Henry Wirz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Henry Wirz
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Wirz circa 1865
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| Born |
Hartmann Heinrich Wirz
November 25, 1823 Zürich, Switzerland
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| Died | November 10, 1865 (aged 41) |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Spouse(s) |
Elizabeth Wolfe
(m. 1854) |
| Children | 1 |
| Conviction(s) | Conspiracy to commit war crimes War crimes (10 counts) |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Military career | |
| Buried |
Mount Olivet Cemetery
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| Allegiance |  Confederate States of America |
| Service/ |
 Confederate States Army |
| Years of service | 1861–1865 |
| Rank |  Captain |
| Commands held | Andersonville Prison |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Henry Wirz (born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz, November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Swiss-American officer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of the stockade of Camp Sumter, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union detainees died as result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp.
Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Camp Sumter's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.
Early life and career
Wirz was born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz on November 25, 1823, in Zürich, Switzerland, to Johann Caspar Wirz, a master tailor and member of Zürich's city council, and Sophie Barbara Philipp. Wirz received elementary and secondary education, and he aspired to become a physician but his family did not possess funds to pay for his medical education. Instead, he was educated as a merchant in Zürich and Turin from 1840 until 1842, when he began working at the department store of Zürich. He married Emilie Oschwald in 1845 and had two children.
In 1847, Wirz was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of embezzlement and fraud. He was released the next year and his sentence was commuted to 12 years of exile from the canton of Zürich, but his wife refused to emigrate and obtained a divorce in 1853. Wirz first went to Moscow, in 1848, and the next year to the United States, where he found employment in a factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. After five years, he moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and worked as a doctor's assistant. There, he learned to perform small surgeries and cast fractures. He tried to establish his own homeopathic medicine practice in Cadiz, Kentucky, and also worked as superintendent of a water cure clinic in Northampton, Massachusetts.
In 1854, Wirz married the Methodist widow Elizabeth Wolfe (née Savells). Along with her two daughters, they moved to Louisiana, where Wolfe gave birth to their daughter. In 1856 Wirz made the acquaintance of Levin R. Marshall, the owner of the plantation Cabin Teele, who employed him as its overseer and where he set up a practice for homeopathic medicine.
Civil War
Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, 37 year-old Wirz enlisted as a private in Company A (Madison Infantry), 4th Battalion of Louisiana Infantry of the Confederate army in Madison Parish. Shortly before his death, he said that he had taken part in the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862, as an aide-de-camp to General Joseph E. Johnston, during which he was wounded by a Minie ball and lost the use of his right arm. That account is disputed by historians, one of whom says the injury may have actually occurred during a six-thousand mile mission to track down missing records of Union prisoners. That journey and a subsequent three months of rehabilitation at his home, were completed by the end of 1862.
After returning to his unit on June 12, 1862, Wirz was promoted to captain "for bravery on the field of battle." Because of his injury, Wirz was assigned to the staff of General John H. Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, as his adjutant.
Later accounts by Wirz's daughter alleged that Confederate President Jefferson Davis made Captain Wirz a “special minister” and sent him to Europe carrying secret dispatches to Confederate Commissioners James Mason in England, and John Slidell in France. Wirz returned from Europe in January 1864 and reported to Richmond, Virginia, where he began working for General Winder in the prison department. Wirz initially served on detached duty as a prison commandant in Alabama, but was then transferred to help guard Union prisoners incarcerated at Richmond.
Camp Sumter
In February 1864, the Confederate government established Camp Sumter, a large military prison near the small railroad depot of Anderson (now Andersonville) in south-western Georgia, built to house Union prisoners-of-war. In April 1864, Wirz arrived at Camp Sumter and remained there for over a year holding the post of commandant of the stockade and its interior. Wirz was praised by his many superiors and even by some prisoners, and was even recommended for, but not promoted to, major.
Camp Sumter had not been constructed to its full plan, and was quickly overwhelmed by the influx of Union prisoners. Though wooden barracks were originally planned, the Confederates incarcerated the prisoners in a vast, rectangular, open-air stockade originally encompassing 16.5 acres (6.7 ha), which had been intended as only a temporary prison pending exchanges of prisoners with the Union. The prisoners gave this place the name "Andersonville", which became the colloquial name for the camp. Camp Sumter suffered from severe overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, an extreme lack of food, tools, medical supplies, and potable water. Wirz recognized that the conditions were inadequate and petitioned his superiors to provide more support, but was denied. In July 1864, he sent five prisoners to the Union with a petition written by the inmates asking the government to negotiate their release.
At its peak in August 1864, Camp Sumter held approximately 32,000 Union prisoners, technically making it the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy. The monthly mortality rate from disease, dysentery, and malnutrition reached 3,000. Around 45,000 prisoners were incarcerated during the camp's 14-month existence, of whom close to 13,000 (28%) died.
In popular culture
Wirz is an important character in MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Andersonville (1955), introduced in the third chapter during his mission to France in October 1863. In Saul Levitt's 1959 play The Andersonville Trial, Wirz was first played by Herbert Berghof. When the play was recreated for an episode of PBS's 1970–71 season of Hollywood Television Theatre, Wirz was portrayed by Richard Basehart. Wirz was portrayed by the Czech actor Jan Tříska in the American film Andersonville (1996).
See also
In Spanish: Henry Wirz para niños
