Brandon Richards

Andersonville

Beginning in February 1864, a Union POW camp was opened in Madison County, Georgia

Its main purpose was to relieve other prisons from the large amount of Union prisoners in Richmond, Virginia

It was named Andersonville, after railroad station in Sumter County

Beginning

The area chosen far from Richmond was to keep the war at a distance; but, also, this would allow for fewer men to guard them and insure lesser chance of uprising, i.e. raids to free prisoners

The location settled upon was 65 miles southwest of Macon, Georgia

Location

The construction of Andersonville began in January, 1864

20 ft. long pine logs were placed at a depth of 5 feet to create a stockade

By June, the prison had been enlarged to cover 26 ½ acres, with dimensions of 1,620 ft. long and 779 ft. wide

Sentry boxes were placed 30 yards apart along the perimeter; 19 feet offset from the stockade was a line of wooded posts with wood rail on top called the “deadline”; any prisoner who crossed it was shot on sight

The prison was originally designed to hold 10,000 prisoners; by June, it was swelling with 22,000; and by August, 32,000

Size

An incoming Union soldier wrote of his introduction to Andersonville

He wrote of the horror that befell him and made his blood run cold

Soldiers who had been there were but “walking skeletons, covered in filth and vermin.”

He asked, “Can this be Hell?”

The location – while ideally suited to keep away trouble for the guards – brought with it a lack of ready access to supplies

As the number of prisoners grew, space became less and less

Many of the prisoners were not only naked, but, covered in insects and filth, and disease; the cramped conditions made the spread of sickness that much more prevalent

A group called the Andersonville Raiders attacked fellow inmates in order to get food, jewelry, money, and clothing

A group called The Regulators formed in opposition to the Raiders and readily tried them by a jury of fellow prisoners ; punishments included running the gauntlet, ball and chain, and hangings (in 6 cases)

A petition was constructed by the prisoners asking for the Union to reinstate prisoner exchange; the request was denied, on the outset

In 1864, the Confederacy offered (unconditionally) to release prisoners if the Union sent ships to pick them up

In the autumn of 1864, following the capture of Atlanta, prisoners well-enough to move were sent to Millen and Florence; Millen had improved conditions over Andersonville

However, when General William Tecumseh Sherman began the march to the sea, prisoners were given back to Andersonville, which had, somewhat, improved itself

Conditions

Andersonville had the highest mortality rate of any Civil War prison With an amount of 45,000 prisoners being sent through Andersonville, 12,912 died from

disease, malnutrition, and other factors, roughly 32% of all prisoners During the Civil War, more than 56,000 soldiers, or 9%, died in POW camps

Deaths

Following the surrender of the Confederates, on May 7th, 1865, Captain Wirz [shown above being read his death warrant] and Officer James W. Duncan, were arrested and charged with war crimes for their involvement in Andersonville

They were tried separately: James Duncan received a 15-year sentence, but, escaped after serving one year

Wirz, however, was not so lucky. Due to the recent assassination of Lincoln, sympathy for Confederates was low, and he was sentenced to death

Aftermath

A National Prisoners of War Museum was opened in 1998 to serve as memorial to the all American POWs

The Andersonville National Cemetery contains 13,714 graves; 921 of which are of “unknown” persons

Monument to Andersonville prisoners

A Pulitzer-Prize winning novel titled Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, was published in 1955; the novel covers fictional and real characters and is largely based in prisoner memoirs

TNT created a series in 1996 documenting Andersonville via drama; aptly titled Andersonville, it was directed by John Frankenheimer

Popular Culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_National_Historic_Site http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/11andersonville/11facts1.htm http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-789 http://www.history.com/topics/andersonville

Sources