Andersonville prison

Andersonville Prison was the largest confederate military prison during the civil war, located in the state of Georgia. Before Andersonville Prison was constructed in 1864, prisoners of the civil war were paroled and sent home, then after a formal exchange returned to active service. As the war progressed Confederate authorities began to open formal prison camps, and found a perfect location in Sumter Country, Georgia, due to its distance from the front lines.

The conditions in Andersonville Prison were extremely poor. The water supply, deemed to be adequate when the facility was planned, shortly became polluted. Due to over-crowding the food sent for the prisoners was severely deficient and inadequately prepared as there were scarce resources in the Confederacy. Within seven months at Andersonville Prison, a third of the inmates had died from dysentery due to the terrible sanitation and nutrition. Even the guards at the facility died for the same reasons as the prisoners.

Andersonville Prison or Camp Sumter as it was formally known, covered about 16.5 acres of land and had a 15ft high wall of pine logs as its perimeter. It was enlarged to 26.5 acres in June 1864. Inside the camp, 19ft from the boundary was the 'Deadline', which the prisoners were forbidden to cross, on penalty of death.

At the end of the war, Camp Sumter had received 45,000 inmates, 12,913 of which died. This makes 40% of all Union prisoners that died in the South. An investigation was made after the war due to continuing controversy surrounding the facility. It was rumoured that the conditions were in fact deliberate war crimes carried out against the Union prisoners. Consequently, the superintendent Captain Henry Wirz was tried by a court-martial and charged with war crimes and on November 10, 1865, was hanged. He was the only Civil War soldier to be executed for war crimes.

The site of the POW camp is now a National Historic Site including the original site of facility, a National Cemetery and a POW Museum.