Henry Wirz, the Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison, was hanged after a controversial conviction, becoming the only American Civil War officer executed for war crimes.

Henry Wirz was a Swiss-American convicted war criminal who served as a Confederate Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union Army prisoners of war died as a result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp; this made the captain the highest-ranking soldier and only officer of the Confederate Army to be sentenced to death for crimes during their service. Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Andersonville Prison's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.

The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states fought against the United States during the American Civil War.

The Andersonville National Historic Site, located near Andersonville, Georgia, preserves the former Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the final fourteen months of the American Civil War. Most of the site lies in southwestern Macon County, adjacent to the east side of the town of Andersonville. The site also contains the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum. The prison was created in February 1864 and served until April 1865.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.