One of the joys of travels with NOT is that he always seems to find the time to see things off the beaten track.
In Andersonville, Georgia there is a monument. It is billed as the only U.S. Monument to a Convicted War Criminal.
The monument is to Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate commander of the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, GA.
Andersonville Prison was a notorious prison during the civil war, likened to a hell on earth. At one time the prison held over 32,000 union soldiers, making it the fifth largest city in all the Confederate States, and the mortality rate among prisoners there has been put at around twenty-eight percent. The prison (called Fort Sumter) was commanded by Wirz.
After the fall of the Confederacy, Wirz was captured and sent to Washington D.C. There he was put on trial for war crimes, was convicted and sentence to be hanged. Appeals for clemency to President Johnson went unanswered and on November 10, 1865, he was executed.
He was the only man tried, convicted and executed for War Crimes from the civil war.
His conviction was controversial at the time, and continues to cause controversy to this day. Historical records show that Wirz attempted to improve conditions at the prison and constantly appealed for money and supplies, but the war strapped Confederate government did not provide him with adequate materials. Some claim that his conviction had more to do with the need to find retribution for the prison than his actual crimes.
In the town of Andersonville (near the prison) this monument was erected in his memory. On one side it states:
"Discharging his duty with such humanity as the harsh circumstances of the times and the policy of the foe permitted, Captain Wirz became at last the victim of misdirected popular clamor. He was arrested in time of peace, while under the protection of a parole, tried by military commission of a service to which he did not belong and condemned to ignominious death on charges of excessive cruelty to federal prisoners. He indignantly spurned a pardon, proffered on a condition that he would incriminate President Davis and thus exonerate himself from charges of which both were innocent"
and on the front reads:
"To rescue his name from the stigma attached to it by embittered prejudice this shaft is erected by the Georgia Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy"
Taking into account the source, and putting aside the hyperbole in the
language, it still is an unique monument.