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A Defense of Captain Henry Wirz
by Louis Schade
To the American Public:
Intending to leave the United States, I feel it my duty before I start to
fulfill a promise which, a few hours before his death, I gave to my unfortunate
client, Captain Henry Wirz, who was executed at Washington on the 10th of
November 1865. Protesting up to the last moment his innocence of those
monstrous crimes with which he was charged, he received my word that, having
failed to save him from a felon's doom, I would as long as I lived do
everything in my power to clear his memory. I did that the more readily, as I
was then already convinced that he suffered wrongfully. Since that time his
unfortunate children, both here and in Europe, have constantly implored me to
wipe out the terrible stains which now cover the name of their father.
Though the times do not seem propitious for obtaining justice, yet, considering
that man is mortal, I will, before entering upon a perilous voyage, perform my
duty to those innocent orphans and also to myself. I will now give a brief
statement of the causes which led to the arrest and execution of Captain Wirz.
In April 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation stating that from
evidence in the possession of the Bureau of Military Justice it appeared that
Jefferson Davis was implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and for
that reason the President offered one hundred thousand dollars for the capture
of the then fugitive ex-President of the Southern Confederacy. That testimony
has since been found to be entirely false and a mere fabrication, and the
suborner, Conover, is now under sentence in the jail in this city, the two
perjurers whom he suborned having turned state's evidence against him; whilst
the individual by whom Conover was suborned has not yet been brought to justice.
Certain high and influential enemies of Jefferson Davis, either then already
aware of the character of the testimony of those witnesses, or not thinking
their testimony quite sufficient to hang Mr. Davis, expected to find the
wanting material in the terrible mortality of Union prisoners at Andersonville.
Orders were issued accordingly to arrest a subaltern officer, Captian Wirz, a
poor, friendless, and wounded prisoner of war (he being included in the
surrender of General Johnston) and besides, a foreigner by birth. On the ninth
of May. he was placed in the Old Capital prison at Washington, and from that
time the greater part of the Northern press was busily engaged in forming the
unfortunate man in the eyes of the Northern people into such a monster that it
became almost impossible to obtain counsel; even his countryman, the Swiss
Consul-General, publicly refused to accept money to defray the expenses of the
trial. He was doomed before he was heard, and
even the permission to be heard according to law was denied him,
To increase the excitement and give eclat to the proceeding and to influence
still more the public mind, the trial took place under the very dome of the
Capitol of the nation. A military commission, presided over by a despotic
general, was formed, and the paroled prisoner of war, his wounds still open,
was so feeble that he had to recline during the trial on a sofa.
How that trial was conducted the whole world knows!
The enemies of generosity and humanity believed it to be a sure thing to get at
Jefferson Davis, therefore the first charge was that of conspiracy between
Henry Wirz, Jefferson Davis, Howel Cobb, Richard B. Winder, R. R. Stevenson, W.
J.
W. Kerr, and a number of others
to kill the Union prisoners.
The trial lasted for three months; but fortunately for the blood-thirsty
instigators, not a particle of evidence was produced showing the existence of
such a conspiracy;
yet Captian Wirz was found guilty of that charge!
Having thus failed, another effort was made. On the night before the execution
of the prisoner (November 9, 1865) a telegram was sent to the Northern press
from this city, stating that Wirz had made important disclosures to General L.
C. Baker, the well-known detective, implicating Jefferson Davis, and that the
confession would probably be given to the public. On the same evening some
parties came to the confession of Wirz, Rev. Father Boyle,
and also to me,
one of them informing me that a high Cabinet official wished to assure Wirz
that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with the atrocities committed at
Andersonville, his sentence would be commuted. The messenger requested me to
inform Wirz of this. In the presence of Father Boyle, I told Wirz next morning
what had happened.
The Captain simply and quietly replied, "Mr. Schade, you know that I have
always told you that I do not know anything about Jefferson Davis. He had no
connection with me as to what was done at Andersonville. If I knew anything
about him, I would not become a traitor against him or anybody else even to
save my life."
He likewise denied that he had ever made any statement to General Baker. Thus
ended the attempt to suborn Captain Wirz against Jefferson Davis. That alone
shows what a man he was. How many of his defamers would have done the same?
With his wounded arm in a sling, the poor paroled prisoner mounted the scaffold
two hours later. His last words were that he died innocent and so he did.
The 10th of November, 1865, will indeed be a black stain upon the pages of
American history.
To weaken the effect of his declaration of innocence and of the noble manner in
which Wirz died, a telegram was manufactured here and sent North stating that
on the 27th of October, Mrs. Wirz (who actually on that day was nine hundred
miles from Washington) had been prevented by that Stantonian
deus ex machina,
General L. C. Baker,
from poisoning her husband.
Thus at the time when the unfortunate family lost their husband and father, a
cowardly and atrocious attempt was made to blacken their character also. On the
next day, I branded the whole as a lie, and since then I have never heard of it
again, though it emanated from a brigadier-general of the United States Army.
All those who were charged with having conspired with Captain Wirz have since
been released, except Jefferson Davis. Captain Winder was let off without
trial; and if any of the others have been tried, which I do not know, certainly
not one of them has been hanged. As Captain Wirz could not conspire alone,
nobody will now, in view of that important fact, consider him guilty of that
charge.
As to "murder in violation of the laws and customs of war," I do not hestitate
to assert that about one hundred and forty-five out of one hundred and sixty
witnesses that testified on both sides, declared during the trial
that Captain Wirz never murdered or killed any Union prisoners with his own
hands or otherwise.
Those witnesses, some twelve or fifteen, who testified that they saw Wirz kill
prisoners with his own hands or otherwise, swore falsely, abundant proof of
that assertion being in existence. The hands of Captain Henry Wirz are clear of
the blood of prisoners of war. He would certainly have at least intimated to me
a knowledge of the alleged murders with which he was charged. No names of the
alleged murdered men could be given, and when it was done no such prisoner
could be found or identified.
The terrible scene in court when he was confronted with one of the witnesses,
and the latter insisting that Wirz was the man who killed a certain Union
prisoner which irritated Wirz so much that he nearly fainted, will still be
remembered. That witness, Gray, swore falsely, and God alone knows what the
poor innocent prisoner must have suffered at that moment. The scene was
depicted and illustrated in the Northern newspapers as if Wirz had broken down
on account of his guilt. Seldom has a mortal man suffered more than that
friendless and forsaken man.
But who is responsible for the many lives that were lost at Andersonville and
in the Southern prisons? That question has not fully been settled, but history
will yet tell on whose heads the guilt for those sacrificed hecatombs of human
beings is to be placed. It was certainly not the fault of poor Wirz, when in
consequence of medicines being declared contraband of war by the North, the
Union prisoners died for the want of the same. How often have we read during
the war that ladies going South had been arrested and placed in the Old Capitol
Prison by the Union authorities, because quine and other medicine had been
found in their clothing! Our Navy prevented the ingress of medical stores from
the seaside and our troops repeatedly destroyed drug stores and even the
supplies of private physicians in the South.
Thus the scarcity of medicine became general all over the South.
That provisions in the South were scarce will astonish nobody, when it is
remembered how the war was carried on. General Sheridan boasted in his report
that in the Shenandoah Valley alone he burned more than two thousand barns
filled with wheat and corn and all the mills in the whole tract of country;
that he destroyed all factories and killed or drove off every animal, even
poultry, that could contribute to human sustenance. And these desolations were
repeated in different parts of the South, and so thoroughly that money had to
be appropriated to keep the people from starving. The destruction of railroads
and other means of transportation by which food could be supplied by abundant
districts to those without it increased the difficulties in giving sufficient
food to our prisoners.
The Confederate authorities, aware of their inability to maintain the
prisoners, informed the Northern agents of the great mortality, and urgently
requested that the prisoners should be exchanged, even without regard to the
surplus, which the Confederates had on the exchange roll from former exchanges
-- that is, man for man. But our War Department did not consent to an
exchange. They did not want to "exchange skeletons for healthy men."
Finally, when all hopes for exchange were gone, Colonel Ould, the Confederate
Commissioner of Exchange, offered early in August, 1864,
to deliver up all sick and wounded
without requiring an equivalent in return, and pledged that the number would
amount to ten or fifteen thousand, and if it did not, he would make up either
number by adding well men. Although this offer was made in August, the
transportation was not sent for them until December, although he urged that
haste be made. During that very period most of the deaths occurred. It might be
well to inquire who these "skeletons" were that Secretary of War Stanton did
not want to exchange for healthy men.
A noble and brave soldier never permits his antagonist to be calumniated and
trampled upon after an honorable surrender. Besides, notwithstanding the
decision of the highest legal tribunal in the land that military commissions
are unconstitutional, and earnest and able protestations of President Johnson
and the results of military commissions, yet such military commissions are
again established by recent legislation of Congress all over the suffering and
starving South. History is just, and, as Mr. Lincoln used to say, "We cannot
escape history." Puritanical hypocrisy, self-adulation, and self-glorification
will not save the enemies of liberty from their just punishment.
Not even Christian burial of the remains of Captain Wirz has been allowed by
Secretary Stanton. They still lie side by side with those of another and
acknowledged victim of military commissions, the unfortunate Mrs. Surratt, in
the yard of the former jail of this city.
If anybody should desire to reply to this, I politely beg that it may be done
before the first of May next, as I shall leave the country -- but to return in
the fall. After that day letters will reach me in care of the American Legation
or Mr. Benedete Bobzani, Leipsig Street, No. 38, Berlin, Prussia.
Louis Schade
Attorney at Law
Washington, D.C.
April 4, 1867
