“War is hell on earth” –General William T. Sherman
Four companies of soldiers guarded Captain Henry Wirz as he was led to the gallows at Old Capitol Prison in Washington. DC on November 10, 1865.
Approximately 250 members of the public were given government tickets to watch the hanging. Captain Wirz climbed the stairs of the gallows as the spectators chanted “Remember Andersonville!” Wirz uttered his last words that he was “being hanged for following orders.” A hood was placed on his head and at 10:32 the trap door opened. His body twitched and writhed as the noose tightened. Strangulation, not a broken neck, was his cause of death.
The Confederate Officer, commandant of Andersonville Prison, described by Post Trial Judge Advocate General Holt as a “demon” was dead.
Camp Sumter, built in Sumter County, Georgia, located near the southwestern town of Andersonville, was deemed an ideal spot as a military prison for the Confederate Army to keep Union prisoners. Originally built on 16.5 acres, it was meant to hold 10,000 prisoners. Massive pine logs made a solid wall, inside had a 19-25 foot buffer “dead line” to keep prisoners away from the outer stockade wall. Any prisoners crossing that line would be shot on sight. The idea was to have temporary imprisonment as both sides made prisoner exchanges. It was an open air enclosure with no structures for the prisoners to be housed in. There was no real medical care.
On April 12, 1864, black Union soldiers were massacred at Ft. Pillow, Tennessee. President Lincoln demanded that black soldiers be treated in the same way as white prisoners. Confederate President Jefferson Davis refused and prisoner exchanges came to a halt.
This made for a rapid increase of prisoners that would not be exchanged and would be interred for a long period. As the prison population swelled, conditions and rations (usually insect-infested cornmeal and raw bacon) worsened. Very soon 20,000 prisoners filled the stockade fences. Ten acres were added to the prison and the population rose to 33,000.
A river (named Sweet Water Branch) flowed through the camp that was polluted and putrid. This was the drinking and bathing water for the prisoners. Soon 100 prisoners were dying a day. Thieves and gangs of fellow prisoners called “the Raiders” stole food and any other supplies.
45,000 prisoners passed through the gates of Andersonville Prison; 12,913 died within the prison walls, many from poor sanitation, scurvy, malaria and dysentery. They were placed in trench graves.
John L. Ransom was Quartermaster of Company A, 9th Michigan Volunteer Calvary. He was 20 years old when captured in Tennessee in 1863 and sent to Andersonville Prison. The Civil War Trust collected Ransom’s diary of his time at Andersonville: “Can see the dead wagon loaded up with twenty or thirty bodies at a time, two lengths, just like four foot wood is loaded on to a wagon at the North, and away they go to the graveyard on a trot. Perhaps one or two will fall off and get run over. No attention paid to that; they are picked up on the road back after more. Was ever before in this world anything so terrible happening? Many entirely naked.”
Sergeant Clark N. Thorp retreated from the Battle of Chickamauga right into a Confederate regiment. He spent 19 months in Confederate prisons, 11 of those in Andersonville. After his release he chronicled his experiences: “Let me say that during June and July 1864 it rained for twenty-one consecutive days and the rain amounted at times almost to a deluge…Those poor fellows who were without any shelter were much worse off than those who had only a blanket for a roof.”
The prison at Andersonville stayed open until the conclusion of the war.
In September 1864, General Sherman’s army was approaching toward Andersonville. In November 1864, 13,000 seriously ill prisoners were released from the South; most were from Andersonville.
Andersonville Prison Commandant Captain Henry Wirz was taken into custody on May 7, 1865, for war crimes. Wirz was accused of conspiracy to destroy prisoner’s lives in violation of the laws and customs of war. It was an attempt to co-indict the Confederate hierarchy of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon. Wirz was also charged with murder in violation of the laws and customs of war.
Wirz’s trial produced 160 witnesses for the prosecution with tales of mistreatment. One prisoner, Felix de la Buame testified that he saw Wirz shoot men. He was given a clerk’s job at the Department of the Interior in appreciation. De la Baume was later identified as a deserter and was fired. He admitted perjury at the trial of Captain Wirz.
More Southern prisoners died in Northern prisons than Northern prisoners died in Southern prisons, but that information was kept from the trial. The defense was able to show the rations and care for the guards was at the same level as the prisoners and that proportionately as many guards died as prisoners.
On October 24, 1865, Captain Henry Wirz was convicted of both charges against him. Judge Advocate General Holt, in a post-trial review said that Wirz’s work caused “savage orgies” for his enjoyment“. He agreed with the sentence of hanging.
Wirz was offered a pardon if he would testify that Jefferson Davis was really responsible for the horrors of Andersonville Prison. Wirz said it was untrue and refused.
The public agreed with the only conviction and execution of a Confederate soldier. Poet Walt Whitman wrote: “There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven but this is not among them. It steeps its perpetrators in blackest, escapeless, endless damnation.”
The 13,000 prisoners who were buried in trench graves at Andersonville had their burial spots remembered by our government. 921 are marked “unknown.” The Andersonville National Cemetery was established on June 26, 1865. There are now a total of 20,000 interred. It is one of 14 national cemeteries operated by the National Park Service. The Andersonville Prison Museum and the site of the Andersonville Prison surround the cemetery.
Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross went to Andersonville shortly after the prison was closed and worked diligently to record those buried in the prison cemetery. She strived to have every burial appropriately marked. Accompanying her group was former prisoner Dorence Atwater. He had been assigned to record the names of the dead prisoners for the prison officials. It was his goal to have as few graves as possible marked “unknown.”
“Andersonville becomes an object lesson in patriotism. To this retired and beautiful spot will thousands resort in the long years to come, to learn again and again lessons of heroic sacrifice made by those who so quietly sleep in these long rows of graves.”
–Robert H. Kellogg, Andersonville Survivor