Synopsis
The Andersonville Trial
Published by Dramatists Play Service
0 Female
"The audience at Henry Miller's Theatre could not wait for the end of The Andersonville Trial to begin its cheering last eveningI shared the enthusiasmAn adroit courtroom dramaThis is lusty theatre" ~ NY News
"A hell-raising heart searcherBroadway drama took a long step forward last evening" ~ NY World-Telegram & Sun
"An absorbing and thoughtful dramaA provocative study of the moral issues involved in the conflict between man's obligation to authority and to his conscience" ~ NY Post
As told by Chapman from the NY Daily News: "Wirz, a Swiss immigrant and a doctor, had enlisted in the rebel army, had been severely wounded and, a semi-invalid, had been put in command of this military prison. It was merely a stockade with no shelter from winter or summer, and its food consisted of rough corn bread
In summer, Wirz testified at his trial, a hundred men died there each dayTorn by awful memories and coldly pursued by his prosecutor he [Wirz] maintains that he ran Andersonville as a soldier acting under superior orders." The crux of this stirring play raises the question of when the responsibility of the individual to his conscience transcends any power or authority