“Scapegoat of Andersonville:

The Trial of Henry Wirz and the

Victorian Obsession with True Crime”

Presented By Jess Maxfield

Following the Civil War, the prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville became a symbol of the immense human suffering faced by captives on both sides of the war. Facing two halves of a country seeking blood in answer for the systemic failure of the Confederacy to care for Union prisoners, the military trial of camp commandant Captain Henry Wirz, held responsible for this atrocity, would be one of the most politically charged and sensationalized trials of the century. Join historian Jess Maxfield in unpacking the trial of Henry Wirz and its place in the evolution of American true crime.