Swiss immigrant Henry Wirz is among the most controversial figures of the Civil War. To many Americans he is a war criminal responsible for the deaths of thousands of prisoners at Andersonville. However, to adherents of the Lost Cause he was a martyr who laid down his life in sacrifice to the prejudices and hypocrisy of the North. In the early 1900s the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) erected a monument to Wirz in Andersonville and in the 1970s the UDC and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) began holding annual memorial gatherings to honor Wirz.
In 1984 the memorial keynote was former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox, best known as an ardent segregationist. Here is how the effort to honor Wirz was reported in the local Georgia press at the time. Wirz was characterized at the ceremony as a hero who refused to implicate Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the deaths of thousands of prisoners at the camp in exchange for the pardon of Wirz.
Columbus Daily Enquirer
Monday, Nov 12, 1984
Columbus, GA
Although I did find publication of local articles after this event, the UPI also distributed nationally a preview article nationally:
Marietta Journal
Sunday, Nov 11, 1984
Marietta, GA
Page: 6
Historian Benjamin Cloyd writes that while efforts to exonerate Wirz date back almost to the time of the Civil War, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans made a project in the 20th Century of trying to turn him into a hero. The 1984 ceremony was a high water mark of this campaign.
This phase of devotion to the tattered shreds of Lost Cause mythology, at least pertaining to Wirz and Andersonville, peaked in the mid-1980s. In 1981, the SCV awarded Wirz the Confederate Medal of Honor. And in 1984, a speech praising Wirz—who chose “death over betrayal,” making him a worthy symbol of Confederate heritage—given by Georgia’s former governor Lester Maddox, himself a symbol of segregation, highlighted the event. The opportunity to confirm southernness by celebrating Wirz attracted white southerners who sought to assert the legitimacy of their heritage in a difficult era of turbulent race relations and political transition. The ritual celebration of Confederate mythology offered a reconfirmation of the traditional racial identities of the past. It was not coincidence that in the same speech in which Maddox, never one to shy away from controversy, portrayed Wirz as a symbol of southern virtue, he also took a thinly veiled shot at African Americans, criticizing welfare recipients as “bums and parasites.” [From: Cloyd, Benjamin G.. Haunted by Atrocity: Civil War Prisons in American Memory (Making the Modern South) (pp. 153-154). LSU Press. Kindle Edition.]
[The feature photo shows Wirz on the execution scaffold with a Catholic priest attending to his spiritual needs.]
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
1 thought on “Defending Henry Wirz: The 1984 Wirz Memorial at Andersonville”