Posted on 10/28/2010 4:14:35 PM PDT by BigReb555
Do young people know the truth about Henry Wirz?
Is anyone talking about the upcoming War Between the States Sesquicentennial? The 150th Anniversary of the War for Southern Independence will be commemorated by such groups as the Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans. See more information at: http://www.150wbts.org/
Do young people know the truth about Henry Wirz?
The 35th annual Captain Henry Wirz Memorial Service (a tradition started by the Alexander H. Stephens Camp 78 Sons of Confederate Veterans and Americus Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1976) will take place on Sunday afternoon, November 7th at 3 PM in the town of Andersonville, Georgia.
The guest speaker for the event will be Dr. Richard Rhone from Tuscaloosa, Alabama who is the Lieutenant Commander General of the Military Order of Stars and Bars. John Carroll will lead those assembled in the singing of “Dixie” and Andersonville Mayor Marvin Buagh will bring welcome.
For more information about the event contact James Gaston by email at: gaston7460@bellsouth.net Captain Henry Wirz was born, Hartman Heinrich Wirz in November 1823, in Zurich, Switzerland where his father, Abraham Wirz was highly respected.
At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Wirz enlisted in the Fourth Louisiana infantry on June 16, 1861. He was promoted to sergeant a year later and was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines. He never recovered from the injury to his left wrist and it caused him great pain for the rest of his life.
Wirz was promoted to Captain on June 12, 1862 and was first detailed to General John Winder where he was given command of a Confederate military prison in Richmond, Virginia.
After serving a year as special emissary to President Jefferson Davis in Paris and Berlin, on March 27, 1864, he was installed as commandant of Andersonville Prison at Fort Sumter in Georgia. Wirz did the best he could do with many Union prisoners and very little food and medicine. It is written that the guards got the same food and medicine as the prisoners.
The Confederacy sent a distress message to Union President Abraham Lincoln and Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The South pleaded for an exchange of Confederate and Union prisoners. Lincoln and Grant, however, refused believing the Union prisoners might go home but the Confederate prisoners might go back to fight another day.
Captain Henry Wirz was unfairly charged of war crimes and even though witnesses for the defense could testify, his fate was already decided. Among those who knew of Wirz’s innocence was a Union soldier who was a prisoner at Andersonville.
Wirz was executed in Washington, D.C. on November 10, 1865.
The Confederate Reenactors and Honor Guard of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 78 (Muckalee Guards) will perform the closing ceremony at the monument to Wirz in Andersonville placed there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (Georgia Division).
Yep. And there was actually a higher death rate among the guards too...
The South pleaded for an exchange of Confederate and Union prisoners.
They even released several prisoners and sent them to Lincoln to plead for medicine/prisoner exchanges. Lincoln didn't listen...
his fate was already decided.
Sure was. There were several charges brought against him. Most were by nameless prisoners. Many of the 'crimes' he supposedly committed were reported to have happened on days when he was gone on sick leave or even before he ever came to the camp...In most cases, there were no witnesses to the crime. In one where there was a witness, the witness later admitted to lying about it. And the persons supposedly harmed by Wirz must not have had any friends because nobody seemed to know their names.....pretty fishy
Really, there was a higher death rate among the guards? A higher death rate than 28%, reaching a rate eventually of 3,000 per month? Wow, this Wirz guy must have been one terrible commander.
Read some contemporary Southern diaries by the womenfolk. The conditions in the last few years among civilians were terrible. Among men in cramped conditions, worse.
Yes. You didn't realize there was a blockade (so food and medicine was hard to get) and that Union Armies burned up lots of crops?
Nazi guards also argued that camp inmates died of malnutrition because the war destroyed resources. But even if the Confederates claims were true, why the lack of water, sanitation, sewage removal, and timely, proper burial?
The same food as the guards? Strange Wirz didn't look like this.
Does your head hurt from falling on it?
And the death rate at Camp Douglas (Union) was 10% a month, more than any other Civil War prison in any 1-month period. The Sanitary Commission pointed out that at this rate, all the prisoners would be dead in 320 days. The majority of prison deaths were from typhoid fever and pneumonia, the result of filth, the bad weather, and a lack of heat and clothing...a dismal report was given of an "amount of standing water, of unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of general disorder, of soil reeking with miasmic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles...Conditions at Camp Douglas were horrendous. Disease, hunger, poor sanitation, lack of adequate clothing, and miserably cold weather were endured by the men incarcerated there. This was in the North were they had plenty of resources. What was their excuse?
Oh, btw, did you know that they even built two tall wooden towers just outside Camp Douglas and for a small fee visitors were allowed to ascend to take a look at the prisoners below...
Oh, and the pic is obviously one of the worst cases...who wants boring pics of the rest of the prisoners when you can get one of the sickest prisoner who was obviously unable to even walk to the food line? In statistics this man is an outlier. You need to compare to pics of the rest of the prisoners instead of using the absolute worst case and making it seem like it is representative of the whole.... Just sayin'
Source:http://www.mycivilwar.com/pow/il-camp_douglas.htm
What, did you think I made it up? That’s so sad....
Then why weren't tens of thousands of Georgia civilians starving to death? And what medicine would have treated malnutrition, exposure, cholera, typhus, typhoid, and the like?
Wirz may or may not have deserved his fate, but it is an undeniable fact that his superiors deserved to be on the gallows with him. And, in fairness, so did many Union officers who mistreated rebel prisoners in their care.
No, I think you suffered an injury to your brain that may have caused permenant damage.
Many were starving. Of course, unlike prisoners, they often had the option of leaving an area if they could in order to better survive. Prison camps weren't very portable...
And what medicine would have treated malnutrition exposure...
Who said the medicine was for the malnutrition? Goodness....
It is sad that you are under such a delusion. Really. Btw, have you ever done any reading this topic? Just curious... :)
Then surely there are some figures supporting this? Some statistics?
And what medicine would have treated malnutrition exposure...
You were the one who mentioned how the blockade denied the south food and medicine. I was merely pointing out that there was no medicine for the primary causes of death among the Union prisoners. What they needed, and did not get, was decent food, shelter, and clean water.
And if all fairness the Union hands are not clean in this area. Both sides could have treated their prisoners better, but did not. Both could have provided proper food and shelter, but did not. Both could have done more to cut the death rate, but did not. The acts were deliberate on the part of both sides, and both sides deserve condemnation for it.
Considering that according to confederate law, black Union POWs were to be returned to slavery then the difference in treatment, if in fact there was any, could be attributed to the fact that the black POWs were someones valuable property.
Yes! FOOD and medicine. I didn't say the medicine was for the malnutrition. The food was obviouly for that....goodness. How did you not understand that?
One wonders why Tecumseh couldn’t have held up his arsonist long enough to go down to Andersonville? I guess pillaging has it’s priority...
Yeah, those blizzards in the deep south were just unbearable. But, yes, Camp Douglas scandalized many in the North, too. I didn’t say that it was great, either... but no-one’s calling those commanders a hero.
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