. Encircling the interior of the fence was a 20’ “dead zone” marked out with stakes, any American POW that entered the dead zone was shot by a sniper....and many hundreds of men willfully committed suicide by intentionally stepping into the  dead zone to end their suffering. 

In addition to the cruelties of starvation and lack of sanitation, the guards also beat the prisoners, robbed them, confined them in stocks, and engaged an a variety of creative tortures and taunts. At the trial of Henry Wirz, over 150 American servicemen testified against him. 

Wirz’ only defense was that he was not responsible for the conditions at the camp, that the Confederate Government refused to provide for the imprisoned troops there...and while there was some merit to that argument, testimony that linked him personally to acts of cruelty combined with his insistence on carrying out Confederate Policy toward American POW’s was enough to have him hanged. 

He remains one of only two Confederates executed for what today we would call war crimes. Soon there was a rush to forgive former Confederates in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction so that the country could “heal.” As a result many heinous acts were simply ignored, the myth of the “Lost Cause” became Southern gospel, Confederate traitors and monsters became heroes and monuments to them popped up everywhere, while lynchings of African Americans soon became the norm. Henry Wirz and the treatment of American servicemen at Andersonville became as ignored in southern history books as the white hoods and robes in the closets and attics of many white southern families. 

The simple fact remains though that Andersonville  is the true face of Confederate Heritage

Believe it or not, the photos of emaciated people below are American POW survivors of Andersonville

Never Forget, remember these images every time you see a Confederate Flag