A Civil War Prison

The Andersonville National Historic Site, located near Andersonville, Georgia, preserves the former Camp Sumter (also known as Andersonville Prison), a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the final twelve months of the American Civil War.  As well as the former prison, the site contains the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum.

 

The site is an iconic reminder of the horrors of Civil War prisons. It was commanded by Captain Henry Wirz, who was tried and executed after the war for war crimes. It was overcrowded to four times its capacity, with an inadequate water supply, inadequate food rations, and unsanitary conditions.

Of the approximately 45,000 Union prisoners held at Camp Sumter during the war, nearly 13,000 died. The chief causes of death were scurvy, diarrhea, and dysentery. Friends provided care, food, and moral support for others in their social network, which helped prisoners survive; However, at this time in the war, Andersonville Prison was frequently under supplied with food. The Confederate Army and civilians also struggled to get enough food. The shortage was suffered by prisoners and the Confederate personnel alike within the fort. But the prisoners received less than the guards, as the latter did not suffer such emaciation, nor scurvy (caused by vitamin C deficiency). The latter was probably the main cause of mortality (along with diarrhea, caused by living in the filth from poor sanitation and the necessity to take drinking water from a creek filled at all times with fecal material from thousands of sick and dying men). Even when sufficient quantities of supplies were available, they were of poor quality and poorly prepared.

The prison, which opened in February 1864, originally covered about 16.5 acres of land enclosed by a 15-foot high stockade.   In June 1864, it was enlarged to 26.5 acres.  The stockade was rectangular, of dimensions 1,620 feet by 779 feet.

A depiction of Andersonville Prison

By  John L. Ransom
There were two entrances on the west side of the stockade, known as "north entrance" and "south entrance".

The Dead Line at Andersonville: A light fence known as "the dead line" was erected approximately 19 feet inside the stockade wall. It demarcated a no-man's land that kept prisoners away from the stockade wall, which was made of rough-hewn logs about 16 feet high and stakes driven into the ground.   Anyone crossing or even touching this "dead line" was shot without warning by sentries in the pigeon roosts. Dead lines were also used at other prisons during the Civil War.

Recreation of Andersonville  tents, with view showing the dead-line.

Although the prison was surrounded by forest, very little wood was allowed to the prisoners for warmth or cooking.

 

The water supply from Stockade Creek became polluted when too many Union prisoners were housed by the Confederate authorities within the prison walls. Part of the creek was used as a sink, and the men were forced to wash themselves in the creek.^[Wikipedia]

 

Recreated "pigeon Roost" and stockade.

North Gate

South Gate

Recreation of the locks on the North and South gates.

A Description of Andersonville by Robert H. Kellogg, Sergeant Major in the 16th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, described his entry as a prisoner into the prison camp, May 2, 1864:

“As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. "Can this be hell?" "God protect us!" and all thought that He alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place. In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the warm summer weather in the midst of such fearful surroundings, was more than we cared to think of just then”.(Wikipedia)

Needless to say, just like any war that has ever been, the Civil War in our own country was devastating to both sides.  If only humans could learn to sit down and talk through issues they do not agree with, learn to listen, learn to be tolerate of the beliefs of others, learn that, especially in this day and age, war is not the answer.  If all humans could just realize how precious life is and how short it is.

More to come soon, and I promise a happier chapter!

Jan 🌷🌷🐾🐾