Paul & Tara Visit the National Parks: Andersonville National Historic Site

Visited: Nov 2022

Nearby town: Americus, GA; Andersonville, GA

"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 more than mere 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."

-Sgt. Maj. Robert H. Kellogg of the 16th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, describing his entry to Andersonville Prison on May 2, 1864

The hell described by that Union soldier was found at a POW camp in southwestern Georgia. The Confederacy established the prison in February 1864, towards the end of the Civil War.

Andersonville Prison (also known as Camp Sumter) housed over 45,000 Union soldiers captured as prisoners of war. The conditions at the camp were deplorable. In its fourteen months of operation, nearly 13,000 soldiers at the prison died. Most died of scurvy, diarrhea, and dysentery.

The prison grounds are now preserved as Andersonville National Historic Site. Also at the site is the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum. It is a very sobering visit.

The Museum honors all American soldiers who were prisoners of war throughout the country's history. There are many interactive exhibits, artifacts, and letters written by soldiers detailing their experiences as prisoners of war. Lots of information about the history of Andersonville as well.

handmade crystal radio receivers built by POWs during WWII. Made out of smuggled goods, the radios allowed soldiers to hear something other than enemy propoganda broadcasts.

these sculptures memorialize US soldiers taken as prisoners of war

Andersonville Prison covered 26.5 acres enclosed by a 15-foot high stockade. When the prison first opened, it housed about 7,000 POWs, but that number quickly swelled to 30,000 by July 1864. After a company of African-American Union POWs were sold into slavery by Confederate officials instead of being exchanged for Confederate POWs held by the Union, General Grant and the Union Army halted all prisoner exchanges. This policy contributed to the growth of the prisoner population at Andersonville and other POW camps in the south. Furthermore, the Confederate government was in such dire economic straits, that they could not afford to establish additonal prisons to alleviate overcrowding. Neither could they afford to provide adequate food to the prisoners. Andersonville became overcrowded to four times its capacity, and had inadequate water supply, inadequate food, and unsanitary conditions. The Vitamin C deficiency due to lack of fresh fruit and vegetables led to scurvy, dysentery, typhoid fever, and the high mortality rate among the prisoners.

Reconstruction of the stockade wall. I'm standing next to a fence known as the "dead line." This fence was placed 19 ft inside the stockade wall. It demarcated a no man's land. If a prisoner crossed the "dead line" they were shot without warning by a sentry in the guard tower (seen here on the opposite side of the stockade wall). It is believed that this is where the modern term "deadline" comes from.

Each prisoner had a "personal" space of about 5 feet by 6 feet

The camp's only water source was a small offshoot of a creek known as Stockade Branch that ran through the middle of the camp. The creek also served as the bathroom, and thus, was highly contaminated. This also led to much disease and sickness. One night in August 1864, during a violent thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning struck the grounds of the camp and unearthed a spring that had likely been covered up when the prison was built. The prisoners now had a fresh water source. This fortuitous incident was considered a miracle and the spring was dubbed "Providence Spring." In 1901, the survivors of Andersonville placed a monument at the site of this miraculous spring.

Providence Spring

Andersonville Prison was liberated by the Union Army in May 1865, about one month after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

The prison's commander, Henry Wirz, was tried by a military tribunal on charges of war crimes. Wirz was born in Switzerland and immigrated to the US at the age of 25. Wirz lived in Massachusetts, then Kentucky, and ultimately settled in Louisiana where he worked as an overseer of a plantation and practiced homeopathic medicine. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Wirz enlisted as a private in Company A of the 4th Battalion Louisana Infantry of the Confederate Army. He rose through the ranks and was appointed to the post of commandant at Camp Sumter (Andersonville Prison).

Entered into evidence at the trial was an 1864 letter written by a Confederate surgeon, Dr. James Jones, who had been sent to investigate conditions at the prison. Jones reported the appalling conditions to Confederate authorities. In the one hour that Jones spent at the camp, he reported that he vomitted twice and contracted influenza. The tribunal heard from 12 witnesses, who testified that they witnessed Wirz physically stomping and kicking a prisoner, confining prisoners in stocks, beating a prisoner with a revolver, chaining prisoners together, ordering guards to fire on prisoners, having dogs attack a prisoner, and personally shooting and killing three prisoners. The tribunal also heard from 145 witnesses who did not observe Wirz kill any prisoners. Wirz's defense was that he had pleaded with Confederate authorities in an attempt to get more food and better conditions for the prisoners, but that his requests were ignored or denied. Wirz was reviled in the press as "The Demon of Andersonville." Wirz's defense was to no avail, he was found guilty. As punishment, Wirz was executed by hanging on November 10, 1865, one of only two men who were tried, convicted, and executed for war crimes during the Civil War.

Wirz's trial and sentencing has been a source of controversy. Some historians consider Wirz a scapegoat, and that the fault for the deplorable conditions at Andersonville rests more with the Confederate authorities who refused to provide necessary funds and supplies to house and feed the POWs.

Make sure to stop at the National Cemetery. It contains 13,714 graves, including 921 which are marked as unknown.