Wirz Monument

Captain Henry Wirz of the C.S.A. was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1822, was sentenced to death and executed in Washington D.C. on Nov. 10, 1865, and was presented here as a man whose name should be rescued from stigma attributed to embittered prejudice. A quotation from Jefferson Davis in Dec. 1888 expresses the belief that with time, passion and prejudice would soften, misrepresentations would be stripped away, and justice would alter past censures and praise. A quotation from Ulysses S. Grant on Aug. 18, 1864, says it was hard not to exchange men held in southern prisons, but that releasing rebel prisoners at that time would ensure Sherman’s defeat and compromise safety. Wirz was further portrayed as having discharged his duty with as much humanity as harsh wartime circumstances and the policy of the foe permitted, then becoming the victim of misdirected popular clamor. According to this account, he was arrested in peacetime while under parole protection, tried by a military commission of a service to which he did not belong, condemned to ignominious death on charges of excessive cruelty to Federal prisoners, and refused a pardon offered on condition that he would incriminate President Davis and exonerate himself, though both were asserted to be innocent.

Andersonville, Georgia · United States