POW

During the first part of the Civil War, the Union and the Confederates exchanged prisoners of war unofficially at first and then officially.  But later in the war, as the North started taking far more prisoners than the South, and when the South refused to treat black prisoners the same as whites, the North stopped prisoner exchanges.  Thus, POW camps were hastily built to house all the prisoners.

Our next stop on our way to Florida was at Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia,  home of perhaps the most infamous POW camp. Intended to hold 10,000 men in a 17 acre pen with a 15 foot stockade fence around it, it was quickly enlarged to 27 acres that at peak held close to 35,000 men.  A stream running through the center of the camp provided dirty drinking water at one side, and sewage disposal at the other.  Their were few buildings or formal tents within the walls, just whatever shelters the prisoners could build from the brush and trees present, and the blankets and tarps they may have brought in with them.  They were fed mostly uncooked starvation rations, and disease was rampant.  Confined solders suffered terribly from overcrowding, exposure, poor sanitation, inadequate food, contaminated water, lice, and other vermin.  The Confederate guards showed no mercy and shot prisoners for any reason.  On top of all this, gangs formed within the prison and they would prey on their fellow soldiers, stealing their food, blankets, and clothing.  Nearly 13,000 prisoners died in fourteen months in Andersonville of diseases, injuries, and starvation; over a hundred a day at the peak.  As soon as one died, others would strip off their clothes and take their belongings.  The death rate was so high and so many died each day, that they were laid in trenches side by side and covered with dirt; no coffins.  Twenty eight percent of Union soldiers confined at Andersonville died there.  Ten percent of all the Civil War fatalities were POW's.

The gate to the prison site.

The rebuilt stockade gates.

The stream still runs through the center of the camp site.  35,000 men got their drinking water from this stream, until one night after a violent thunderstorm, when a spring of fresh water started flowing out of a hillside.

We visited nearby Andersonville National Cemetery, where these men were buried.  It is still used as a military cemetery today.  It is sobering to see the rows of stones marking the graves of these poor men, many unknown.  Clara Barton spent the summer after the end of the Civil War identifying these men, properly marking the graves, and making sure all had a decent burial.

The monument that the State of Illinois erected after the war to commemorate the soldiers from Illinois that died at Andersonville.

The POW camps in the North were probably not much better, but because the North won and the South lost, the Confederate camps are the ones that became exposed.

   And say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace.
II Chronicles 18:26