Home > American Civil War > Henry Wirz Biography

Born November 1823
Zurich, Switzerland
Died November 10, 1865
Washington, D.C.

Confederate commander of Andersonville Prison

Only Confederate official executed
for his actions during the Civil War

"Our feelings cannot be described as we gazed on these poor human beings. . . . Such squalid, filthy wretchedness, hunger, disease, nakedness and cold, I never saw before."

A Union soldier, commenting on his fellow prisoners at Andersonville.

Henry Wirz was the commander of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp that housed more than forty thousand Union soldiers during the Civil War. More than twelve thousand Union prisoners died of disease and hunger at Andersonville, making the prison the most notorious of the many prison camps operated by the Union and Confederate armies. In November 1865, Wirz was...