Our 2014 Trip - #4

Day 26 Andersonville, GA: One of our primary destinations of this trip was Andersonville, Georgia. During the Civil War our great, great grandfather was a Union soldier in the 6th Kentucky Cavalry. He was captured at the battle of Richmond, KY (more later), paroled, captured again at the battle of Chickamauga (more later), then was sent to the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, GA named Fort Sumter. He is still there in grave #2117 and we went to visit him.

Andersonville (which is actually a small town nearby) is a National Park at the site of the Andersonville Prison Camp which includes the site of the original prison camp, the camp cemetery, and  they have constructed the National Prisoner of War Museum in honor of all America prisoners of war from every conflict the United States has been involved in.

 The museum is very interesting to tour through. The prison camp includes a recreation of a small section of the 15 foot tall walls that enclosed the stockade. The prison was originally built as a 16-1/2 acre open compound to house 6,000 enlisted prisoners and opened in mid-February, 1864. By June the number of prisoners had risen to 25,000. The prison eventually was expanded to 26 acres and held 45,000 men. In the 14 months of operation, 12,914 prisoners died there. While this was the worst prison during the war, conditions in other prisons both north and south were nearly as bad.

They have recreated a section of the stockade walls to depict what they looked like, then they have placed posts to show the original layout of the stockade and parallel posts marking the location of the deadline,  the no-man's land between the fence and the stockade walls. There are also several monuments in honor to the prisoners and the sites of other areas associated with the prison. The cemetery is an active National Cemetery in addition to the camp cemetery. There have been several books written about Andersonville including a popular novel and a four-hour TV special was on a couple of years ago.

It was incomprehensible to stand there and try to imagine what my great, great grandfather endured at that location 150 years ago.