Was the commandant of andersonville prison camp. Its one of the most notorious camps in the mihistory of moder warfare. It was in the southwest of georgia and well talk about hanging henry wirz. Wirz was hanged for his role in perpetuating according to the federal government mistreatment and murder at that camp and he was one of the first individuals in the modern era to be tried for war crimes and henry wirzs trial in the fall of 1865 set the precedent for more recent war crimes trials, most notably the nuremberg trials of nazi perpetrators after world war ii, the american the allied prosecutors who were preparing for those prosecutions in nuremberg actually studied the wirz trial and particularly his defense so that they could prepare for what they anticipated the nazi defense would be and called it the wirz defense which was basically, you know, i was only following orders. Thats the typical defense and they used henry wirzs trial to help prepare far in 1945. So this is a really imp
From the disaster at andersonville is the human treatment of p. O. W. S defines our natural identity and reit rates our army values by ensuring dignity and respect is paid to every enemy combatant. Weve also learned how precious freedom is and that freedom always, always has a cost. The cost is paid by men and women, men and women who are willing to endure torture, mall nutrition, loneliness, despair and even death in the pursuit of freedoms cause. History tends to remember the dates. It remembers the battles and the victories. It lauds the winners and it favors grand action or man mental failure. But there are some places on the battlefield where dates and battles, winners and losers are matters of inconsequence. In these places survival is the only thing of magnitude. The men of andersonville have survived. They survived the 150 years of an indelible part of what makes our nation great, the american people. As i conclude time with you today, my hope is for the 13,000 souls lost here
That we will always find people who are representing that war or pushing back against that experience in a way that will surprise the way that we have interpreted it. Thank you very much. And i will see you all next week. You are watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation like us on facebook at cspan history. Next on the civil war. Confederate captain henry worse was in henry wirz was in charge of andersonville prison camp where 45,000 soldiers died while being cap there. Law professor Paul Finkelman discusses the trial and execution of henry wirz and the establishment of war crimes as a result of the trial. This was part of the 2014 civil war symposium, hosted by the civil war society. Youre watching American History tv on cspan three. To join the conversation, like on facebook very wirz facebook. Confederate captain henry wirz. As a concept of war crimes established as a result of the talk, this half hour long is a portion of the 2014
Professor discusses the legacy of the confederate capital henry wirz to his arrest for war crimes. The professor argues that his trial was framed in the context of slavery, but it has changed in 20th century events. This is an hourlong portion of the 2014 civil war symposium hosted by the u. S. Capitol Historical Society. I want to thank my fellow symposium members. I think they really set high standards to try to wrap things up. I am going to try to wrap things up quickly and to keep things energetic with images. I want to thank the Historical Society for hosting this. That is the hanging of henry wirz on november 10, 1865. If you want answers to your questions about wirz you should go to andersonville on november 10 of any year, because that is the day they remember him and honor him. Tony horwitz writes about confederates with a chapter of this. There is a society dedicated to wirz. It is a lost cause society absolutely. So, he is hanged on this platform, and that moment i think pla
We are going to try to get out rather than 30 4 45. Im going to speak in a. Runcated version of my talk both of us are going to be talking about andersonville and the trial of henry wirz. During the civil war, this set of photographs was published. As you can see, all of them are soldiers who have just come back from prisoners of war camps. Looking really like nothing americans had ever seen, and in fact, looking like people that americans or the world with mostly not see again until the end of world war ii when people came out of places like buchenwald and auschwitz. These were truly frightening pictures. After the war, we began to get other pictures. York,s a soldier from new a recently discovered photograph by a graduate student at george mason university. Candace gray found this for me. This is a man whose feet became infected, and his feet were literally cut off by scissors. Later, they had to use bone saws to saw the bones off. Along with this picture of calvin bates of new york,