watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter history,ctures in professor carole emberton teaches a class about andersonville, the confederate civil war military prison were 13,000 soldiers died. in the trial of its commander, henry wirz, she discusses the prisoner exchange program at the end of the war and how it was used as a president of later were crime proceedings. her class is about an hour. prof. emberton: welcome everyone today. we are going to be talking about henry wirz, who was the commandant of andersonville prison camp, which you may have heard of. it is one of the most editorialists prisoner of war camps -- it is one of the most

notorious prisoner of work camp in the history of modern warfare. it was a confederate prison for union soldiers in the southwest of georgia. we will talk about hanging henry wirz. wirz was executed for his role for perpetuating, according to the federal government, mistreatment and murder at that camp. he was one of the first individuals in the modern era to be tried for war crimes. henry wirz's trial in the fall of 1865 set the precedent for more recent war crimes trials, the nuremberg trials of nazi perpetrators after world war ii, the allied prosecutors preparing for those prosecutions in nuremberg actually studied the particularly,d

his defense, so they could prepare for what they anticipated, the not see defense would be. they also called if the wirz defense, basically saying, i was only following orders. that was the typical defense. they used his trial to prepare for that in 1945. this is a really important moment, not only an american, legal history, but world, legal history. we are going to be thinking about the prison at andersonville itself and what , led conditions to be so horrible, and what led to the catastrophic loss of life that was suffered there in 1864. we will see if it differed from other pow camps. it was not the only one by a longshot. they were all pretty horrible. we will think about, if

anything, made andersonville feel different. finally we want to think about , whether or not henry wirz was in fact guilty of war crimes, and did he deserve the punishment he received? did he deserve to die for the events? our terms and concept, henry wirz, the prisoner exchange. and we will be revisiting a topic we have talked about several times throughout the semester, and that is the lieber code. who was henry wirz? he was a native of switzerland who immigrated to the united states. no one is sure when. it is possible he could of been what was known as a time as a 48'er, a refugee from the revolutions of western europe

that occurred on 1848. there were a lot of refugees after those revolutions were over. it is possible he could immigrated around that time. we really don't know much about his life prior to his arrival in the united states. he never spoke publicly about his life. the council general of switzerland, who wrote a letter to president andrew johnson on his behalf, when wirz was on trial for war crimes, he said that wirz came from a really from ackground and came respectable family. but we really don't know a lot about him, and he never spoke publicly about his life in europe. once he arrived in the united states, he married a fairly wealthy widow from kentucky. for a settled in kentucky

while before eventually moving to louisiana. setsin the louisiana, wirz up a medical practice. there is no evidence that he ever received any kind of medical training, but he did say he always wanted to be a doctor. but his father pushed him into business, right? he did not want him to be a physician. once he is in louisiana, wirz sets up a medical practice. as you know from our previous discussions about medicine in the 19th century and during the civil war, that was not really uncommon. that was the way things were done in the 19th century. you would apprentice with a practicing physician then go out on your own. there were medical colleges where you could get degrees, but at that time, it was not required that you had formal medical training to practice as a physician. an apprenticeship kind of thing. that is what henry wirz did. in the years leading up to the civil war, henry wirz is a country doctor in rural

louisiana. in 1861,war breaks out like most patriotic, southern men, dr. wirz enlists with the federal forces -- confederate forces. battle ofded at the southern pines and is wounded severely and his right arm and loses all use of his right arm. he is cited for bravery, and he is promoted to the rank of captain. after he recovers from his wounds, because he speaks fluent french and german as well as english he is sent on special , missions by the confederacy to europe, trying to get those european nations to come and support the confederacy and come out on the side of the south. spends most of 1863 in europe doing, not really clear what he he is doing, but he is

on a diplomatic tour the confederacy. when he returned to the south , he is given the job of being the commandant of this new prison camp being built in southwest georgia, known as andersonville prison. at the time, wirz probably would think this is a pretty good way to sit out the rest of the war. he is not going to be an battle and his life will not be at risk. it is a pretty good job for his arm-- he cannot use anymore. he is impaired. he will get to live with his family. his wife and children will live nearby the camp. all in all this is not bad. know thees not really situation that is going to be facing him once he arrives in southwest georgia at what is

officially known as camp sumter. it camp sumter is near the nearest town, a railroad depot. it becomes known as andersonville prison. camp sumterer -- was built an early 1864. i use the term built very loosely. as you can see from this picture, there is not a lot of building camp sumter. most of the men you can see here, prisoners are living in tents and makeshift accommodations. it was originally intended to house about, as it backs up mom 10,000 prisoners of war -- maximum about 10,000 prisoners of war. it was 27 acres. you can see here from the

drawings it was bounded by a high stockade fence that goes all the way around the perimeter. there is a creek that actually runs here under the stockade's through the middle of the camp. so, there is a freshwater supply for the men there. but as you can imagine, the further in the creek flows into worse the qualityt the qualit of water gets. this part here that flows under the stockade fence is the most sought after water in the camp. that will be important for a story i will tell you in just a minute. so, on top of the fence, on top of the stockade's, what was known as a pigeon room where the

guards sat with their rifles. as you can tell, there are many more prisoners then there are guards. spacedt is why they are out like they are on top of the fence. this, running along the bottom new the edge of the stockade, ass is a latrine, also known the sink. you can see the individuals using the toilets there that stretches the length of one side of the stockade fence. and another thing i want to point out to you about the camp, right here, you can sort of see a long, low railing, a piece of wood, that is stretching the length here in front of the sink.

you can also get a sense of it here. and there is a space between this low railing and the stockade. you can see this space all along the edge of the fence that is devoid of people. because the railing is keeping them back. and that, you can see it here as well. that was known as the deadline. because if a prisoner stepped over or crossed the deadline, they were liable to be shot by one of the guards in the pigeon room. the deadline was there as a way to keep prisoners back, to keep them from rushing towards the fence, climbing the fence, or starting any kind of mutiny, or move to overthrow the guards. and the guards, according to witnesses and survivors of fact,onville, did, in

shoot men when they attempted to cross the deadline. one is an illustration from survivor's testimony, claim that they witnessed a union soldier trying to reach over the deadline with a cup to get that fresher water. some of that water that is just flowing into the camp, he is trying to reach over the deadline to dip his cup into the fresher water, and he is shot are reaching over the deadline. imagine, this is not a pleasant place to be. right? from april of 1864 through the had time in which the camp its most inmates, until october into 64, the camp which was meant to house 10,000 pows has

anywhere between 20,000 and pows 40,000 during that time. the peak months for the population for inmates was august of 1864. it is incredibly overcrowded. however as historians have , pointed out that population , tended to fluctuate dramatically. ofis at its peak in august 1864 when it has 20,000, 30,000 prisoners in it. but other times during the 14 of the existence of this camp, it probably had less than pows thatted 10,000 it was supposed to have in the first place. in --is a lot of moment there is a lot of movement in and out of the camp. they are being transferred to other confederate prisons and of

coarse, men are dying all the time. particularlyons, the overcrowding, the putrid water, not only breeding disease , but mosquitoes, minnesota frame from dysentery, gangrene, scurvy, suffering from our nutrition and exposure. southwest georgia is incredibly hot in the summer and cold in the winter. they had very little of any kind of adequate shelter. peak by the early diedof 1864, 5000 men between august and october of 1864, i believe. all in total, nearly 13,000 union soldiers died in andersonville in its entire existence.

abouts a death rate of 45% of the total population, which is extremely high. um, let's see. there is a national cemetery, which now exists at andersonville, if you are ever in the vicinity, you can go there and visit. most of the soldiers buried there have been positively identified. but several hundred remain unknown there at the cemetery. editorials -- another notorious facet of andersonville prison, the andersonville layers. these were gangs of inmates who were armed with clubs and knives and various other kinds of makeshift instruments instruments. and they terrorized the inmates in the camp.

they robbed people of their personal property and they were reported to have beaten and killed inmates in the attempt to rob them. things get so bad that a group of prisoners organize themselves into a kind of police force and call themselves the regulators. up capturingnd several dozen of the raiders and they have an actual trial. they put six of the leaders on trial. as you can see from this drawing, they end up with the permission of the camp superintended, henry wirz, as well as some higher ups in the federal government, they get permission to hold this trial, and the ultimately execute, they ringleaders ofse these readers -- raiders.

one of the most notorious moments in andersonville's history. give you an indication of the state of nature these men are .iving in in the camp only are they suffering from disease, malnutrition, and mistreatment from the confederate authority there, they are also at risk of each wouldand from people who take advantage of the situation to try to better their own situation to get more food, or to get other kinds of property off the less fortunate. so, it really was a horrible place. of the things if you have done much reading, or heard much about andersonville, some people will often say that andersonville was no worse than any other prisoner of war camp, in particular, some of the most editorials p.o.w. -- some of the most notorious p.o.w. camps in

the north. there was a large prisoner of war camp at elmira. there was another large one outside of chicago. youtimes people will say, know what, andersonville was no worse than these other prisons. i kind of take issue with that. here is the picture of the evening rollcall and how mira -- picture of the evening rollcall. looking at this image you can tell why you read there was a difference between the conditions of andersonville, if you go back and look, and what you see at elmira. number one, there is a lot more built structures or barracks for the prisoners to stay in.

elmira suffers from the same kind of overcrowding. there are more prisoners then they could properly house. you can see they set up tents. men, do in fact, live in pens rather than actual housing. looks me, this image nothing like the images you see from andersonville, which is not elmira was a great place to be. no prisoner of war camp is a great place to be in any war. it is not intended to be. and who wants to spend a winter in upstate new york sitting out tent?ent session it is brutally cold. and the death rate at elmira, known as hellmira by those imprisoned there, the death rate

hovered around 25% compared to 45% at andersonville. not trying to diminish it, but it is still incredibly high. all total, about 3000 confederate soldiers, who were imprisoned at elmira died there. there were about 12,000 total. and they suffered largely from the same kind of ailments that the union soldiers at andersonville did. they suffered from malnutrition, they did not have enough food, they suffered from exposure, pneumonia, outbreaks of various kinds of diseases like influenza, smallpox, and dysentery. there was a problem with drainage and putrid water that bread sickness and disease. sickness and disease. we might think of the differences between elmira and

andersonville in terms of kind but of scale. sickness and elmira is simply not to the scale that we see at andersonville. there is now a national cemetery at elmira, and a monument to the confederate soldiers who died. cam douglas was in chicago. it was initially used as a trading camp. but, fairly early on, camp douglas becomes one of the first union p.o.w. camps for confederate prisoners as early as they are housing confederate 1862. prisoners there. , there are former

soldiers in 1864 in the camp can reasonably accommodate. and they suffer from the same kinds of problems -- malnutrition, exposure. the death rate at camp douglas is somewhere between 17% and 23%. that is because there is some discrepancy with how many soldiers confederate -- with tommy confederate soldiers died there. this is a mass grave in chicago where, according to the monument, there are 6000 can edit soldiers buried under this mound. but camp records only list about 4000. to 2000e about 1500 unaccounted people.

somewhere between or thousand and 6000 confederate soldiers died at camp douglas. kinds ofthe same conditions that soldiers died from at elmira and andersonville. chicago is incredibly cold in the winter. i spe 13 years in chicago for college and graduate school, and i would not like to sleep in a tent. it would not be fun. them, orps, none of any place anyone would want to be. they are brutal conditions. they are bare-bones. a lot of the men who were arriving at these camps were already either wounded or sick. if you are already wounded or sick in your immune system is compromised, this kind of exposure and lack of proper food , is only going to contribute to your decline. places wherenot

flourish and be healthy and well. they are in a sense where men went to died. some people who talk about and write about these prisoner of war camps will say, the elmiraions in places like they were as bad because the union was retaliating against the treatment their soldiers were receiving an confederate camps like andersonville. there is some loose, anecdotal evidence to suggest that the men running these camps, or certainly not inclined to be particularly energetic, or

speedy in providing the confederate pows there with the kinds of things that they need. instance, there was one superintendent of camp douglas, who it appears, replaced all the wood burning stoves in the barracks with boilers, that did not produce, according to the men who lived there, and not heat as a wood burning stove did. some people will say they did that on purpose. because union soldiers were suffering from the cold and deprivation. they were trying to pay back the confederate pows for that. there is really not a lot of hard evidence to suggest that there was a concerted, union policy to say, you know what,

are men are suffering at andersonville, so we will make it just as bad for the confederate soldiers in these camps. but the fact of the matter is, again, it is not so much of a difference in kind, but in scale. if you remember we go back to , the lieber code, one of the articles of the code, the code of five, rules of warfare during the civil war, allowed for prisoners of war to be subject to the infliction of retaliatory measures. it now, specifically, francis lieber is talking and writing about lincoln's retaliatory ordered that he issued in 1863 when the confederate government said, any black soldier or white commander of black troops were

, caught will not be given quarter. they will not be treated as prisoners of war. they will be subject to be sold into slavery, or executed. when the confederacy releases lincoln then issues what is known as his retaliation order, in which he says, for every black soldier, or white also that is executed we will , execute one confederate prisoner of war. , they nevernowledge did that. that never happened. i could be wrong. i've never seen evidence of that. it is entirely possible. but, i don't think it ever occurred, but it was a threat, a retaliation order. lieber,ccording to perfectly permissible to do that during more.

these, even as we get to in just a second the lieber code expressed prohibitions against the mistreatment of prisoners of war. this is one of these great areas in the lieber code, that although you are not supposed to mistreat prisoners -- you are supposed to be them and give them medical care, you are not supposed to mistreat them in any way, they are still liable to this kind of retaliatory measure . another criticism, or question, that some people will raise about andersonville is the question about whether or not william sherman, after he captures atlanta and goes on his march, if he could have

liberated andersonville, and why didn't he? this is a map of georgia. this is the town that represents america's georgia, a town there very near to andersonville. if you recall in september of 1864, atlanta falls to sherman's army. in between september and november, he is laying out his plans, and planning the march to the sea which will take them to , savannah. right? so, he doesn't go in the direction of sumter. but could he have done so? certainly sherman and folks know about andersonville. prisoners had escaped from there. so they knew that things were pretty bad there. badver, i think it is a

assumption to think that sherman could have reasonably done anything to alleviate the suffering of the men and anderson fell because of the timeline -- suffering of the men in andersonville because of the timeline. by that time the vast majority of the men who died at andersonville have already died. and by the time sherman does begin his march out of atlanta toward savannah on november the 15th, the population of andersonville prison has fallen to about 5000 men by that time. falls,e city of atlanta confederate officials, because andersonville is so close they , begin moving prisoners out to other prison camps and transport , them to the carolinas.

so, they don't want them to escape or be liberated. a lot of the men have already died. so, it would only have been , left at0 men or so andersonville at that time. and sherman knows this. he realizes this. so, he doesn't really consider the possibility of veering off course, or sending some of his men that way. because we talked about his march, he is focused on what is ahead of him, getting to the sea, and bringing the war to an end closer. so, the idea that sherman could have averted the horrors of andersonville or alleviated , suffering, i don't think it would have made much of a difference by that point.

so, why were these prisons, not only andersonville but the , northern ones, why were they overcrowded? questions to understanding why the conditions were so bad at andersonville and the other prisoner of war camps, i think. that had to do with the collapse of the prisoner exchange system. began, it is sort of convention to have a prisoner exchange, particularly among officers and for larger groups of enlisted men. what would often happen, it was an informal exchange. we have a group of our guys. you have a group of our guys. you would simply exchange them, and then go back to fight, although they were not supposed to go back into the armies, they did. on an army'sxing

resources to try to take care of a lot of prisoners of war. you have to build camps and have guards, which major are taking men out of the fighting force to work as guards and policeman. so, it is not ideal to have large amounts of pows. so they tried to exchange them that way. that was the white -- that was the way things were, up until the union army starts enlisting black soldiers. and the confederacy refuses to exchange any captured black soldiers. and because they refuse to exchange black soldiers, lincoln -- president lincoln brings the prisoner exchange to a halt. he issues a command to all of his military officers that they are not to exchange any prisoners so long as the confederacy were uses to exchange african-american

prisoners. and so, this happens, the collapse of the prisoner exchange before ulysses s grant he comes the commander of union forces, the army of the potomac. a lot of critics of grant will use this quotation of his and allowed, he needlessly these men to suffer and die in andersonville. it was not his policy or the policy of the president. policy, butt his the policy of the president. he approached robert e. lee several times throughout 1864 as the population of prisoners are growing, and growing, and growing. he approaches him about the reinstatement of the exchange. let's reinstate the prisoner exchange. will you exchange black prisoners? and lee response, i do not have the authority to exchange black

prisoners. the confederate government refuse to exchange them. they both agree as long as the confederacy refuse to exchange black prisoners they can't in good faith participate in the exchange at all. a lot of the men who were sitting in these putrid conditions in andersonville don't care. they want the exchange to get moving again. they want to go home. they are dying there. but both grant and lincoln agree askedhey have african-american men to fight and to die on behalf of a , up until that had point, not given them much reason to do so. by this several hundred thousand point, african-americans by the war's end will have fought for , the union army. they cannot say we will exchange the white soldiers and you can

keep any black captives you might have. it is just morally wrong. it is terrible for the morale. how can you expect more african americans to join the fight if they know that their commanders and their country think so little of them? right? it really is a sticking point morally for both lincoln and grant, and they refuse to exchange any prisoners at the confederacy will not exchange black prisoners as well. so, grant here is right. he said, it is hard on our men to be southern prisoners, but when we start releasing confederate prisoners, they are sent to going to go back into their ranks and pick up guns and start fighting again. it is for grant, not a matter of trying to outlast the confederate supply of manpower.

it is more complicated than that. there is a serious, moral imperative at stake for both grant and lincoln regarding the exchange of black soldiers along with white ones. it is important if they were to understand why the population of these prisons grows so astronomically in 1864. why conditions get so out of hand their? it is not a case of saying the government let this happen. both lincoln and grant felt like they were not in a position to do otherwise. it was a complicated issue. , wirz certainly never expected to be on trial for war crimes.

the idea of war crimes comes into being through his trial. he is kind of the first person charged with this. in another piece of evidence that suggests he didn't imagine he was going to be held accountable, prosecuted for what happened at andersonville. when the war is over he goes to next to thehich is prison, and he stays there. the unionts for soldiers arrive in the break the camp, which they do. he doesn't expect that they are point to hold him accountable for that. but he is arrested in may of 1865, and taking to washington -- and taken to washington d.c. in the fall of that year beginning in august, he is put on trial. it is important to note that this trial is not an civilian trial like a trial at the

lincoln conspirators. the trial is conducted by a military tribunal. it was controversial at the time. people thought the lincoln conspirators and wirz should have been tried by a civilian court. but the army and the federal , even thoughought peace has technically been declared, the worst technically over at this time, this is still part of the war itself. right? -- they sub the lincoln conspirators had done as an extension of the confederate war effort, and likewise, they were holding wirz to trial for his wartime actions. so that is how they justified a military tribunal. so, he is tried by a military

commission. prove --nment hopes to what they are trying to do is not simply hold wirz accountable, which they are, but people are up in arms about andersonville and how many people died. they want to hold someone accountable. but they also intend to lay the ofundwork for future trials high-ranking leaders, people .ik , and they want to prove that there was a broader conspiracy among these high-ranking confederate officials, to deprive the union soldiers, union prisoners of war eventuallyd to act

and maliciously against them. that is what they are hoping to do with this trial. in addition to holding wirz accountable. charged, not simply with being incompetent supervisor, or superintendent. he is actually charged with maliciously knowing of all of the mistreatment and abuse that is going on allowing it to happen, but in 13 cases he has been charged with committing murders by his own hands. he is charged with 13 counts of murder he committed personally. he was charged with shooting with his revolver prisoners. he was charged with at least one count of stomping a prisoner to death. he was also charged with

allowing dogs to mull prisoners who had escaped, or attempted to escape. he was charged with trying to -- he was charged with giving orders to the guards to shoot men from the pigeon roof. at the trial, there was not a lot in the way of direct eyewitness testimony that wirz had done any of these things. most of the evidence amounted to hearsay. right? someone told me that they heard someone say that wirz had shot someone. right? there was not a lot in the way of direct testimony. this is a key difference between a military tribunal and a civilian court. because in a civilian court, hearsay evidence is not admissible. but in a military tribunal, the level of proof that one must produce is much looser than what much less stringent

than in a civilian court. some people advocating for him said, this isn't right. this military tribunal, it be really easy to railroad someone if that is what you had in mind. thing a said the same few years about her trial by a military commission earlier that year. it was a controversial move to try him before a military tribunal. the commission saw photographic evidence like this. these are actual photographs taken of andersonville survivors. once they are presented with this kind of photographic evidence, you know, that is very hard to deny that men who

survived andersonville, they left looking like this. right? they are skeletons. they are severely emaciated. liberated, not let live because they were too far gone already. this was very powerful evidence against henry wirz. how could he explain this? right? and the prosecutors would point to the labor code, which we already studied and various articles talking about how the prisoners of war are not supposed to be traced -- are not supposed to be mistreated. they are not supposed to be starved. they are supposed to be given adequate food. they're not supposed to be mutilated. they are supposed to be given medical treatment where it is possible. the fact that wirz was a physician, several people pointed out he knew that.

he was a doctor. you should have known these men were so ill and done more to provide them with care. with medicine. what is wirz's defense? what kind of defense can you put onto this? first of all, to the charges that he had by his own hand, murdered prisoners, he flat out the united. he said there's no way. i did not kill anyone. and to the overall conditions at the prison, he said look, i did the best with what i had. the camp was horribly overcrowded because the prisoner exchange had collapsed. the confederacy didn't have money to feed its own soldiers, or provisions or resources to take care of its own men.

how was i supposed to take care of these inmates i had when i had nothing to the them with? i would have fed them if i had stuff to feed them with. i would have given the medicine if i had medicine to get them, but i have nothing to work with. because the federal cf. this time was collapsing in on it last leg. he said, what could i do? i could only work with what i had. and i told my superiors in richmond, that i needed help. but they said there was no help, so what could i do? i was given this job. this was my job. i was just doing the best i could. i was just following orders. but that was not good enough. the military commission found him guilty. 1865, heer the 10th, was executed in the same prison yard that mary surratt and the lincoln conspirators were

executed the previous july. this is the picture just moments after he dropped through the scaffolding. buried in the same cemetery as mary surratt in washington, d.c. you can see here, they have put a small marker on his grave, it says captain henry wirz, confederate hero, martyr. die november 10, 1865. so how should we remember henry wirz? should we think of him as a martyr? i am confused because you think of a martyr to what? there is supposed to be a bigger cause a martyr is murdered for. i don't know how to think of wirz as a martyr.

i will admit, it is difficult for me to think about him as sortne who intentionally of inflicted cruelty, and suffering on those men at andersonville. i think the evidence against him for having perpetuated, having actually killed people, is sketchy. i don't think it would hold up in a civilian court of law. that, do we hold him, or should we hold him responsible, and some way, for those terrible conditions. ? for the 45% death rate, the 12,000 men harassed -- perished at andersonville? who was ultimately responsible? forread -- you're reading

today was an account of andersonville prison by a survivor, it was actually a diary that he kept, michael doherty. and one thing that stands out about doherty's account is that wirz does not appear very often. right? there is not a lot of -- he does not see wirz a lot. one of the things he says is that he was sick himself and confined. -- and confined to his house. he was not out and about circulating, killing prisoners, or kicking prisoners, or sicking dogs on prisoners. he said, i was not even all around a lot. and in doherty's diary, he does not talk about wirz very much. and doherty has much harsher criticism for men like jefferson davis, who he says the confederate government did not

do its job. this is why the conditions in this camper so bad because jeff davis is sitting in richmond and does not care about what is happening to the prisoners at these camps. so, do know, it is a quandary. it is a problematic question that comes out of the civil war, and it is one that it is really applicable to warfare in general, not just of the civil work, -- not just to the civil war, but lots of wars previous to that, and ones going on today as well. are there any questions? yes. >> who made the decision by trying somebody for a military tribunal instead of a civilian court? prof. emberton: the reason that decision was made at the time because the offense had

happened during the war. happenedents have during the war. wirz have been acting as an emissary or a person of the confederate army and these were part of war duties. the army pretty much decided that this is a wartime issue. so, it can be decided by a military commission rather than a civilian court. any other questions? yes. >> does wirz ever ask the confederate government for better -- were their letters, were there documents? prof. emberton: yes. did wirz ever ask for help? yes, he did. letters that he sent to his superiors, and said, i need food, i need medicine. and they did say, we don't have any.

there is evidence he did try to get assistance, and there was no assistance forthcoming. largely, he was right. the confederacy didn't have it at that time. so, i think that, to my mind that is a legitimate argument he made. that is not him simply trying to get out of responsibility. one of those cases that makes you stop and think, what could he have done? what would i have done in that situation? and, you know, at the end of the day, henry wirz is one of those who had theres, issue had been on the other foot, have the confederacy won and the union loss, you might think, with the superintendent of elmira been

held accountable in the way wirz was. winners get to write history, right? and they also get to decide the terms of peace after a war is over. any other questions? yes. >> was anybody else, was there an attempt told anyone else accountable for what happened? prof. emberton: for andersonville, no. they had initially hoped that works -- that wirz's trial of the the first of several. they wanted to bring jefferson davis and high-ranking confederate leaders, the men who had instigated and encouraged the session. they wanted to bring them to trial for treason. in fact, jefferson davis is indicted, and he is held on that indictment for nearly two years before he is finally released. because government prosecutors

to a consensusme about whether or not he is guilty of treason, and if they could get a convention for him for that. is really the only confederate official who is held accountable for anderson, but really for what happened from 1861 to 1865. thens an ongoing question what should be done? ,should these confederate leaders be punished? should they be executed? there were people anything 65 who thought so, but there were many others who taught no. the best way to move forward to try to bring the country back together, is to avoid that kind , or those kinds of really dramatic punishments, and

just try to move forward from that. we will start talking about reconstruction next. there were some legal limitations, or punishments for x confederates. that they wereue not strict or harsh enough. yes. [inaudible] prof. emberton: right. so yes. trial, as i mentioned at the beginning of the lecture, becomes the precedent for what happens at nuremberg and the 20th century when you have war crimes trials. so the allied prosecutors, when they are preparing for the

nuremberg trial, they try to find where has this happened before? this was the main case they could find, so they study the wirz trial to try to anticipate what the defense of the nuremberg nazis is going to be and how they are going to , counter that. how do they counter, how do you prepare for the defense that i was not personally responsible, i was only following orders? which is the mainline defense of the not see officials -- what is the which is the mainline defense of the officials at nuremberg. wirz is an important case for them setting the president of how to prosecute these kinds of cases when they occur in the 20th century. yes? >> did wirz have legal representation? if so, who was it? prof. emberton: yes, he did have legal representation. he had a couple of different lawyers. they were private lawyers who represented him. i cannot think of their names

off the top of my head, but he did have legal representation and was entitled to that. ,you were still entitled to that with a military commission. he had clergymen and other people who came out in support of him. some other folks at the time, who had been prominent in sort ,f anti-capital punishment anti-death penalty movement in the mid-19th century came out against his execution and said, he should be imprisoned, but not executed. it is far too great punishment for him. , andrew johnson could have pardoned him, but he chose not to do that in large part because of the public outcry against what had happened at andersonville was so great i am sure johnson just

thought it was not going to be politically expedient for him to part in this particular person. and i think, the fact that wirz was foreign-born. he is not american by birth. he is often misidentified as german. you have to wonder what role that played in him being found guilty as well. right? or being held accountable, are being held up as an example. did it matter that he was foreign-born and not american? did that make a difference? who is to say? ok, thank you guys very much. i will see you friday. >> 1 atarting monday october 8:00 p.m. eastern time, "the contenders," which puts the

presidential campaign in historical perspective. reaching across time, political geology, it looks at the political -- potential contenders that lost the we begin with henry clay and ending with ross perot. :00 p.m. eastern august 1 through 14th, here on direct history tv only on c-span 3 -- here on american history tv, only on c-span 3. >> tonight on "q&a," joshua kendall discusses his book "first dads." >> looking at fathering is trying to look at the complexity of human beings. we tend to think that this is a bad or good guy. but to see that a lot of these men, who have been president, have different parts, they were

calm part mineralized -- compartmentalized, and some could be amazing and others could horrify us. "q&a."ght on c-span's up next on american history tv, we hear from the director emeritus of the smithsonian national museum of american history, brent last. he talks about his latest book "50 great american places: essential historic sites across the u.s.," and he explains the thinking behind his selection process. the journey through hallowed ground partnership hosted this event. it is one hour. mr. butcher: i would like to thank the virginia center for the book, our local cohost. we thank you for your help, and of course, the library system. and the jefferson madison