ANDERSONVILLE PRISONER-0F-WAR CAMP

COVER PHOTO: National Infantry Museum, Fort Benning, GA

ANDERSONVILLE prisoner of war camp and national cemetery was a tough first stop on our road trip north.  It is located in low rolling hill country of central Georgia near Columbus. Until early 1863 most prisoners in the Civil War were exchanged or paroled through the Union and Confederates joint prisoner exchange program known as the Cartel Agreement. Each military rank was given an exchange value so that a higher ranked officer required more lower rank men from the other side to balance the exchange.

After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, slaves who escaped to the Union lines often volunteered to serve as Union soldiers. Over the course of the War, 180,000 African-Americans served in the Union Army. However, when they were captured, the Confederates refused to treat blacks equally as their white comrades in arms. Rather, the Confederates sold them back into slavery or used them as slaves for their own army, or worse, executed them. At this point, Grant, supported by Lincoln, ended the prisoner exchange program for he would not accept black and white captured soldiers being treated differently.  Grant also had other motivations—to prevent paroled Confederates from resuming the fight and adding to the South’s military capacity. He recognized and wanted to maintain the Union’s strength in numbers.

Andersonville was selected as the prison site for it was removed from the battlefront on a hillside in a remote area of Georgia, close to a railroad line, near fields of crops and timber.  Essential to the choice of location was that a stream ran through the prison to provide a supply of water. It was aptly named the Stockade Branch of the Sweetwater Creek. In fact, the flowing water barely kept the men alive and instead became a source of major disease often leading to death. In fact, about 15% or over 56,000 soldiers died in captivity on both the Union and the Confederate sides.

Originally intended to hold 10,000 men on 16 1/2 acres surrounded by a 15 foot high stockade wall, the prison was later expanded to 26 acres holding over 32,000 prisoners in the worst possible conditions – leading to malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, infection among other appalling conditions.  As the prisoners became more numerous, a second low rail fence was built inside and parallel to the higher stockade fence and became known as the “Deadline.” Any Union prisoner who went between these two fences could be shot by a guard who was stationed along the top of the stockade fence in a crow’s nest perch. This sentry box was reached by ladder from outside the stockade.   

Remarkably, Dorence Atwater, a 19-year-old from the 2^ndNew York cavalry, preserved the names and many of the grave locations of the Union soldiers. He secretly recorded names and burial locations as he worked in the POW hospital. 

Stakes marking "Deadline" and stockade

Survivors' reunion at Andersonville, late 19th century

North double gate entrance through stockade (reconstruction)

One of the many......

Originally, the narrow graves in the red Georgia dirt were simply marked with numbered sticks. After the Civil War ended, Atwater assisted by Clara Barton, the battlefield nurse who later founded the American Red Cross, placed headstones to identify the individual prisoners-of-war who laid buried there.

 THE CAMP COMMANDANT, SWISS-BORN HENRY WIRZ

When the Civil War ended General Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. In the spirit of reconciliation, Grant allowed the confederate officers to return to their homes and farms with their horses and side-arms.  However, Captain Henry Wirz had a different fate. He was the only Confederate officer tried as a war criminal, declared guilty and executed for war crimes, Wirz was hanged on November 10, 1865 in Washington DC. And thus ended a terribly sad chapter in the history of the American Civil War.