Talk:Henry Wirz

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Accuracy Disputed[edit]

As noted below, there are at least 3 significant works available that argue that Henry Wirz treated the prisoners as decently and humanely as his resources allowed; that he attempted to get more resources; and that he attempted to get more prisoners exchanged:

The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry Wirz by James Madison Page (Author), M. J. Haley (Contributor)

Andersonville: The Last Depot (Civil War America) by William Marvel

History of Andersonville Prison by Ovid L. Futch

I have added these as citations --64.142.36.76 (talk) 18:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


This article is more-or-less compeletely false in its assertion that Henry Wirz treated prisoners cruelly and makes absolutely no mention of the fact that the trial was a complete farce. All that I have read about Wirz notes that he actually did his best for the prisoners at Andersonville, but he lacked resources. The only person at his trial to claim to have been mistreated at Andersonville was a liar (he recanted his testimony later). The defense was not allowed to call the witnesses they wanted. Note the Library of Congress's summary of Wirz's trial. There are better sources than this, but this was quick.

"Henry Wirz, former commander of the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged on November 10, 1865 in Washington, D.C. Swiss-born Wirz was assigned to the command at Andersonville on March 27, 1864. When arrested on May 7, 1865, he was the only remaining member of the Confederate staff at the prison. Brigadier General John Winder, commander of Confederate prisons east of the Mississippi and Wirz's superior at Andersonville, died of a heart attack the previous February.

A military tribunal tried Wirz on charges of conspiring with Jefferson Davis to "injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States." Several individual acts of cruelty to Union prisoners were also alleged. Caught in the unfortunate position of answering for all of the misery that was Andersonville, he stood little chance of a fair trial. After two months of testimony rife with inconsistencies, Wirz was convicted on all counts (except one) and sentenced to death.

On the morning of November 10, 1865 Henry Wirz

rose in his cell at the Old Capitol and wrote a last letter to his wife…Later that afternoon, after giving a few final strokes to a stray cat that had wandered in to share his confinement, he emerged from his cell with a black cambric robe draped over his shoulders…He followed the guards into an enclosed courtyard, where chanting soldiers and other spectators hung like vultures in the street. There was his life offered up to appease the public hysteria. William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 246-247."

→Sounds like a rather biased review of the events that took place69.42.44.152 04:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Extremely so... if I had the sources handy I'd put the other side of it on here. History Channel just aired a decent even-handed doucmentary on Andersonville. In balance the worst that can be said about Wirz is that he ran Andersonville no worse than any other prisoner camp in the South, or even the North for that matter. If anything he did his best to take care of the prisoners in his care but greatly lacked the resources to give them decent care. He constantly asked his superiors for better quality food, to stop sending more prisoners in the already overcrowded prison, and even petitioned the Union government to renew the prisoner exchange program (evidence of this was not allowed to be admitted at his trial because it was deemed slanderous to the Lincoln administration). What is presented here is at worst wholly inaccurate and at best extremely biased. At the very least, the side of Wirz and his defense should be presented also. If anyone has the sources to do this it would present an infinitely more neutral point of view.

It's worth pointing out that Wiki's article on the Andersonville Prison itself is nowhere near as biased as the article on Wirz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_Prison

The comparison to the Nuremberg trials and the My Lia Massacre is not especially apt; at least not in the "just following orders" defense, which Wirz never used. He in fact denied evere being ordered to mistreat and kill the prisoners. His defense rested on a denial that he ever mistreated the prisoners at all; he treated them as best as he could with what resources he had. He was even offered a pardon if he testified that he was ordered by Jefferson Davis to deliberate kill prisoners; he refused the offer, saying "I will not secure my freedom with a lie." This case may have set a precendent for war crimes trials, but not a precedent for a rejection of the "just following orders" defense, since Wirz never used such a defense.

It's worth pointing out also that although the prosecution presented several witnesses testifying against the deplorable conditions at Andersonville (which Wirz never denied, he simply denied being responsible for them) only one ever testified that Wirz directly abused or killed any prisoners. Not only was this witness lying about what he saw at Andersonville (he later recanted his testimony, but not until after the trial ended), he was never even AT Andersonville!

It's very clear the only reason Wirz was on trial was because the North was in a very vengeful mood after enduring the Civil War and the Lincoln assassination and wanted sombeody to be punsihed for it; Wirz was just a convenient scapegoat because of the reputation of Andersonville. Even so, the main reason he was on trial was the hope that the abuses could be pinned on Davis or other Confederate leaders as having deliberately been ordered.

The trial was a complete farce and nothing approaching a fair trial. More than 2/3 of the witnesses Wirz's lawyers wanted to present were denied, most of the evidence they wanted to present was not admitted (including evidence that he petitioned the Union to resume the prisoner release program, a request that was denied by the Union government) and on at least on ocassion outright false testimony was presented by the prosecution's witness.

Main elements of the prosecution's case was the "line of death" (point of fence where prisoners would be shot if they tried to escape; this was a standard feature in alll prison camps of the time, North and South), poor food (Wirz repeatedly asked for better to be sent), overcrowding (Wirz repeatedly asked the COnfederate government to stop sending more prisoners, expanded the camp as best as he could, and even tried to convince the Union to resume prisoner exchange) and the conditions that resulted from it. None of these problems could have been fairly attributed soley to Wirz. The accusation of direct abuse and murder by Wirz was based solely on false testimony.

If this bugs you edit the article and include sources, also please sign your comments. It can be annoying to see what looks like a complete article intead of a series of comments between separate people Ronduck 23:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will do so eventually, I haven't the time currently to do what would basically be an unassigned research project, though if nobody picks up the torch on this before I have the opportunity, will take up the project myself. As for not signing my comments, I've only become recently aware that there aren't automatically signed. I'm fairly new to editing here, and so far my edits have been constrained to removing irrelevant or redundant information rather than making additions or corrections. This article needs lots of work; as I said before, it is at best highly biased and at worst outright inaccurate. At the very least it should mention both the accusations and defense and at least be as close to NPOV as the Andersonville article is. If nobody takes on the task of balancing out the accusations against Wirz and his own defense, and at least mentions the characterization of the trial itself, before I have sufficient opportunity, I'll take it on myself, but honestly I'm hoping someone else with sufficient time and access to reliable sources can take on the task before me. Honestly I'm not that great a writer. Troodon 05:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me Troodon that you have a pretty good writing style and have done some research or have some useful info to add on this as it is. Maybe you should take a shot at revising it, if only on a preliminary/tentative basis. Just some general redirection by way of comment that while the conviction was based on x, the correctness of the conviction, as well as the fact that a lot of trial evidence was ruled inadmissible, would all be useful to make readers aware that there is ongoing disagreement at the least. - bert8for3


I removed the following sentence from the article: "History is written by the winners but those with a keen eye can find the paths of truth to realise that many times the heroes of a historical event may in reality be the greatest fiend of all, as Abraham Lincoln was. And sometimes the demon of a historical event was the only one truly trying to help those who were suffering, as Henry Wirz was." We can debate whether this is true or not, but the statement is blatantly an example of personal opinion, and therefore does not belong in an encyclopedia-style article here on wiki. Also, I left in the sentence previous this this one regarding Wirz asking for Lincoln's aid but Lincoln refusing in order to use Andersonville as a symbol because it made sense, but a reference would be nice. Tren001 03:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that a Swiss immigrant was tried and hanged for doing his job, and that Wirz was the ONLY one tried, THE ONLY ONE - seems to be lost on everyone. The fact that evidence that Wirz tried to improve conditions by allowing prisoners to petition the North to reinstate the prisoner exchange was not allowed in the trial on the grounds that it was such an assault on Lincoln's memory, renders this trail a hideous mockery of justice. The man was not allowed an even marginal defense, the prosecution was permitted four times the witnesses than the defense, and utilized witnesses that were later shown to have never even been to Andersonville, so the prosecution didn't even make an effort to verify it's own witnesses, all the while refusing to permit many witnesses in Wirz's defense from even giving testimony.

This article as it currently stands is most certainly not complete, accurate, or NPOV in any way, shape, or form. I have to wonder why this is, why it seems so difficult for people to be NPOV on this subject, and also, why it is that nobody has pointed out that the Nuremberg war tribunals were based on precedents set at Wirz's trial. Precedents that should cause anyone interested in justice great pause.


The quote in this section from William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot, says the execution happened in the afternoon. The article says he was hanged at 10:32 a.m. 86.148.132.157 (talk) 10:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced information[edit]

I removed this paragraph:

The Union needed to paint the Confederates as inhuman monsters so that it would be easier to impose war debt upon the Confederates as one of the stipulations of returning to the Union(which they were given no choice but to do). According to the first hand accounts of a truthful ex-prisoner Henry Wirz was not only innocent but deserved praise for his attempts to nourish both guards and prisoners with a food supply almost completely destroyed by the "Scorched Earth" policy of the Union. It is also said that Henry Wirz sent missives to Abraham Lincoln, first asking for food and medicine to be sent for the prisoners and then later offering to release the prisoners outright if someone would be sent to collect them. Abraham Lincoln had no response, he needed Andersonville to be a hell on earth to both continually justify fighting the war caused by his election and decision to entice the confederates to attack a Union ship as well as an excuse to excise war dead from the Confederates without opposition.[citation needed]

Because of a lack of citation. It says things like, "Accoring to a first hand account of a truthful ex-prisoner" without naming the prisoner or how it could possibly be proven that he was truthful. Sentences that begin with things like, "It is also said..." are pretty close to weasel words and that sentence also lacks any scholarly citation to back up its contentions. Finally, the last sentence is pretty blatant POV (blaming the war on Lincoln). You may think it was totally his fault, but the majority of scholars do not, and it does not belong in this encyclopedia. I know it had a citation needed tag, but the whole thing was pretty bad, so I removed it until there's citation and a removal of POV. mweng 22:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(You should have kept this paragraph. It demonstrates relevant information to the trial of Captain Henry Wirz. It may be scepticism but it may be true. Give the benefit of the doubt to Wirz's case)

There's no "benefit of the doubt" to be given in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia requires citations, of which none are provided. Even with citations, the paragraph would need an extensive re-write to have a neutral point of view instead of an obviously anti-Lincoln, pro-Neo-Confederate point of view.mweng 16:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

--> I am working on a mock trial and am defending Henry Wirz. I was looking for background information on Captain Wirz and as usual, checked out wikipedia first. However, I found this page about Henry Wirz to be completely unhelpful. There was virtually no information about what Henry Wirz did before he took control of Andersonville or even what occured while he commanded Andersonville. It only gives the bare minimum and then goes straight to his trial and execution. This article needs some serious work. There is a lot that could be said about Captain Wirz and this article i definitely lacking.

different site[edit]

Wirz was NOT hanged in the same place as the Lincoln conspirators. A look at the photographs of the two executions will immeditely show that the conspirators were hanged elsewhere in Washington, D.C. in 1865. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.174.134.45 (talk) 15:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]


He was buried with them. The family was not allowed to have his remains, until years later, after the political aspects of the case were no longer relevant, and after people no longer felt compelled to disrespect a corpse. The trail was nothing to be proud of.

what a mess[edit]

This article perpetuates old public myths which began in 1865. The death rate of the Confederate guards was as high as the prisoners'. The Confederates offered to buy medications for the prisoners and even permit Union doctors to administer them but were rebuffed. The reason there was so little food was that Lincoln had ordered his generals to burn crops and destroy whatever food supplies Union armies couldn't carry for their own needs. Wirz sent a delegation of union prisoners to Washington with a proposal for a prisoner exchange. Lincoln refused to see them, Stanton saw them but gave them nothing. There is no evidence the south ever refused to exchange black prisoners. The north refused the exchanges because Lincoln thought it would be more to the advantage of the south than to the north. Lastly, immediately before his execution, Wirz was offered what amounted to a pardon if he would say Jefferson Davis (who was then in a northern prison) had ordered the mistreatment of Union prisoners. Wirz refused and was hanged. 26,436 confederates died in union prisons, 22,576 union soldiers died in southern prisons.[1][2] Gwen Gale 02:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An irritating error[edit]

The novel called "Andersonville" by MacKinlay Kantor was an opus magnum. It was the result of twenty-five years of careful and thorough research. By the time of its publication, Kantor could have passed an oral examination for a doctoral degree on the history of the Civil War. His opus magnum was, basically, a doctoral thesis on the prison at Anderson Station, Georgia. One reason that "Andersonville" won the Pulitzer Prize was the inclusion of an Appendix listing the most important references he had used to make the novel historically accurate. The appendix was not exhaustive. The irritating error is to assume that Kantor would have taken liberty with history to serve the goal of writing a work of fiction. That is offensive.

Kantor could have composed a biography of Henry Wirz, and it is a shame that he did not do so. I have no reason to disbelieve his account of Wirz's life. For example, the miniball struck his forearm, passing between the radius and ulna, badly damaging the ulnar nerve. Kantor says that Wirz tried, over and over, to operate upon the wound single-handed. Frustrated, Kantor says that Heinrich Wirz briefly returned to Switzerland for surgery. In any event, his right arm was not paralyzed nor rendered completely useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.82.49.241 (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

War Record[edit]

Is there some doubt about his record? Here's what the article says:

It is reported that he took part in the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862, during which he was supposedly severely wounded by a minie ball and lost the use of his right arm. Wirz allegedly then served on detached duty as a prison guard in Alabama

Why 'reported', 'supposedly', 'allegedly'? The writing casts complete doubt on his record, but doesn't make any effort to explain why there is doubt. Some time in this period he was promoted from private to captain, but again no effort is made to explain this. In fact, reading the text you would think he was put in command of a prison camp while still carrying the rank of private; the only place his later rank is referred to is in the data box at the right. GoldenRing (talk) 10:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A totally unencycopeadic article and it clearly violates the WP:NPOV requirement, not to mention (as you pointed out) WP:WEASEL. 109.156.49.202 (talk) 16:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prisoners' petition and prisoner exchanges[edit]

I've edited the paragraph concerning the prisoners' petition to the U.S. government for neutrality, and secondarily for accuracy. Since the original passage may appear neutral on its face, I include a justification for the edit here, starting with the historical background.

The Union and the Confederacy reached an agreement, known as the Dix-Hill cartel, under which all prisoners of war were released shortly after capture. If possible, they were exchanged for prisoners held by the other side. Otherwise, they were paroled, which meant they were released with the understanding that they would not to return to military service until they were matched with a prisoner released by their side.

Then Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclaimation, which declared that slaves within the Confederacy were considered to be free, and would be accepted into the armed forces of the United States. From the perspective of the Confederacy, this was incitementing slave insurrection, a criminal act. The Conferate Congress passed a resolution stating that captured black soldiers would be turned over to the governor of the state where the capture occurred, and their white commanders would be executed. In response to Union protests that this violated the cartel, the Confederate negotiator partially backed off, but insisted that captured soldiers who were slaves under Confederate law were property which would be sold off if not claimed by the owner.

Prisoners continued to be exchanged, but only by special agreements, typically between commanders in the field. A prerequisite for an exchange between commanders was that the Confedrate command hold only white prisoners of war, since the Confederate commander wouldn't exchange the black soldiers and the Union commander wouldn't make a deal that discriminated against black soldiers.

With this background, it should be clear that the assertion that "exchanges...had been discontinued unilaterally by the North," is not a neutral statement. From the Union perspective, it was the Confederacy had unilaterally discontinued the general exchanges, by refusing to exchange black prisoners of war.

The background on prisoner exchanges I recite above probably should appear somehwere in Wikipedia, but this is not the page for it. The topic of exchanges is too complex to be explained in one or two sentences, at least not while maintaining neutrality. Therefore, I have excised all references to it.

The footnote states that the petition asks the Union to "reinstate prisoner exchanges." However, the petition actually requests the following:

"In view of the foregoing facts we your petitioners. most earnestly yet respectfully pray that some action be immediately taken to effect our speedy release, either on parole or by exchange, the dictates both of humanity and justice alike demanding it on the part of our Government."

So the cited secondary source is slightly inaccurate. I therefore write that the petition asks the goverment to "negotate their release", which is consistent with both both the secondary source and the actual text of the petition. --Kalmquist (talk) 21:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalmquist (talk • contribs) 20:44, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Captain or Major?[edit]

I noticed that Wirz's rank in the sidebar is set as Captain in the CSA, but one of the sections states that he was promoted to Major. Was he demoted after the war or during his court-martial?

Doghouse09 (talk) 22:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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The word "controversial" was used several times. There appears to be no doubt this was a lynching. Elmira prison in NY was far worse and nothing was done other than to try to erase its existence from history. 2601:181:8301:4510:E5D0:30D0:FBCF:355A (talk) 13:44, 25 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Oessel[edit]

Sleazy research: Oeser, not Oessel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C0:DBD4:BA00:B519:CACE:7965:C738 (talk) 18:24, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Be nice. However I do think it was an error. This NPS website uses "Oesser", except when quoting an 1865 news account, which uses "Oessel". A student-create source uses "Oeser", but it's not reliable (see below).[3] If you have more sources we could list all the spellings. Anyway, I've edited the article to reduce the confusion, I hope. Mobi Ditch (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious sources[edit]

  • Bill Carnes. Captain Henry Wirz, Materials prepared as part of a class assignment for The Seminar in Famous Trials course at the University of Missouri-K.C. School of Law.
  • Jon Rice. "Scopes Trial Home Page – UMKC School of Law". Law2.umkc.edu. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
  • Scopes Trial Home Page – UMKC School of Law
  • "Wirz Trial Home Page". UMKC School of Law. Archived from the original on November 11, 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  • Drew, Troy; Carnes, Bill; Rice, John. "Wirz Trial Home Page". Law.umkc.edu. UMKC School of Law. Archived from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

These citations all go to a class project. The articles were all written by students. It doesn't seem like it qualifies as a reliable source. Mobi Ditch (talk) 23:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another low-quality source:

The source in question is an unsigned article hosted on a defunct website that seems to feature work by amateur historians, some not even identified with real names. I don't see how this could qualify as a reliable source. Mobi Ditch (talk) 22:09, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Someone removed a caveat to the story line.[4] I checked the source, Marvel, and edited the text to better describe Marvel's view. I also removed the UMKC citations, which are poor quality.[5] Mobi Ditch (talk) 00:37, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone get a citation for this and/or fix it.[edit]

>At its peak in August 1864, the Camp Sumter held approximately 32,000 Union prisoners, technically making it the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy.

It just seems poorly worded and goes uncited.

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