Although Antietam and Gettysburg have reputations as the “bloodiest battles of the Civil War,” it was the Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia that proved most lethal.  Although the camp only operated from February of 1864 to May of 1865, the conditions endured at Andersonville, known as Camp Sumter, were atrocious and proved fatal.

The Confederacy first established the prison under the control of Swiss physician Henry Wirz on 26.5 acres of land, suitable for 10,000 men.  However, this layout did not last long as the prison camp was soon expanded to 36.5 acres in order to accommodate the surplus of Union soldiers being captured. The resources supplied to the Prison overseers did not account for the rapidly expanding prison population. This lead Wirz to write letters to his superiors in efforts to improve life at the prison by increasing available resources. Unfortunately, these demands were never met. At Camp Sumter’s peak capacity, it held 32,000 men. The camp teemed with many types of people, from 15 year old boys to 48 year old men. Upon entering the prison, the Union soldiers were stripped of a majority of their possessions including some clothes, weapons and even some of their family pictures or utensils to write letters home with.

Disease spread rapidly due to the severe overcrowding and poor living conditions; dysentery would prove to be the leading cause of death.  In total, 13,000 men, or about a third of the prisoners, died from being shot, malnutrition, and diseases.  Guards executed prisoners for crossing the deadline, a roughly five foot buffer zone intended to keep the prisoners from trying to escape. Wirz also used intimidation techniques similar to those of a plantation owners such as iron shackling, hounds, and verbal threats as punishments for misbehavior. Poor housing and the meek pound of cornmeal that prisoners were supposed to receive daily (many did not) meant that the winters also took lives. As Confederate soldier Harrison E. Randall put it, “One cannot imagine (that has not experienced it) how much our prisoners suffer by their cruelty to them They do not seem to care how or when they feed them if not at all but there is a better day coming for those that see them.”

Following the war, Andersonville had sections of the fencing preserved which were later memorialized by the U.S. government.  Along with the memorials designated specifically to the Andersonville prison, there is also a POW museum on the property with artifacts spanning from the Civil War up to more recent engagements such as the Korean war. Many of the 13,000 casualties lay buried in a cemetery deemed the Andersonville National Cemetery, a short distance from the original prison grounds.

Credits and Sources:

Researched and written by Raines Shamburger, Seb Mosso, and John Farley, students at the Westminster Schools.

"Camp Sumter." Lecture, Andersonville National Historic Site, Andersonville, GA, January 12, 2016.

Crouse, William. William Albert Crouse Papers, 1864. Letter. Andersonville. William A. Crouse Papers, 1843-1864.

Andersonville Prison, Ga., August 17, 1864. Issuing rations, view from main gate.1864.

From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.34562/ (accessed January 24, 2016).

Farley, John. Photograph. January 20, 2016. JPEG.

Harrison E. Randall letter, MSS 669f, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.

McCoy, Fredrick Louis. "Henry Wirz." Speech, The Captain Henry Wirz Monument, Andersonville, Ga, November 10, 1979.