i8 
LAND & WATER 
March 22, 1917 
Andersonsville 
By Elsie Fogerty 
What so much is heard about the brutality of Germans 
towards prisoners of ituir. it is well to remember it is no 
ncic thing with Teuton authority. America understands 
this better than most, as this historical reminiscence 
0/ the American Civil War explains. 
A iMUNCi tlu- objects which the AlUts liavc placed 
/% in the front rank of their demands, is due re- 
Z-Jm tribution for thoTic acts of inhumanity on the 
-ZT^ A-part of the enemy which are foreign to the spirit 
and convention of mihtary law. It is questionable 
whether any one act has produced so overwhelming an 
impression on civilized opinion as the treatment which 
has been accorded to Germany to prisoners of war ; 
especially is this the case in America. 
Fifty-two years ago one name had the power above all 
others to send a thrill of horror through the United 
States, the name of Ander.sonsville. the infamous prison 
compound where the Confederates herded their Union 
prisoners. Among the minor causes of irritation with 
England at that time was the action of the Times which, 
as the New York Tribune put it. refused. " with char- 
acteristic meanness " to publish in an adequate manner 
details of the infamies perpetrated in this inferno ; 
horrors which culminated in the trial and execution of 
\\'irz, their principal perjietrator. 
W'irz was a German Swiss born in Zurich. He emi- 
grated to America in 184c). being at that time unable to 
speak luiglish. He married a Kentucky woman and 
worked on a plantation in I^ouisiana. At the outbreak 
of war he joined the Confederate For(*es, obtaining his 
Captaincy and ser\'ing as Adjutant to Brigadier General 
Widne^r, another German American, w-ho was sub- 
sequently responsible for the creation of the prison camp. 
Wirz was wounded at Fair Oaks ; his constitution, already, 
imdermined by dissipation and disease, broke down, 
and he travelled to Europe in 1863 in search of a cure for 
his wound. This he did not accomplish, but he was a 
man of exceptional physical strength and coarse vigour. 
Six feet in height, and on the evidence of many witnesses, 
capable of violent action, even when suffering from a 
disabled arm. 
A Prison Camp 
On his return Uy .America the Prison Camp of Ander- 
sonsville was placed in his charge. It consisted of fifty 
acres of country almost devoid of verdure except rank 
weeds, but surrounded bv woods whence timber could 
easily have been obtained. A small stream ran through 
the camp and many wells were afterwards made there 
by the prisoners themselves. The drinking water was 
supplied from this stream, and, its condition of terrible 
pollution became responsible fo-- many deaths. The 
climate was atrocious ; unbearable heat during the day 
and night dews which penetrated all covering. 
The prison area was enclosed by a stockade, and 
within it W'irz was responsible for the formation of a 
" Dead Line." Guns were trained upon this, and any 
prisoner touching it was shot without warning ; in- 
cidentally part of the water supply, and that ,the health- 
iest, crossed this " Dead Eine " and many prisoners were 
shot in their attempt to secure purer water. 
Generally the stockade was well designed to carry out 
the intention expressed by its Confederate builder. Captain 
\V. S. Widner. " I'm going to build a pen here that will 
kill mi>re danuied "Yankees than can be destroyed in the 
front. " Wirz introduced himself to his charges by 
stopping the food ration for any small failure of discipline 
or for the escape of a prisoner, and by the institution 
of most cruel punishments, such as the chain gang, 
and the " buck and gag. " Escaping prisoners were 
hunted and torn by savage dogs, several (i.aths ,wcre 
directly due to this cause, others to the festering and. 
gangrened wounds which resulted from their bites. 
Wirz boasted he was doing more, for the Confederate 
Cause than any General in the Front. " This is the way 
I give the Yankees the land they come to fight for," 
was his grim jest at a biuial party. On one occasion a 
weak man asked Wirz to let him go out of the stockade 
to get a little air. Wirz furiously inquired of him in 
(ierman what he meant, and then" drew a, re\olver and 
shot him dead. He would parade the chain gang for the 
amusement of his wife and daughters. 
In his ofticial reports of the condition of the prison, 
lie wro^te. " it is better to leave them (the prisoners) 
in their present jxisition until their numbers have been 
reduced sufficiently by death to make the arrangements 
sufficient for their accommodation.". 
Horrible Filtb 
Arrangements were certainly a euphuism. The prison 
was in a horrible state of filth! 7h«= swamp on each side 
was so offensive and the. stench so great, one witness 
reports, that it is to be wondered- every man there did 
not die. Food was insufficient, men died of actual 
starvation, and a system of petty peculation and trad- 
ing in rations was encouraged by Wirz and one of his 
clerks, a German from Frankfort-on-the-Main. The 
clothing' of the dead was almost the only source for the 
clothing of the living ; there were no shelters.. A few 
wooden uprights covered with canvas roofs and a few 
sheds ; the stronger ])risoners dug shelters for them- 
selves in the soil. The hospital was witiiout .stores 
or medicine except such as could be made from local 
roots and herbs. Prisoners suffering from dyscMitery 
w^ere advised to eat blackberries, but .when supplies of 
the fruit were' sent in they were made into pies for the 
orderlies. 
One witness for the defence nai\ely observed that he 
had seen men cut their own throats and die but he 
did not know the reason for their doing so, except tliat 
they were skin and bone and in a destitute condition. 
Dr. John Bates, one of the medical witnesses, gave a 
terrible and almost unquotable report, and confirmed 
the facts in his sworn evidence at Wirz's trial. " For 
the treatment of wounds, he writes, we ha\e literally 
nothing but water. ..." 
Another witness writes : " Gangrene sores were without 
bandages : the sores were filled with lice and flies ; one 
■ man, I am assured, died of lice, which whereas thick afe the 
man's garments." Seventy-five per cent, of those who 
died might have been sa\ed had the patients been pro- 
perly cared for. 
■ * * * * * 
After the war a Commission \isited the camp and 
ordered, and as far as possible made decent, the graves 
of these martyrs. The buildings which had been used 
were ordered to stand till they fell to pieces as evidence 
of the horrors they had witnessed. One wonders do they 
stand there still ! But Wirz wa$ arrested and brought 
to civil trial. Hundreds of witnesses were subpeened in 
his defencje, every facility was gi\'ert him, but he could only 
l)lead in effect that he was a subordinate obeying orders 
and had shown no personal inhumanity. 
The latter contention was disproved again and again 
by eye witnesses, the formc«r was unhesitatingly brushed 
aside. " A superior officer " it was held "• cannot order 
a subordinate to do an illegal act, and if the subordinate 
obeys such an order and disastrous consequences result 
both subordinate and sui)erior must answer for it." 
After a trial lasting from .\ugust till November, Wirz 
was found guilty. One of "the most revoltiuf; features 
of his case is foimd in the letters of fulsome piety and 
religious exaltation, which he constantly wrote durmg 
his captivity. He was lianged on Friday, November 
loth, 1865, before a large number of persons. 
It is not a little curious to notice the number of per- 
.sons of German name and (ierman nationality who were 
associated with the horrors of Andersonsville. For these 
. horrors one at least of the ])erpetrators paid the full 
legal penalty. America we are sure will not forget 
the fact, and her own judgment in the matter, when a 
day of reckoning conies between the Allies and thij 
Centr'al Powers. 
