Talk:Henry Wirz
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[edit] Accuracy Disputed
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
[edit] Unsourced information
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)
(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)
--> 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.
[edit] different site
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).
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.
[edit] what a mess
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)
