February 2024…
In an earlier blog I shared some thoughts relating to themes in stories. I have been dwelling on this problem in relation to a novel I am drafting which relates to a man who was roundly demonised as evil and placed on trial. The man, Henry Wirz, was a captain in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and assigned to be Commandant of a prisoner-of-war camp in the heart of Georgia. The camp was hastily built, grossly overcrowded, and became renowned for a shocking loss of life, primarily among the prisoners themselves, but also among the reservist troops sent to guard the camp.
When I began writing my first draft, I had in mind that the story was to cover Henry’s drift into being accused of the vilest of crimes. Reading through the 800-page transcript of the trial, it occurred to me that there were many other forces at play that created his predicament. The trial was heavily biased in favour of the prosecution who tried to present an air of legality about the trial processes, swamping the defence case with dozens of eerily-similar testimonies condemning Henry.
The defence was afforded no time to interview witnesses or the opportunity to understand or review all available evidence. It had to make do with recalling prosecution witnesses or other outraged people who came forward voluntarily.
It led me to think that a better theme may be centred on the nature of truth in a trial. If a prosecution produces ten witnesses with a limited viewpoint, giving the same testimony – does that carry more weight than the testimony of one contradictory witness with a broader view of events? The prisoners-of-war in the Georgia camp only ever saw one officer. Henry was overworked, in poor health, with no resources, trying to manage a stockade of 30,000 prisoners that was intended for 10,000. Of course, the majority of PoW witnesses would insist that their observations were truthful, and it would be in the interest of the prosecution to emphasise that perspective to support their case.
But it doesn’t necessarily represent the truth – or at least the whole truth. PoWs paroled to work closely with Henry as clerks reported a man under great stress, with poor equipment and poorly-trained, indifferent guards, as well as domineering, vengeful superior officers. The verdict of the trial was against Henry, but it doesn’t represent an impartial expression of the truth – merely a submission to a compelling story delivered by a biased, well-resourced prosecution who took every measure possible to disrupt the defence generating a meaningful, independent alternative account.
My interpretation of the truth is in my novel, The Trials of Henry.