I recalled very little about Captain Henry Wirz except him being the major villain in MacKindlay Cantor's book Andersonville, read a very long time ago. I recently discovered the following item in the Marshall Herald (Illinois) of February 10, 1915. Written by Pension Bureau employee and long time resident of Crawford and Clark counties in south central Illinois, Henry C. Bell, the piece describes the events of Wirz's execution as seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy. Bell served in Company K of the 29th Indiana Volunteer Infantry during the war.
"Recently in talking with my old friend Moses M. Swan, of the Pension Bureau, I remarked that Frank Curtis, also of the Pension Bureau, was the only man I ever talked to who was present at the hanging of Wirz on Nov 10, 1865; when my friend replied, 'Well Mr. Bell, you are talking to a man now who was not only present at the hanging of Wirz, but was also present at his trial before the military court, heard the evidence, or some of it, and, moreover, I was the only civilian who was present at his execution and I now remember, except the two priests that ministered to Wirz in his last hours, and who attended him to the scaffold.'
"I was surprised, and also gratified, to hear this from my friend Swan, for I have known him for many years, lived near him on Capitol Hill during all that time, and felt sure he would tell me the truth about the matter, as he saw and remembered it; so I made an appointment with him for Sunday Dec 6, 1914. He promptly responded for duty, and he and I went over all ground, about a block from my home, where Wirz was imprisoned and hanged. The house where Mr. Swan then resided with his parents, and which adjoins the premises where Wirz was confined and executed, and he fully explained the whole situation to me. Mr. Swan has been in the Pension Bureau continuosly for over 34 years, and has a son, John Swan, now on the Washington Police Force. Mr. Swan showed me the place in the back yard of the old Capitol Prison where the gallows on which Wirz was executed stood.; where the kitchen stood, the place where the gate opened up from the back part of the prison to the back yard, the spot where the wagons and other vehicles entered from the alley, running along the south side of the prison yard; the spot where the window opened from the home of his parents to the prison yard just below, and to the west of the Swan home; the very spot where the gallows and the steps leading up to the trap door of the scaffold stood; in fact he showed me, and fully explained to me, all the local features and surroundings of this tragic and world-noted incident of the closing year of our great civil war between the states, so that they are fixed in my mind as they have never been before though I passed and re-passed this Old Capitol Prison location and grounds nearly every day for more than fifteen years of my life, and we have read and studied carefully all the details of the trial, conviction and execution of this, together with Mrs. Surratt, most noted and talked of defendant in American history. Surely the opportunity of Mr. Swan, then a bright, active, pushing, red-headed boy of twelve years, were unsurpassed and unsurpassible for offering every detail of Wirz--his imprisonment, his appearance, his personality, his trial, his conviction and execution on that November day in the year 1865. And then, too, the things then he saw and heard are gripped, as with the claws of steel, in his very brain and mind and soul, and what ever he may have forgotten--in fact, could not forget if he would. The house in which Mr. Swan then lived with his parents still stands and and abuts on the east end of the back yard of the Old Capitol Prison, where Wirz was confined, and and faced north on north "A" street. between first and second streets northeast; and by the way, within two doors of the brick two-story house where Hon. Daniel Voorhees, the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," one of the greatest orators and one of the greatest hearted men that Indiana or any other state in this Union ever produced, died in April 1897, and where I saw him and talked with him for hours only two or three days before he died, and when during that most interesting talk he read to me his complete manuscript of his lecture, "The Man Of Galiee," now to be seen in his published speeches.
"My friend Swan is the cousin of Captain Edward Wayman, of a Maine regiment, who was himself a prisoner at Andersonville and who testified at the Wirz trial, which was held in the Capital building in the center of the Capitol grounds about 30 rods south of where the Old Capitol Prison then stood, and which, reformed and improved into a splendid four-story dwelling, now a boarding house, still stands. Captain Wayman was on duty at the prison and was officer of the day on the day Wirz was executed, and this why it happened that my friend Swan, then a boy of twelve, and also on account that he lived nearby, and was known to all the soldiers on guard there, had access to the hanging. Mr. Swan's father, Benjamin A. Swan, was at the time of the trial and execution of Wirz, employed at the Government Printing office. Mr. Swan tells me that he saw Wirz and Wirz talked to him and thanked him for bringing him ice cream, cakes and other delicacies which his mother had prepared for him nearly every day for months before he was hanged, and that he would pat him on the head and call him his 'little red-headed Yankee friend,' and always appeared to be very thankful for what he had brought to him. He says that Wirz had a fearfully gangrened arm, and that he frequently saw the prison doctors dress it. He says Wirz was a rather tall slender man with full, short cropped beard of a dark brown color, as was also his hair, eyes blue or gray, and fair complexion. He says he personally liked Wirz and was always sorry for him, and that he was so affected at seeing him hanged that he could not sleep for nearly a week afterwards, and that his mother, who from her south window overlooking the gallows, also witnessed the execution and never got over it. He says that every morning when the guard mounted they threw the old cartridges from their guns on the ground and put new ones in them, and that he, boy like, would pick these up and keep them and finally had a peck of them. He say s Wirz was confined on the second floor of the prison and showed me the very room in which he was confined and also the windows overlooking north A street, southeast, and that a soldier with only side arms was always with him but that he, Swan, was admitted without hindrance to take Wirz his 'knick-knacks.'
"He says that during the trial at the Capitol building a two-horse ambulance would call every morning for Wirz and take him heavily guarded to and from the prison. He tells me that no civilians were admitted at the execution, but that the trees along the west side of the prison and over to the south of it were simply alive with people, and that the cries of hatred and execration against the doomed man while the ceremony was taking place could be heard in the prison yard and for blocks away, but within the prison itself and in the yard where the execution was taking place, while there were hundreds of soldiers present, all was quiet and orderly. He tells me that just before the execution ceremony began an army officer came to his home and asked permission of his mother to sit with the three persons that accompanied him on the roof of their house, and offered her a dollar each for the privilege, which was accepted and the officer told her not to allow a single person on the roof unless he paid her one dollar. The amount paid her by persons for the right to occupy their roof and thus witness that execution amounted to over three hundred dollars; moreover, their roof was the only roof in that neighborhood--at least the only dwelling house roof--so used, or that the authorities would allow to be used, and the pressure on the roof was so great that it greatly sagged it, and as he now remembers it, the roof of one wood shed so occupied did actually fall in, hurting several people. He says that the day before the execution Wirz came out into the back yard where the scaffold was being erected and on seeing it said, "Well, if they do, they will simply hang me for obeying orders." Mr. Swan tells me that he was standing right by Wirz and actually heard Wirz say this to the guard accompanying him at the time. This is something new, for Mr. Louis Schade, the lawyer who defended him at the trial, and Father Boyle, one of the priests, both declared that word was sent to them--and Wirz said the same--that if he would implicate the higher authorities, and especially Jefferson Davis, in the horrors at Andersonville, that he would be pardoned or his crime commuted, but that they, each and all, including Wirz himself, indignantly spurned this proposition to save Wirz's life by the means indicated. But Swan says he is not mistaken in this, for he heard Wirz say it the day before he died. No evidence implicating Davis nor any of the men included with Wirz in the alleged conspiracy to starve, mistreat, maim and kill Federal prisoners at Andersonville was ever connected for such alleged personal responsibility for the horrors at Andersonville against Wirz and the then almost universal belief that he with his own hands or through his own personal orders had caused the starvation and death of prisoners confined at Andersonville. It would have been impossible for him to have been given a fair trial (and few there are who think he had this) even had this been the desire of the authorities trying him at the time.
"Mr. Swan says that when Wirz walked out of his prison and to the steps leading up the scaffold, which he, Swan, says he saw built, he was accompanied by two priests, one on each side, and that one of them held a crucifix before his eyes and kept talking to him in a low voice as they approached the scaffold. As they reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the trap door of the scaffold, Wirz appeared to pause and hesitate for a moment, but one of the priests spoke to him and held the crucifix to the condemned man's lips and he kissed it. Mr. Swan says that he was standing right under the outer edge of the platform at the time, and right by the soldier whose duty it was to knock out the prop which held up the trap door on which Wirz was to stand. He says that the trap door was about four feet square and hung on iron hinges and that the upright piece of scantling, about three inches square, held the trap door. He says that Wirz's eyes were not bandaged and after the priest had spoken to him, he slowly ascended the steps leading to the trap door on which he took his stand while the noose was adjusted. An opportunity was given Wirz to speak, but he said nothing. He says that as he stood on the trap door he swayed slowly back and forth and appeared very weak and seemingly about to fall, but did not. The signal was to be the dropping of a handkerchief by the officer on the platform down by the side of the soldier standing near the upright piece of scantling with a large round piece of wood poised in his hand, with which on receiving the signal agreed upon, to knock out the prop and let the trap door fall, The soldier dealt the upright piece of scantling such a vicious blow that it was not only knocked out from under the trap door, thus letting it fall, but it broke the scantling in twain and as he dealt the blow he cried out in an exultant tone of voice 'Now, Wirz, you damned villain, I've got you,' and then the vast crowd, on houses, sheds, and in the trees, and for blocks away, took up the savage cry of hate and vengeance towards Wirz, and intense gratification at his death on the gallows, the remembrance of which has been ringing in his ears for fifty years, and will never cease to ring while life lasts. He also says that as the body of Wirz shot through the opening in the platform another soldier jumped for the legs of the dying man and grabbed them with the intention of swinging his weight on to the body so as to make sure of his death, but that just as he grabbed the legs he was pulled away by one of the doctors. who said the man's neck was broken and to keep away from him. In a few moments Wirz was pronounced dead and his body taken to the hospital where an autopsy was held and the brain of Wirz removed for inspection and examination; Mr. Swan himself afterward saw the brains which were placed in the hands of their family physician who was connected with the prison hospital, and what was done with them he does not know, but he has always understood that the body was given to the wife of Wirz, but if so, It could not, as I understand the matter and as Lt. Page, the Federal soldier who has recently written his history in defense of Wirz, have been deliverd to her in Washington, at least at once, for she was at the home of her brother in Kentucky at the time of her husband's execution, having left for Kentucky after her last interview with him, and after all hopes for his pardon or commutation had flown; Lt. Page says in his book (The True Story of Andersonville Prison-James M. Page)that Mrs. J.S. Perrins, of Natchez, Miss., then a child of ten years, and the only living child of Wirz by his second marriage, says that she well remembers the agonizing grief of her mother, as she begged for the body of her husband, but that it was refused her. And so I am not certain even now whether Mrs. Wirz obtained the body, but I do feel sure that the above, coming from a man who was there at the time, is about the truest, most specific and complete record of the execution of Major Henry Wirz that has ever been put in type. I believe that the keen, bright boyish eyes of my friend Swan saw what he saw, and that the keen ears of him heard what he says they heard on Nov 10, 1865.
"I am making an earnest and persistent effort, as the passing years go by, to rid my mind and heart of all prejudice against individual men and women, living and dead, when I have known or about where I have read, and I feel that this effort has not been in vain or void of greater satisfaction with myself both in heart or brain.
"In the course of a long and somewhat busy life of reading and study, I have had more than once a great hatred and prejudice, which subsequent study and reflections have greatly mollified and changed.
"For instance, I once believed Henry Wirz was the initiator, villain in the horrors at Andersonville, and personally responsible for all the human outrages upon prisoners there confined; but a subsequent careful study of Wirz and the conditions and surroundings under which he had immediate and inner charge of that in general place, has softened my feeling a good deal toward Major Henry Wirz and and it now appears to me that he was a victim of circumstances and that, being a mere subordinate to General Winder, and the Confederate authorities, he was not alone responsible for all the horrors at Andersonville, and that he was made to suffer much obloquy and horror due to the sins of others, over which he did not have and could not have had the initiate or control, the truth of which appears to me has been fairly well established by Lt. Page in his book and to which references has been made by me in a former letter, printed heretofore in this paper. And then, too, the Federal authorities were not themselves blameless in their refusal to exchange prisoners with the Confederate authorities touching the Union prisoners confined at Andersonville during the spring and summer and fall of 1864, as Lt. Page abundantly shows in his book.
"Two other interesting and suggestive incidents related to me by my friend Swan, I find I have failed to make. He says that during the execution of Wirz 'Aunt Liza,' their old black servant, sat astride the firewall of their house and swayed back and forth wring her hands, her eyes swimming with tears, as she kept exclaiming 'Pore Masa Wirz, pore Massa Wirz!' Also that one day as the ambulance returned with Wirz from his trial and as he stepped out of it, an old lady who had lost a son in Andersonville, and who was evidently waiting for him, with loud cries of abuse and execration sprung upon him and continued to belabor him with her umbrella until pulled away by guard."
H. C. BELL
In a related incident a person known by the above H.C. Bell, Sergeant William A Hope of Company E, 98th Illinois was making a speech to a reunion of Companies D & E of the same regiment in Palestine, Illinois on December 9, 1898.
"I was made prisoner and taken to Dalton and put in a guard house. I had nothing to eat for two days. Many rebels came to talk all wanting to know what we did with rebel dissenters. Told them we disarmed them and sent them home. Met a man whom I knew; he was in the rebel army but wanted to get away (then Hope held up a small wooden spoon he made at Dalton which was afterwards used to distribute rations at Andersonville). In leaving Dalton we were put in stock cars and packed so close we had to stand up all the way to Andersonville from six in the morning until after dark. We marched into the pen and many were completely exhausted. I was put in charge of a squad of 90 men...had to be accountable for them, and divide rations out to them, which were so meager I divided them with my wooden spoon. A gang of prisoners known as "raiders" had committed several murders and become so bold in thefts, Then Wirz ordered the other prisoners to arrest and try them which was done--found guilty and hanged. The suffering of the prisoners was horrible...no shelter, no clothing, food scarce and of very inferior quality, water filthy. Just beyond the 'deadline' water was clear and pure but any prisoner reaching beyond the "deadline" was shot; and the rebels who did the shooting got 30 days furlough. One day there came an awful rain and right in the middle of camp there burst forth a spring of pure water which we named Providence Spring; as it was regarded as an act of God.
"The supply of pure water prevented much suffering. Our rations consisted of a species of cow peas and meal which was cooked in a large iron pan and stirred with a large wooden paddle! Millions of flies covering it. The more flies that fell in, the better the food; answered the purpose of meat. For lack of proper food, clothing and shelter prisoners suffered as no human could imagine without having witnessed it.
Of our two companies, Joseph Shaw of D and Joseph Hook and Moses Leatherman of E, were in the prison with me; all three of them died. Their sufferings were awful; Leatherman was dying by inches and very much dispirited. Almost his last words were: 'If I could only get a bite from the slop bucket back at home, I would be happy.' I gave these comrades all my spare time and did all in my power to alleviate their misery.
"Every morning the dead wagon would come inside the stockade and the dead were piled like cordwood. It was a gruesome sight, hauled out and hurled in trenches. One morning a prisoner 'played off dead' but in piling them in the trench they found one shot. After that Wirz ordered that a bayonet be run into each body so that would not occur again. I was fortunate in being placed in charge of a squad as it entitled me to an extra ration, and by this means could divide with the most deplorable cases of sickness, and I thank God that through this instrument much distress was much relieved.
"After a long confinement in this prison, in company with thousands of others, I was sent to Florence and was exchanged."
Sergeant William A. Hope, 98th Illinois
NOTE: His three friends all died in Andersonville were:
Joseph Hook-June 17, 1864
Joseph Shaw-August 30, 1864
Moses Leatherman-October 14, 1864
