A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program, and also by the Independent State of Croatia at the Jasenovac concentration camp.^[1] The use of gas chambers has also been reported in North Korea.^[2]

United States[link]

Gas chamber usage in the United States.

  Secondary method only

  Previously used, but not today

  Never used gas chamber

Post-Furman uses by state and numbers

Gas chambers have been used for capital punishment in the United States to execute criminals, especially convicted murderers. The first person to be executed in the United States by lethal gas was Gee Jon, on February 8, 1924. An unsuccessful attempt to pump poison gas directly into his cell at Nevada State Prison led to the development of the first makeshift gas chamber to carry out Gee's death sentence.^[3] In 1957, Burton Abbott was executed as the governor of California, Goodwin J. Knight, was on the telephone to stay the execution.^[4] Since the restoration of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, eleven executions by gas chamber have been conducted.^[5] By the 1980s, reports of suffering during gas chamber executions had led to controversy over the use of this method.

At the September 2, 1983, execution of Jimmy Lee Gray in Mississippi, officials cleared the viewing room after eight minutes while Gray was still alive and gasping for air. The decision to clear the room while he was still alive was criticized by his attorney. David Bruck, an attorney specializing in death penalty cases, said, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans."^[6]

During the April 6, 1992, execution of Donald Harding in Arizona, it took 11 minutes for death to occur. The prison warden stated that he would quit if required to conduct another gas chamber execution.^[7] Following Harding's execution, Arizona voted that all persons condemned after November 1992 would be executed by lethal injection.^[5]

Following the execution of Robert Alton Harris, a federal court declared that "execution by lethal gas under the California protocol is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual."^[8] By the late 20th century, most states had switched to methods considered to be more humane, such as lethal injection. California's gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison was converted to an execution chamber for lethal injection.

As of 2010, the last person to be executed in the gas chamber was German national Walter LaGrand, sentenced to death before 1992, who was executed in Arizona on March 3, 1999. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that he could not be executed by gas chamber, but the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.^[5] The gas chamber was formerly used in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Oregon. Six states, Arizona, California, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri and Wyoming, authorize lethal gas if lethal injection cannot be administered, the condemned committed their crime before a certain date, or the condemned chooses to die in the gas chamber.^[9] In October 2010, New York governor David Paterson signed a bill rendering gas chambers illegal for use by humane societies and other animal shelters.^[10]

Method of use[link]

Using hydrogen cyanide[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The former gas chamber in New Mexico State Penitentiary, used only once in 1960 and later replaced by lethal injection.

Executions in California were carried out in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. It was modified for the use of lethal injection, but has been returned to its original designated purpose, with the creation of a new chamber specifically for lethal injection.

When executions by gas chambers are conducted in the United States, the general protocol is as follows. First, the executioner will place a quantity of potassium cyanide (KCN) pellets into a compartment directly below the chair in the chamber. The condemned person is then brought into the chamber and strapped into the chair, and the airtight chamber is sealed. At this point the executioner will pour a quantity of concentrated sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) down a tube that leads to a small holding tank directly below the compartment containing the cyanide pellets. The curtain is then opened, allowing the witnesses to observe the inside of the chamber. The prison warden then asks the condemned individual if he or she wishes to make a final statement. Following this, the executioner(s) throws a switch/lever to cause the cyanide pellets to drop into the sulfuric acid, initiating a chemical reaction that generates hydrogen cyanide (HCN) gas:

2KCN_(s) + H₂SO_4(aq) → 2HCN_(g) + K₂SO_4(aq)

The gas is visible to the condemned, and he/she is advised to take several deep breaths to speed unconsciousness in order to prevent unnecessary suffering. Accordingly, execution by gas chamber is especially unpleasant for the witnesses to the execution due to the physical responses exhibited by the condemned during the process of dying. These responses can be violent, and can include convulsions and excessive drooling.

Following the execution, the chamber is purged of the gas through special scrubbers, and must be neutralized with anhydrous ammonia (NH₃) before it can be opened. Guards wearing oxygen masks remove the body from the chamber. Finally, the prison doctor examines the individual in order to officially declare that he or she is dead and release the body to the next of kin.

One of the problems with the gas chamber is the inherent danger of dealing with such a toxic gas. Anhydrous ammonia is used to cleanse the chamber after cyanide gas has been used:

HCN + NH₃ → NH₄⁺ + CN⁻

The anhydrous ammonia used to clean the chamber afterwards, and the contaminated acid that must be drained and disposed of, are both very poisonous.

Excluding all oxygen[link]

Nitrogen gas or oxygen-depleted air has been considered for human execution, as it can induce nitrogen asphyxiation. It has not been used to date.^{[citation needed]}

Nazi Germany[link]

Interior of Majdanek gas chamber, showing Prussian blue residue

Gas chambers were used in the Third Reich as part of the "public euthanasia program" aimed at eliminating physically and intellectually disabled people and political undesirables in the 1930s and 1940s. In June 1942 many hundreds of prisoners of Neuengamme concentration camp, amongst which 45 Dutch communists, were gassed in Bernburg. At that time, the preferred gas was carbon monoxide, often provided by the exhaust gas of gasoline-powered cars, trucks or army tanks.^[11]

Some Nazi extermination camps including Auschwitz used hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon B.

During the Holocaust, gas chambers were designed to accept large groups as part of the Nazi policy of genocide against the Jews. Nazis also targeted the Romani people, homosexuals, physically and mentally disabled, intellectuals and the clergy. According to Nizkor Project (Hebrew: נִזְכּוֹר‎), on September 3, 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp I; this was the first experiment with the gas at Auschwitz.^[12] According to a website run by Jürgen Langowski, an anti-Nazi German activist, Carbon monoxide was also used in large purpose-built gas chambers, like chambers in Treblinka extermination camp. The gas was in exhaust gas from internal combustion engines (detailed in the Gerstein Report).^[13]

Gas chamber at the Stutthof concentration camp.

Gas chambers in vans, concentration camps, and extermination camps were used to kill several million people between 1941 and 1945. Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once.^[14] The use of gas chambers during the Holocaust was attested to by several sources including the Vrba-Wetzler report and testimony from Rudolf Höss, Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and other German soldiers.^[15][16][17]

The gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed^[18] when Soviet troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek. The gas chamber at Auschwitz I was reconstructed after the war as a memorial, but without a door in its doorway and without the wall that originally separated the gas chamber from a washroom. The door that had been added when the gas chamber was converted into an air raid shelter was left intact.^[12]

Gaswagen[link]

Execution by exhaust gas was performed in specially modified vans, known as gaswagen (variously translated as "gas wagon", "gas van", or "gas car").^[19]

Napoleonic France[link]

In his book, Le Crime de Napoléon, French historian Claude Ribbe has claimed that in the early 19th century, Napoleon used poison gas to put down slave rebellions in Haiti and Guadeloupe. Based on accounts left by French officers, he alleges that enclosed spaces including the holds of ships were used as makeshift gas chambers where sulfur dioxide gas (probably generated by burning sulfur, which would have been readily available from volcanoes in the area) was used to execute up to 100,000 rebellious slaves. These claims remain controversial.^[20]

Livestock[link]

Gas chambers have also been used for animal euthanasia, using carbon monoxide as the lethal agent. Sometimes a box filled with anesthetic gas is used to anesthetize small animals for surgery or euthanasia.

References[link]

Leonard Wood
Major General Leonard Wood in 1903
Born	(1860-10-09)October 9, 1860 Winchester, New Hampshire
Died	August 7, 1927(1927-08-07) (aged 66) Boston, Massachusetts
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1885–1921
Rank	Lieutenant General
Commands held	1st United States Volunteer Cavalry Chief of Staff of the United States Army
Battles/wars	Apache Wars Spanish-American War Philippine-American War
Awards	Medal of Honor
Other work	Governor General of Cuba

Leonard Wood (October 9, 1860 – August 7, 1927) was a physician who served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Military Governor of Cuba and Governor General of the Philippines. Early in his military career, he received the Medal of Honor. Wood also holds officer service #2 in the Regular Army (John Pershing holds officer service #1). He was complicit in the 1906 Moro Crater massacre.

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Born in Winchester, New Hampshire, he attended Pierce Academy in Middleborough, Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School, earning an M.D. degree in 1884 as an intern at Boston City Hospital.

He took a position as an Army contract physician in 1885, and was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Wood participated in the last campaign against Geronimo in 1886, and was awarded the Medal of Honor, in 1898, for carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory and for commanding an infantry detachment whose officers had been lost. He received the rank of captain in 1891.

While stationed at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, in 1893, Wood enrolled in graduate school at Georgia Tech, then known as the Georgia School of Technology, and became the school's second football coach and, as a player, its team captain. Wood led the team to its first ever football victory, 28 to 6, over the University of Georgia.^[1]

Spanish-American War[link]

Wood was personal physician to Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley through 1898. It was during this period he developed a friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Wood, with Roosevelt, organized the 1st Volunteer Cavalry regiment, popularly known as the Rough Riders. Wood commanded the regiment in a successful engagement known as the Battle of Las Guasimas. When the brigade commander, Samuel B. M. Young, became ill, Wood received a field promotion to brigadier general of volunteers and assumed command of the 2nd Brigade, Cavalry Division, V Corps (which included the Rough Riders) and led the brigade to a famous victory at Kettle Hill and San Juan Heights.

Staff of the 1st US Volunteer Regiment, the "Rough Riders" in Tampa—Col Wood is 2nd from right with Lt Col Roosevelt far right.

After San Juan, Wood led the 2nd Cavalry Brigade for the rest of the war; he stayed in Cuba after the war and was appointed the Military Governor of Santiago in 1898, and of Cuba from 1899–1902. In that capacity, he relied on his medical experience to institute improvements to the medical and sanitary conditions in Cuba. He introduced numerous reforms similar to those of the Progressive Movement in the U.S.^[2] He was promoted to brigadier general of regulars shortly before moving to his next assignment.

Philippine-American War[link]

In 1902, he proceeded to the Philippines, where he commanded the Philippines Division and later became commander of the Department of the East. He was promoted to major general in 1903, and served as governor of Moro province from 1903–1906, a stronghold of Muslim rebellion. He received criticism for his handling of the battle at Bud Dajo where six hundred Moros were casualties, including women and children who were killed by long-distance artillery fire while they accompanied the Moro soldiers.^[3]

Army Chief of Staff[link]

Wood had known Theodore Roosevelt well before the Spanish-American War. Wood was named Army Chief of Staff in 1910 by President Taft, whom he had met while both were in the Philippines; he remains the only medical officer to have ever held that position. As Chief of Staff, Wood implemented several programs, among which were the forerunner of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, and the Preparedness Movement, a campaign for universal military training and wartime conscription. The Preparedness Movement plan was scrapped in favor of the Selective Service System, shortly before World War I. He developed the Mobile Army, thus laying the groundwork for American success in World War I.

World War I[link]

Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood in later years

In 1914, Wood was replaced as Chief of Staff by William Wotherspoon. Wood was a strong advocate of the Preparedness Movement, led by Republicans, which alienated him from President Wilson. With the US entry into World War I, Wood was recommended by Republicans, in particular Henry Cabot Lodge, to be the U.S. field commander; however, War Secretary Newton Baker instead appointed John J. Pershing, amid much controversy. During the war, Wood was, instead, put in charge of the training of the 10th and 89th Infantry Divisions, both at Camp Funston. In 1915, he published The Military Obligation of Citizenship, and in 1916. Wood became the 14th American officer to hold the permanent rank of lieutenant-general. The permanent rank of lieutenant-general had last been awarded upon retirement to General Winfield Scott.

Republican politics[link]

Wood was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the election of 1920. He was urged into running by the family and supporters of his old friend Theodore Roosevelt, who had himself been considering another campaign before his illness and death in 1919. He won the New Hampshire primary that year, but lost at the convention. Among the reasons why he did not become the candidate were rivals for the nomination, his obvious political inexperience, and the strong support he gave for the anti-Communist strategy of Democratic Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to defeat radical subversion. After the major candidates deadlocked, the nomination went to Warren G. Harding.

Philippines[link]

He retired from the Army in 1921, and was made Governor General of the Philippines, in which capacity he served from 1921 to 1927.^[4]

Wood died in Boston, Massachusetts after undergoing surgery for a recurrent brain tumor. He had initially been diagnosed in 1910 with a benign meningioma brought on by exposure to experimental weapons refuse.^{[citation needed]} This was resected by Harvey Cushing at that time, and Wood made a full recovery until the tumor later recurred. The successful removal of Wood's brain tumor represented an important milestone, indicating to the public the advances that had been made in the nascent field of neurosurgery, and extending Wood's life by almost two decades.^[5]

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.^[6][7] His brain is held at the Yale University School of Medicine as part of an historic collection of Harvey Cushing's patients' preserved brains.

Legacy[link]

Wood's actual field jacket from the Spanish American War seen in above photo—on display at the National Museum of American History

Camp Leonard Wood in Missouri, now Fort Leonard Wood, home of the United States Army Combat Engineer School, Chemical School, and Military Police School, and USAF 364 TRS Det 1, were named in his honor, as was the USS Leonard Wood (APA-12).

Leonard Wood Road in Baguio City, Philippines was named in his honor. A Public Elementary School in Barangay Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Philippines (inside Eversley Childs Sanitarium compound) was also named after him.

Ft. Leonard Wood is also a major TRADOC post for Basic Combat Training (BCT), home of the 10th Infantry Regiment.

Wood Street corner Gov. Lim Avenue in Zamboanga City, Philippines was also named in his nobility.

He is portrayed favorably in the 1997 miniseries Rough Riders by actor and former United States Marine Dale Dye.

Leonard Wood was portrayed in a less favorable light by Mark Twain and others for his part in leading the Moro Crater massacre in 1906.

A plaque in Wood's memory is found in Harvard University's Memorial Church.

On March 11, 2012, in an interview on the television program Fox News Sunday, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said of his opponent Mitt Romney, "The fact is that Romney is probably the weakest Republican frontrunner since Leonard Wood in 1920, and Wood ultimately lost on the 10th ballot."^[8]

Medal of Honor citation[link]

Medal of Honor

Voluntarily carried dispatches through a region inhabited by hostile Indians, making a journey of 70 miles in one night and walking 30 miles the next day. Also for several weeks, while in close pursuit of Geronimo's band and constantly expecting an encounter, commanded a detachment of Infantry, which was then without an officer, and to the command of which he was assigned upon his own request.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	United States Army portal
	World War I portal

• List of Medal of Honor recipients
• List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Indian Wars
• List of people on the cover of Time magazine (1920s)—19 April 1926

References[link]

Citations[link]

Further reading[link]

• Hermann Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, a Biography, 2 vol., 1931
• Lane, Jack C. Armed Progressive: General Leonard Wood (2009)
• Jack McCallum, Leonard Wood: Rough Rider, Surgeon, Architect of American Imperialism (2005)
• Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), "Comments on the Moro Massacre", 1906

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Leonard Wood

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Leonard Wood

• "Biographical Sketch". http://www.archive.org/stream/biographicalsketcopy01hame#page/202/mode/2up. Retrieved September 29, 2010. 
• "Fort Leonard Wood's website". http://www.wood.army.mil/. Retrieved September 29, 2010. 
• "Leonard Wood". Claim to Fame: Medal of Honor recipients. Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1123. Retrieved 2008-02-01. 

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