The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee by John Reeves

He was extremely upset that the accusations had ever been made in the first place. Lee was never tried for war crimes against Union soldiers. The Judge Advocate General of the Army described Wirz as more of “a demon than a man.” His public execution took place near the United States Capitol. Wirz was eventually tried, convicted and hanged. The prosecutors ultimately decided to focus solely on Wirz, and they removed Lee from the indictment.

Lee and Captain Wirz were charged with war crimes. President Andrew Johnson was determined to punish all those who were responsible for such horrors. There were approximately 100 black prisoners at Andersonville and they were treated even worse than the white prisoners. Lee.Īfter the Civil War, northerners and freedmen were outraged by what they learned about Andersonville Prison, where 13,000 Union soldiers died due to insufficient food and atrocious living conditions. In August 1865, just a few months after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Wirz was charged, along with several leaders of the Confederate States of America, with conspiring to “injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military services of the United States…in violation of the laws and customs of war.” Among the co-conspirators, who were charged with Wirz, was General Robert E. Lee, I discuss the indictment of Captain Henry Wirz, the former commandant of Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. Lee: The Forgotten Case against an American Icon, and reported the following: On page 99 of The Lost Indictment of Robert E.

Reeves applied the “ Test” to his new book, The Lost Indictment of Robert E. His next book is on the Battle of the Wilderness. Lee have been featured in The Washington Post and the History News Network. John Reeves has been a teacher, editor, and writer for over twenty-five years.

The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee by John Reeves