In the centre of Andersonville village, a tall granite obelisk commemorates Henry Wirz, the Swiss-born commandant of the prison camp who was hanged in Washington in 1865. The monument was put up by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909 as a Lost Cause statement: its inscription argues that Wirz was a scapegoat for conditions beyond his control. The obelisk stands today exactly as it was erected, with no contextualising plaque.
The monument is jarring after a visit to the prison grounds and the cemetery. Whatever you think about Wirz's individual responsibility, walking from the rows of Union graves to the Confederate monument celebrating his commandant is a brisk lesson in how Americans have remembered — and how they have argued about — the Civil War.