"Wirz, remember, Andersonville."

This photo was taken by famous photographer Alexander Gardner, at the same place where the people involved in Abraham Lincoln's assassination were killed. The person about to be hanged in this photograph is Henry Wirz, a Major in the Confederate Army. During the civil war, Wirz was stationed in one of the most notorious prisons, Fort Sumter in Andersonville, GA. This photo depicts a harsh scene: a man is having a noose tightened around his neck. The audience is looking at a man who is about to die. The main theme of this photograph is definitely retribution. The subject, Wirz, was a Confederate Major in this prison camp that pretty muich tortured its inhabitants. By not rationing enough food to the prisoners, Ft. Sumter ended up being the final resting place for many captured and wounded Union Soldiers. The lines created in this photo mostly seem to point down; the wood on the building in the background, as well as the structure from which Wirz is being hanged. This is a grim foreshadowing for Mr. Wirz's fate because shortly after this photo was taken, he would have fallen toward the ground with the noose around his neck. The Union soldiers surrounding the platform all have their bayoneted rifles pointing upward, creating lines which could be seen as a sort of spike pit. On a historical website about Major Wirz, it stated that as the noose was being tightened and even as Wirz hung, in his last few moments alive, the surrounding Union Soldiers and crowd chanted, "Wirz, remember, Andersonville."