The Union POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia was opened in 1864 to relieve overcrowding at other prisons and guard fewer prisoners more remotely. It was located 65 miles from Macon. By June, the hastily constructed 26.5 acre stockade held over 22,000 prisoners, swelling to over 32,000 by August in severely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions that led to rampant disease and 12,912 deaths. After the war, camp commander Henry Wirz was tried and hanged for war crimes relating to conditions at Andersonville.

1. Brandon Richards

2.  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

3.  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

4.  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

5.  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?”

6.  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

7.  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

8.  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

9. Monument to Andersonville prisoners
 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

10.  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

11.  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