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.