Henry Wirz Trial: 1865

First, witnesses testified that Wirz had established a "Dead Line," or boundary about the prison camp, which prisoners could not cross without being shot by guards or attacked by vicious dogs. Then, the prosecution introduced as witnesses several Confederate doctors stationed in Andersonville, such as Chief Surgeon Dr. R. Randolph Stevenson. Stevenson testified to the abysmal medical and psychological condition of the prisoners:

The mental condition connected with long confinement, with the most miserable surroundings, and with no hope for the future, also depressed all the nervous and vital actions, and was especially active in destroying the appetite. The effects of mental depression, and of defective nutrition, were manifested not only in the slow, feeble motions of the wasted, skeleton-like forms, but also in such lethargy, listlessness, and torpor of the mental faculties as rendered these unfortunate men oblivious and indifferent to their afflicted condition.

One of the prosecution's charges was that Wirz and General John H. Winder, one-time commander of Confederate prisons, had conspired to kill as many Union prisoners as possible. Perhaps the prosecution suspected that Wirz and Winder hoped to weaken Union armies by reducing the number of men returned in any prisoner exchange between the Union and the Confederacy. There was testimony that Wirz had boasted he was killing more Union soldiers than the Confederate armies in the field. At any rate, the prosecution went on to argue that not only had Wirz been responsible for the prisoners' suffering in general, but that he had inflicted suffering and death on individual prisoners. Of the Union soldiers' testimony, the following was typical:

On the 8th of July I arrived at Andersonville, with 300 or 400 other prisoners, most of them sick and wounded. We were brought up to Captain Wirz' headquarters; were drawn up in line, four ranks deep, and kept there for a considerable length of time, without any business being transacted. The guards had orders to let none of us go to the water. One of the prisoners was attacked with epilepsy or fits; he fell down; some of his friends or neighbors standing near him ran down to the creek after water.

Question by the prosecution: By permission of the guard?

I don't know; I suppose so; because the guard was tied up by the thumbs for permitting them to do so. First I heard a shot fired, without seeing who fired it. After hearing that shot fired, I looked down to the left, and I saw Captain Wirz fire two more shots, wounding two men.…

He asked the lieutenant of the guard, "Where is the guard who allowed this [Union prisoner] to fall out of ranks?" The guard was pointed out, and Captain Wirz ordered him to be tied up by the thumbs for two hours. After this, Captain Wirz pointed out [the Union prisoner], and said, "That is the way I get rid of you damned sons of bitches."

More than 100 witnesses testified at Wirz's trial, and the trial record ran into thousands of pages. In addition to testimony such as the above, Union soldiers related how any prisoner who went near or beyond the Dead Line was either immediately shot or cruelly ripped apart by guard dogs. Given the prosecution's parade of witnesses, defense counsel Louis Schade never really had a chance, despite his various pleas that Wirz should be tried before a civil court and that Wirz was immune from prosecution under the terms of surrender given to former Confederates.

On October 18, 1865, the prosecution ended its case. The military commission declared Henry Wirz guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. President Andrew Johnson approved Wirz's sentence, and on November 10, 1865, Wirz went to the scaffold. Wirz was the only person tried by the Union for war crimes after the Civil War, and he has the dubious distinction of being the first person in history to be judged a war criminal.