MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.
The True History of the Wirz Case.
I was living in Washington at the time Captain Wirz underwent the travesty of a trial—a farce which ended in a tragedy.
I frequently met and conversed with Louis Schade, his counsel, and his associate, Judge Hughes. I also met and conversed with witnesses on the trial.
Rev. Father Boyle and Father Wiget, who attended Wirz during his imprisonment and ministered to him in his last moments on the scaffold, were both warm personal friends of mine—Father Wiget particularly. I not only regarded him as a spiritual father, as he was, but with all the respect and affection which a devoted son would have for a kind, loving father. Had I any doubts in the matter of the guilt or innocence of Wirz, I would take the word of either of these good and true men before that of the whole tribe of hired perjurers who testified against him.
There are many persons at the present day who know nothing as to the truth or falsity of the record of events which took place during and immediately after the Civil War, except what they have heard or perhaps read in histories written in the heat of passion, with prejudice and malice, and their minds are often poisoned and their judgments warped by the misrepresentations and sensational stories invented at the time to exasperate the people of the North.
Major Henry Wirz was a native of Switzerland. He came to this country, and in 1861 was a physician practising his profession in Western Louisiana.
He entered the Confederate Army at the beginning of the war, was wounded—his right arm shattered by a ball, so that he remained a cripple permanently. As his right arm was powerless he did not have the physical ability to ill-treat prisoners as some of the witnesses testified at his trial. Even if this charge had been true, that he exercised undue severity toward some of the prisoners, he might have been justified in so doing, when their fellow-prisoners were compelled to hang a half a dozen in self-defense.
MAJOR HENRY WIRZ, C. S. A.
In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of Captain “for bravery on the field of battle,” and to that of Major a few months before the close of the war.
He was an impulsive man—some said he was rough in his manner. This apparent roughness in persons of foreign birth sometimes proceeds from difference in language and their mode of expression, which may only need a little prejudice or ill-will to distort into something offensive. But that he was a man kind at heart is shown by his earnest endeavors to relieve the sufferings of the prisoners under his charge.
In the Official Records of the Rebellion, published by the United States Government, will be found letters of Wirz to Captain R. D. Chapman, Acting Adjutant of Post, and Colonel D. S. Chandler, Assistant Adjutant and Inspector-General, showing his efforts to better the condition of the prisoners, both with regard to rations and hygiene.
In the Southern Historical Society Papers is a letter from General John D. Imboden, written in 1876, from which the following extracts are taken:
“I have already alluded to Captain Wirz’s recommendation to put up more shelter. I ordered it, and thereafter, daily, a hundred or more prisoners were paroled and set to work in the neighboring forest. In the course of a fortnight comfortable log-houses, with floors and good chimneys—for which the prisoners made and burnt the brick—were erected for twelve or fifteen hundred men.
“This same man (Captain Wirz) who was tried and hung as a murderer, warmly urged the establishment of a tannery and shoemaker’s shop, informing me that there were many men among the prisoners skilled in these trades, and that some of them knew a process of very rapidly converting hides into tolerably good leather. There were thousands of hides at Andersonville from the young cattle butchered during the previous summer and fall, whilst the country yet contained such animals. A few weeks later many of the barefooted prisoners were supplied with rough, but comfortable shoes. Another suggestion came from the medical staff of the post, that I ordered to be at once put into practice: It was to brew corn beer for those suffering from scorbutic taint. Captain Wirz entered warmly into this enterprise. I mention these facts to show that he was not the monster he was afterward represented to be, when his blood was called for by infuriated fanaticism. I would have proved these facts if I had been permitted to testify on his trial, after I was summoned before the Court by the United States, and have substantiated them by the records of the prison and of my own headquarters.”
When the Federal troops were sent to Georgia Major Wirz was placed under guard and taken to the Old Capitol Prison, in Washington, D. C., where he remained from the 10th of May, 1865, until November 10th, 1865, when he was hung.
For three weary months he was kept a close prisoner, and then he was taken before a Military Commission for trial (?).
In the case of Major Wirz the usual course of procedure was reversed—he was first condemned, then tried, and finally executed. Yet this was not the final act, for the malignity of his persecutors followed him even after death. When Father Boyle and others sought to give the body of Wirz Christian burial in consecrated ground the request was denied and the body deposited beside those executed for the assassination of President Lincoln, in the yard of the old arsenal.
The regard for law and justice which usually governs in a Civil Court had no holding in the proceedings of a Military Commission, where the decisions of the Court were rendered in accordance with the opinions of the Judge Advocate, who admitted or rejected testimony as he thought it affected the case. Consequently persons whose testimony was considered vital for the defense, were not allowed to testify, while witnesses for the prosecution were permitted to give their evidence, no matter how inconsistent or manifestly false it was.
In a letter dated August 17th, 1868, to the National Intelligencer, Robert Ould, who was Confederate States Agent of Exchange, says:
“I was named by poor Wirz as a witness in his behalf. The summons was issued by Chipman, the Judge Advocate of the Military Court. I obeyed the summons and was in attendance upon the court for some ten days.... Early in the morning of the day on which I expected to give my testimony I received a note from Chipman requiring me to surrender my subpoena. I refused, as it was my protection in Washington.... I engaged, however, to appear before the court and did so the same morning. The Judge Advocate endorsed on my subpoena these words: ‘The within subpoena is hereby revoked; the person named is discharged from further attendance.’ I have got the curious document before me now, signed with the name of ‘N. P. Chipman, Colonel,’ etc. I intend to keep it, if I can, as the evidence of the first case in any court of any sort, where a witness who was summoned for the defense was dismissed by the prosecution.”
Rev. Father Whelan, of Savannah, Ga., a venerable Catholic priest, who had been in the habit of visiting and ministering to the prisoners at Andersonville, went to Washington, as a witness. He was asked by the prosecuting attorney what he knew, and after telling his observations at the prison, he was told he was not wanted and could go home.
In an old diary of mine, I find this entry:
“A man named Marini was in the store to-day. He was called as a witness in the Wirz case. He had been a prisoner at Andersonville. He said many of the witnesses had sworn falsely. Some swore he had been bitten by bloodhounds. This he said was false; that he had shown them his person to prove there were no marks of wounds. ‘If I had been torn by the dogs as they swore I had,’ said he, ‘would there not have been at least some scars to show it?’ He said that at the time some of the witnesses swore Wirz had shot prisoners, Wirz was not at Andersonville, but was absent from the post for about four weeks on surgeon’s certificate, suffering from gangrene; that the accounts of the prisoners being killed by Wirz were false. Marini was in the employ of the United States Government as a spy during the war. He said that one of the witnesses swore he had been sick during the whole time he was at Andersonville. ‘So he should have been,’ said Marini; ‘he didn’t wash himself the whole time he was there; he was too lazy.’”
The star witness for the prosecution was the Marquis De la Baume, who claimed to be a grand nephew of Lafayette. He testified to the “individual killing” or murder “committed by Wirz.” Before the conclusion of the trial he was, on the recommendation of the members of the Military Commission, appointed to a clerkship in the Interior Department at Washington. He was afterward recognized as a deserter from the Seventh New York Regiment, and his name was plain Felix Oeser. When this fact became known he was dismissed from his office, a few weeks after the execution of Wirz. There was no further need of his services.
Another witness against Wirz was John Rainbow. In September, 1894, he was sentenced in Union County (N. J.) Court to one year in State Prison for stealing a watch. A petition, signed by Grand Army men, was presented to the court and this sentence was revoked and he was committed to the county jail for six months.
In the charges upon which Wirz was condemned and hung were thirteen specifications of men said to have been murdered by him, but though all the most minute details were given, it is a singular fact that there is not given the name of any one of these persons—in every instance mentioned, it is “name unknown.”
In the first specification Wirz was charged with conspiring with Jefferson Davis, James A. Seddon, Howell Cobb, and others, named and unnamed, “to injure and impair the health and destroy the lives,” etc., “of soldiers in the service of the United States.” On this charge Wirz was declared guilty and hanged. Why were none of the other conspirators punished? Did he conspire alone?
Had the case been brought in any Civil Court—no matter where—it would have been thrown out of court.
What must have been the agony of this poor victim, sitting in the courtroom, day after day, and week after week, listening to the recital of the horrible tales, describing him as a fiend incarnate, by wretches who were swearing his life away. He looked in vain upon the faces around for a glance of pity, but on all sides he met the glaring eyes of men thirsting for his blood.
Foiled in their efforts to incriminate Jefferson Davis, his cruel and vindictive persecutors determined to wreck their vengeance upon Wirz, poor and friendless, whom they had in their power, and who had rejected their proposal to purchase his life by swearing falsely against Jefferson Davis.
Major Richard B. Winder, M.D., and dean of the Baltimore Dental College, was a prisoner in the Old Capitol, Washington, at the time of Wirz’s imprisonment and execution. A statement of his in regard to an occurrence which took place the evening before Wirz was executed has been extensively published, but an extract from it will not be out of place here:
“A night or two before Wirz’s execution—early in the evening, I saw several male individuals (looking like gentlemen) pass into Wirz’s cell. I was naturally on the qui vive to know the meaning of this unusual visitation, and was hoping and expecting too that it might be a reprieve—for even at that time I was not prepared to believe that so foul a judicial murder would be perpetrated. I think—indeed, I am quite certain—there were three of them. Wirz came to his door, which was immediately opposite mine, and I gave him a look of inquiry, which was at once understood. He said: ‘These men have just offered me my liberty if I will testify against Mr. Davis, and criminate him with the charges against the Andersonville Prison. I told them that I could not do this, as I neither knew Mr. Davis personally, officially or socially, but if they expected with the offer of my miserable life to purchase me to treason and treachery to the South they had undervalued me.’”
In reply to a letter of inquiry from Hon. Jefferson Davis, Rev. Father Boyle wrote:
“On the evening before the day of the execution of Major Wirz a man visited me, on the part of a cabinet officer, to inform me that Major Wirz would be pardoned if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in the cruelties at Andersonville. No names were given by this emissary, and, upon my refusing to take any action in the matter, he went to Mr. Louis Schade, counsel for Major Wirz, with the same purpose and with a like result.
REV. F. E. BOYLE
Pastor of St. Peter’s R. C. Church, Washington, D. C.
“When I visited Major Wirz the next morning he told me that the same proposal had been made to him and had been rejected with scorn. The Major was very indignant, and said that while he was innocent of the charges for which he was about to suffer death, he would not purchase his liberty by perjury and a crime such as was made the condition of his freedom.
“I attended the major to the scaffold, and he died in the peace of God and praying for his enemies. I know that he was indeed innocent of all the cruel charges on which his life was sworn away, and I was edified by the Christian spirit in which he submitted to his persecutors.
“Yours very truly,
F. E. Boyle.”
Wirz spent the greater part of the night before his execution in writing, but slept for a few hours before daylight and awoke cheerful and refreshed. He was calm and self-possessed and had left nothing undone. His own books, as well as those borrowed, were all neatly done up and left for delivery to the proper parties. His diary was completed up to the last day.
He felt keenly the abuse that was heaped upon him. As he bade farewell to his old associate, Captain R. H. Winder, he said:
... “Promise me, if you live, to do all in your power to wipe out this awful stain upon my character. Make my name and character stand as bright before the world as it did when you first knew me. Promise me you will do something to assist my wife.”
Winder turned his face away to hide his tears, as he replied: “Captain, I will.”
One of the daily newspapers, after relating this parting with Winder, said:
“Wirz passed on down the stairs, out between the files of men facing outward, up to the scaffold, showing something in his face and step which in a better man might have passed for heroism.”
How contemptible! His courage and fortitude shone out in spite of the infamous position in which his enemies sought to place him, but even the eyes blinded by prejudice and the callous hearts around him could not fail to note, though they could not appreciate, the lofty spirit of the man.
From the little room in the third story, designated “No. 9—Wirz, H., Captain C. S. A.,” he was marched to the scaffold, erected in one corner of the prison yard. Here he took a seat on a small stool, immediately under the gaping noose swaying over him. A soldier stood at shoulder arms on either corner of the platform, and four companies, one each from the 195th and 214th Pennsylvania, and two from the 9th Regiment of Hancock’s Corps, formed a hollow square around the scaffold. Fathers Boyle and Wiget never left his side until the last moment. Indeed, when the noose was adjusted his face wore a smile and he was still talking to Father Boyle.
For eighteen minutes he was compelled to sit and listen to the reading of the findings and sentence—the enumeration of the crimes with which he was charged, while on the housetops and in the branches of the trees in the Capitol grounds men and boys crowded, all eager to witness the ghastly spectacle; and their inhuman shouts, and brutal jests about the “dead-line,” pendant above him, could be heard by Wirz, who sat apparently calm and unmoved, save when amid the groans and outcries, a voice called out “Hang the scoundrel.” As this reached his ears he turned quickly, with a defiant look in the direction from which the sound proceeded, then, giving a cool glance on the surroundings, he resumed his self-command, giving his undivided attention to his spiritual advisers.
At the close of the reading Major Russell asked Wirz if he wished to say anything to the public before the execution. He replied: “I have nothing to say, only that I am innocent, and will die like a man, my hopes being in the future. I go before my God, the Almighty God, and he will judge between me and you.” At twenty minutes to eleven o’clock Sylvester Ballon kicked away the prop and Henry Wirz passed from life to the dark valley of the shadow of death.
St. Aloysius R. C. Church, Washington, D. C.
I saw Father Wiget a few hours after the execution. He, with Father Boyle, had stood with Wirz on the scaffold—had clasped his hand just as he was about to be launched into eternity. He had been with him through the mockery of a trial, and when I saw him his breast was filled with emotion. He said: “Oh! he was a brave man!” He had stood by him as the rabble thirsting for his blood, like the cruel Jews, cried out “Crucify him! Crucify him!” and he knew the man was innocent of the crimes imputed to him. “He was a brave man”—the good old priest could say no more; his heart was touched, and his feelings too deep for mere words. Between what is felt and what is expressed there is often an immeasurable distance. It is impossible at times to give expression in words to the most touching—to the most beautiful emotions of the heart.
In Wirz’s letters to his wife there is an amount of pathos—a bitter, yet mournful wailing. The soft notes which he touches with trembling fingers will strike a sympathetic chord in hearts not utterly lost to all sense of tenderness or humanity.
A letter written by his wife just after she had learned of the termination of her husband’s trial would in itself show how false and malicious were the assertions of sensational newspapers that there was no kindly feeling between them. After speaking of her distress at the necessity of leaving him at that critical moment, and telling him not to despair—that all would come out right—she speaks of their past happiness, and cannot believe the authorities will tear them apart; that if the members of the court only knew how much they suffered, a pardon would be granted him. The letter concludes as follows:
“Dear husband, bear up bravely, whatever your fate may be. If I could but see you for one short hour I should be much comforted. I cannot describe to you on paper the distress of my mind. May angels watch and protect you from all harm, is the constant prayer of your loving wife.”
In Wirz’s last letter to his wife and children are the sad, soft breathings from a bosom filled with the warmest affection and anxious solicitude for their welfare:
“Old Capitol Prison,
Washington, D. C., Nov. 10, 1865.
“My dearest Wife and Children: When these lines reach you the hand who wrote them will be stiff and cold. In a few hours from now I shall be dead. Oh, if I could express myself as I wish, if I could tell you what I have suffered when I thought about you and the children! I must leave you without the means to live, to the miseries of a cold cruel world. Lise, do not grieve, do not despair; we will meet again in a better world. Console yourself, think as I do—that I die innocent. Who knows better than you that all these tales of cruelties and murders are infamous lies, and why should I not say it? A great many do call me hard-hearted, because I tell them that I am not guilty, that I have nothing to confess. Oh, think for a moment how the thought that I must suffer and die innocent must sustain me in the last terrible hour; that when I shall stand before my Maker I can say, ‘Lord, of these things you know I am not guilty. I have sinned often and rebelled against Thee, oh, let my unmerited death be an atonement.’ Lise, I die reconciled. I die, I hope, as a Christian. This is His holy will that I should die, and therefore let us say with Christ, ‘Thy will, O Lord, be done.’
“I hardly know what to say. Oh, let me beg you, do not give way to despair. Think that I am gone to my Father, to your Father, to the Father of all, and that there I hope to meet you. Live for the dear children. Oh, do take good care of Cora. Kiss her for me. Kiss Susan and Cornelia, and tell them to live so that we may meet again in the heaven above the skies: tell them that my last thoughts, my last prayer shall be for them.”
Then follow some words of advice with regard to the schooling of the children, and to the future life, etc., of the family, and he concludes by saying:
“God bless you all and protect you. God give you what you stand in need of, and grant that you all so live that when you die you can say, Lord, Thou callest me, here I am. And now, farewell wife, children, all, I will and must close, farewell, farewell; God be with us.
“Your unfortunate husband and father,
H. Wirz.”