ANDERSONVILLE

2/27/1864 - Though still under construction, when it accepts its first Northern soldiers into custody, a virtual Hell on Earth opens for business today in 1864, in southwestern Georgia, compliments of the Confederate States of America (made necessary after negotiations between the Union and the Confederacy breakdown over how black soldiers should be exchanged) ... called Camp Sumter, the site is better known to history as the infamous Andersonville Prison.

Layout

Andersonville

Hastily constructed using local slave labor in the Georgia woods near the railroad stop of Andersonville, the prison is built on 16.5 acres (it will eventually be expanded to a 26.5 acre camp) enclosed by a 15-foot high wooden stockade in the rough shape of a rectangle ... with two entrances on its western side.  Within, 19-feet from the fence, another enclosure is established with a smaller wooden fence ... a deadline for a no-mans land in which any prisoner stepping over or even touching the line is free game to be shot by the guards roaming the prison's perimeter.

Shot

Death Camp

Planned to contain a number of wooden barracks to house the captives, the extremely high cost of lumber south of the Mason-Dixon Line causes the keepers to decide their charges can get by "roughing it" ... Union soldiers live under the open skies, the "lucky" ones partially protected from the elements by makeshift shanties called "shebangs" constructed from wood scraps and blankets covering holes in the ground.

Shebangs

Nightmare

Water is provided by a creek that flows through the camp ... but it isn't long before the wet is totally polluted by the excrement of the thousands of prisoners (part of the creek is also used as a sink, and men use the rancid waters to wash in) ... and when part of the creek's banks collapse, within the camp of huge swamp of awfulness is created (the chief killers become scurvy and dysentery).

Stockade Creek

Rations costly like the lumber, the prisoners and their guards often go with little or no food ... and when there is sustenance, it is of poor quality and then poorly prepared, with the main eats supplied being badly milled corn flour.  Slowly but surely, every prisoner in the camp is starving to death.

A Survivor

The Living Dead

No Words Suffice

Added to the killer guards, lack of sanitation, lack of food, and lack of shelter, the prisoners must also contend with a group of human desperadoes, prisoners themselves, that are called The Raiders ... thieves and killers armed with clubs that will do anything to survive, stealing food, jewels, money, and clothing (the group will finally be broken up by another band of prisoners called The Regulators ... and after a trial that includes a prisoner judge and jury, six Raiders will be hung for crimes against their fellow inmates).

The Judge

Built to contain 10,000 to 15,000 prisoners, the prison soon is crammed with four times its capacity to hold, and of the 45,000 Union soldiers that are confined there before the camp's liberation in 1865, nearly 13,000 will perish (for the most part buried on the grounds, the site now includes a National Cemetery ... of the 13,714 headstones there, 921 are marked "unknown").

Andersonville National Cemetery

For his part in letting such abysmal conditions exist, after the war the commandant of the camp, Swiss-born Confederate, 41-year-old Major Henry Wirz (real name Heinrich Hartmann Wirz) is placed on trial by a military tribunal under the direction of Major General Lew Wallace (the future governor of New Mexico and author of a little novel called Ben Hur).  Found guilty of murder by shooting, stomping and kicking a victim to death, beating a prisoner with a revolver, confining inmates too long in stocks and chains, and ordering guards to fire on prisoners or have them attacked by dogs, the former doctor from Zurich is found guilty and sentenced to be hung by the neck ... a sentence which is carried out at 10:32 in the morning of November 10, 1865, on the grounds of Washington D.C.'s Old Capitol Prison (now the site of the United States Supreme Court) ... and fittingly for a story as ugly as Andersonville was, Wirz's end is not pretty ... taking the big drop, Wirz's neck does not break, and in front of 250 witnesses, he writhes at the end of his rope and takes minutes to slowly suffocate.

Wirz

Seconds After The Drop

2/27/1864 ... why today mattered ... remembering Andersonville and all its victims.

Depiction Of The Prison By Former Prisoner John L. Ransom

DEATH FINALLY FINDS ADELARD CUNIN

2/25/1957 - On a lonely hospital bed at United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, from lung cancer caused by years and years of smoking, at the age of 63, death claims Adelard Leo Cunin, who also went by the names George Gage, George Miller, and George Morrisey, but was best known by the moniker he used as a notorious Chicago mob boss and chief rival of Al Capone ... George "Bugs" Moran.

Moran

Moran is born to 31-year-old Jules Adelard Cunin, a skilled mason from Alsace, Lorraine, France, and his wife, 23-year-old Marie Diana Gobeil (from Chicoutimi, Quebec), in St. Paul, Minnesota, on August 21, 1893 (the eldest, George will also have a brother, Cyrille, and three sisters, Josephine, Laurette, and Adlore).  Brought up in the Catholic religion of his parents, the blue-eyed boy appears to have a normal early life (other than fighting with his father over his male parent's strict discipline of whippings), attending Cretin High School, a private Catholic school in St. Paul, but larceny calling to him, he joins a local juvenile gang of crooks and quits his schooling at the age of 18.  Embracing a life of crime, he is caught robbing a candy store and sent to the state's juvenile correctional facility (the Red Wing Boys' Reformatory), which does nothing to cure the wild streak that soon will have people calling him "Bugs" (for his crazy schemes and methods of dealing with trouble) and finds him being thrown in jail three times before he turns 21.  Deciding greener pastures, and more money, can be found to the south, by 1912, Moran has relocated to the "Windy City" of Chicago, Illinois.

Cretin High School

Changing his name to protect his family and better fit in, the 5'10" young George Moran is soon involved in the criminal escapades of burglary and larceny, participates in a horse-stealing ring that ransoms the equines back to their owners, before graduating to more serious crime of armed robbery ... he is caught trying to rob a Chicago River warehouse (and receives a bullet in the shoulder from an armed guard for his troubles), participates in another robbery that results in a police officer being killed, and robs a freight car.  Jail time and prison sentences follow, and scars too, as he almost loses his life in a a brawl that breaks out at a political rally (for the rest of his life he will wear high, buttoned-up collars to conceal the knife wounds to his throat and chest).  But he also makes acquaintances that will advance his career, meeting and becoming friends with toughs like Tommy Touhy, Dean O'Banion, Charles "The Ox" Reiser, Daniel "Dapper Dan" McCarthy, Earl "Hymie" Weiss, "Hot Stove" Jimmy Quinn, Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci, Louis "Two Gun" Alterie, Samuel "Nails" Norton, and Albert "Gorilla Al" Weinshank.  Not everything crooked though, Moran also finds the time to fall in love with and marry, a brunette showgirl from Constantinople, Turkey, Lucille Logan Bilezikdijan, raising her son as his own (John George), and fathering with her a son of their own.

O'Banion

The Morans

Sentence to a term of between 1-14 years for robbery in 1918, with "incentive" money put in the right palms, Moran is out of prison in February of 1923, just in time to participate in the liquor wars for the thirsty bootleg dollars of Prohibition Chicago as an important member of O'Banion's North Side Gang.  Peaceful for a time, when O'Banion is murdered in his flower store, Schofield's,  by members of Johnny Torrio's Italian South Side Gang on November 10, 1924, Moran becomes a major player in a myriad of events over the next five years that will make underworld history, culminating in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre:

*November, 1924 - Serves as one of the pallbearers at O'Banion's funeral.
*November, 1924 - When North Side killer, "Two Gun" Alterie, reacts to killing of O'Banion by challenging the murderers to shoot it out on the corner of State and Madison Streets, bringing heat on the gang from police authorities and the mayor of Chicago, it is Moran who talks him in to cooling off at Alterie's ranch in Colorado.
*January, 1925 - In front of Palermo's Restaurant, Moran, Weiss, and Drucci empty machine guns into a forest green sports car occupied by Al Capone and his chauffeur, wounding the driver, and causing Capone to special order a custom made armored limousine and travel with multiple bodyguards from then on.
January, 1925 - Moran (with a .45 automatic), Weiss (carrying a shotgun), and Drucci (their driver) attack South Side Gang leader, Johnny Torrio as he returns home after shopping with his wife.  Torrio is hit in the arm, shi\ot in the stomach, has a bullet lodge in his lung, is hit in the cheek, and has another round blast off a portion of his jawbone.  Barrel of his gun to Torrio's forehead, Moran bends over and whispers, "This is for Deanie O'Banion, you diago bastard."  But pulling the trigger, the weapon clicks, empty, and before he can reload or grab Weiss' gun to finish the job, Drucci roars up and demands the men leave as the cops are coming.  Torrio survives the attack (after surgery and weeks of protected rest), but decides to retire from the rackets, turning over leadership of his gang to Al Capone.
May, 1925 - Attacking Capone's ally, Moran, Drucci, Weiss, and Frank Gusenberg win a high speed chase in pursuit of Unione Siciliana boss, Angelo Genna (he crashes into a lamp post), and mortally wound the mob leader.
July, 1925 - Paying off turncoat Antonio Spano, Moran and Drucci assassinate Anthony Genna during a meeting at Grand Avenue and Curtis Street.
February, 1926 - Moran manages to drive himself and Drucci out of street attack by Capone gunmen.
June, 1926 - While Capone is in hiding for allegedly killing Chicago Assistant State's Attorney William McSwiggin, Moran and company abduct his driver, Anthony Curinglone (aka Tommy Rossi) ... beaten and tortured for information about his boss, the wire bound corpse of the driver, shot in the head, is discovered by two boys watering their horses in a park south of Chicago on August 3, 1926. 
September, 1926 - Using info on Capone's comings and goings as provided by his deceased driver, after a lead car has driven past, Moran leads a procession of ten sedans by the headquarters of the South Side Gang as Capone and his bodyguard, Frank Rio, are eating lunch ... shotguns and machine guns fire over 1,000 rounds into Cicero businesses along 22nd Street, but warned by Rio just in time, Capone is not hit in the barrage (the Hawthorne Restaurant, the fronts of two hotels, thirty-five cars, a number of shops, and four people wounded are holed though, with the attack ending when one gunman gets out of the ninth sedan, steps into the lobby of the restaurant, and empties a 100-round drum of machine gun bullets into the already ravaged room) ... but he is frightened and asks for a truce, which soon is broken.
January, 1929 - With Moran's okay, North Side gunmen, Frank and Peter Gusenberg, and James Clark, gun down Capone friend Pasqualino Lolordo in the living room of his home.

Torrio After Being Wounded

Capone

Weiss

Drucci

In charge after Weiss is gunned down by a Capone sniper's nest whiling walking on the street, and Drucci dead from getting lippy with Chicago Police Detective Dan Healey during an arrest, by 1929 Moran is in charge of the North Side Gang (beyond the money involved and animosity over losing three of his best friends, Moran despises Capone for making money off prostitution, and calls hm "Scarface" ever chance he gets).  The five year war between the two rival mobs finally ends on Valentine's Day of 1929, in the murderous event known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  Planned and executed by Capone hitman, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn (real name Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi), gunmen masquerading as policemen get the drop on members of the North Side Gang awaiting a shipment of stolen Canadian whiskey at the SMC Cartage warehouse on North Clark Street, and after disarming them and having the men face a wall, empty machine gins and shotguns into what becomes seven corpses.  The seven dead include hitmen Frank (incredibly still alive when the real police show up despite being struck by fourteen bullets ... when asked who shot him, he will answer incredibly, "No one shot me" before dying three hours later) and Peter Gusenberg, James Clark (now Moran's second-in-command), business manager Adam Heyer, car mechanic John May, gambler Reinhardt Schwimmer, and Moran look-a-like, Albert Weinshank ... the sole survivor of the intrusion of Capone's men is a dog named Highball.  Planned to be the end of Moran though, the gang leader escapes death by arriving late, seeing the fake policemen, and deciding not to proceed with the whiskey purchase until he has more information about what is going on (gang members Ted Newberry, Henry Gusenberg, and Willie Marks also manage to avoid the massacre).  Questioning by newspapermen and the authorities later as to who might be responsible, Moran states what everyone knows, but is never proved, "Only Capone kills that way."

Crime Scene

Massacre

Headlines

Though the gang is not totally destroyed, its fangs have been pulled, and the end of Prohibition 
in 1933 is another blow to Moran, a hit that eventually has the once wealthy and feared mob boss once more resorting to mail fraud and robbery to make a buck.  In April of 1939, Moran is arrested for conspiracy to forge $62,000 worth of American Express checks (over $800,000 today), flees the state, and is put behind bars in 1943.  Released for good behavior after serving only a few months, he is arrested again in Ohio and convicted in 1946 of robbing a tavern, and while serving that sentence, in 1947, he goes on trial again and is convicted of robbing a bank messenger of $10,000, a Federal offense.  Released after from the Ohio State Prison in 1956 (repentant for his earlier misdeeds, he works with mentally ill patients in the institution's psych ward, becomes a close friend of the prison chaplain, reads the Bible, and prays daily), he is immediately re-arrested and sent to Leavenworth, where he dies on this day in 1957 of Stage Four lung cancer, basically a pauper with only $100 to his name, possessing only 2 pairs of glasses, 2 bars of soap, 1 razor and a case, 4 packages of razor blades, and 1 pad of legal paper.  He is buried in the prison cemetery under a simple stone marker.

1946

Marker