#1: THE START OF THE PRISON SYSTEM
From the start of the Civil War in April 1861, Union and Confederate prisoners were often exchanged to help alleviate the burden of having to take care of the prisoners. This system worked well until the Union allowed black men to enlist in the military starting in 1863. When captured, the Confederates refused to exchange them, instead having them shot, returned to the slave market, or used as forced labor for the Confederate military. As a result, the Union refused to exchange any prisoners at all, forcing the creation of a prison system for both sides.
#2: DEATH TOLL
Opening in February, 1864, Camp Sumter (the actual name of the prison at Andersonville, Georgia) was originally built to hold 10,000 men on 16.5 acres. The prison was expanded to 26.5 acres later that June. However, by August over 32,000 men were imprisoned at Andersonville, far more than even the expanded prison site was meant to hold. Rations were low to non-existent, shelter from the hot sun in the summer and cold rain in the winter was under make-shift tents—if shelter could be found at all—and a once clean stream that ran through the prison was soon being used as a latrine. By the time the war ended 14 months after the prison opened, nearly 13,000 Union POWs had died from starvation, disease, or exposure to the elements. While some prisoners were beaten to death or shot by prison guards, this accounted for an insignificant number of the total deaths.
Tent exhibit at Andersonville National Historic Site
#3: PRISON GUARDS
Being close to the prisoners, guards often died from the same diseases, and as a group, they had a very high death rate. The guards were mainly men and boys who were too old or too young to fight in actual combat. Other than shooting anyone who tried to escape, they had no control over what went on inside. If you’ve ever seen the movie Escape from New York with Kurt Russell, that’s the exact situation that was going on inside Andersonville Prison.
#4: PRISON CAMP SURVIVAL
While Andersonville became the most infamous of all Civil War prison camps, and certainly the most deaths occurred there, it was not an anomaly among the 150 or so prison camps formed during the war, both Union and Confederate. In fact, a soldier was more likely to die in a prison camp (if captured) than in combat. All told, about 195,000 Union and 215,000 Confederate soldiers died while being held as a prisoner of war.
#5: CREATION OF ANDERSONVILLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
Civil War battlefields were originally preserved and governed by the United States War Department, including the Andersonville prison camp site. In 1933, all of these properties except for Andersonville became National Parks under the control of the National Park Service. The reason Andersonville was omitted was because Southern Congressmen feared the federal government would create a park that would blame the South for the deaths of an estimated 13,000 Union soldiers, making the South look bad in the eyes of the nation (parks are created by acts of Congress). When Southern Congressmen finally agreed to vote for the creation of Andersonville National Historic Site in 1970, it was with the understanding that the park’s reason for existence was not to harp negatively on the South’s role at Andersonville, but “to provide an understanding of the overall prisoner of war story of the Civil War, to interpret the role of prisoner of war camps in history, to commemorate the sacrifice of Americans who lost their lives in such camps, and to preserve the monuments located within the site.”
National Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville National Historic Site
#6: VISITOR REACTION TODAY
Park Rangers who give prison tours today have to remain very neutral. Rangers often have angry Southerners and Northerners yell at them for supposedly taking a side, and threats of violence against them have occurred. Northerners blame the South for the prison camp deaths, while Southerners blame the deaths on the fact that the Union abandoned the prisoner exchange system that existed at the start of the war.
#7: IDENTIFYING THE DEAD
Andersonville National Cemetery was created in 1865, though soldiers who died at the prison had been buried at the site since 1864. Graves were only marked with numbered posts, but a young prisoner who worked at the prison hospital, Dorence Atwater, kept a list of the dead that matched grave numbers with names. He made one copy for the Confederates and one copy that was to go to the Union after the war. Fearing that the Union copy would never be delivered, he created a third, secret copy for himself. After the war, he and Clara Barton teamed up and were able to identify 95 percent of the men buried at Andersonville. Since then, soldiers from all wars have been buried at the cemetery, and burials continue to this day. Of the fourteen National Cemeteries under the management of the National Park Service, only Andersonville and Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville, Tennessee, are still active.
Andersonville National Cemetery
#8 REGULATORS V. RAIDERS
Arguably responsible for more Union POW deaths than prison guard abuse was the gang of Union POW ruffians called the Raiders. Headed by six men and numbering somewhere between 100 and 500 members, the Raiders stole food and other supplies from fellow soldiers, sometimes killing those who resisted. The loss of food or materials to build a shelter directly contributed to the deaths of many, particularly those who were already in poor health. The antics of the Raiders were eventually reported to Camp Sumters’ commander, Captain Henry Wirz, who allowed the prisoners to form their own police force, even giving them the ability to hold trials and administer punishment. The group was known as the Regulators, and while a small band of these men had been operating to stop the Raiders prior to Wirz’s blessing, the group swelled in number and now began making arrests. The six leaders of the Raiders were arrested between June and July 1864 and were eventually hung. Their graves stand separate in the Andersonville National Cemetery because no honest Union soldier wanted to be buried with them. As irony would have it, today this separation makes the six Raiders the most remembered of all the Union soldiers who died at Andersonville.
Graves of the six leaders of the Raiders at Andersonville National Cemetery
