Prisons (CWSS)

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville, or Camp Sumter as it was officially known, was one of the largest of many Confederate military prisons established during the Civil War. It was built early in 1864 after Confederate officials decided to move the large number of Federal prisoners kept in and around Richmond, Virginia, to a place of greater security and a more abundant food supply . During the 14 months the prison existed, more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined here. Of these, almost 13,000 died from disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding, or exposure to the elements.

In November 1863, Confederate Captain W. Sidney Winder was sent to the village of Andersonville in Sumter County, in south-central Georgia, near the present-day towns of Americus and Plains, to assess the potential of building a prison for captured Union soldiers.

The Deep South location, the availability of fresh water, and its proximity to the Southwestern Railroad, made Andersonville a favorable prison location. Andersonville thus became the site for a prison that was soon to become infamous in the North for prison conditions and the thousands of prisoners that would die there before war's end.

Conditions
A prison for enlisted soldiers, it was designed to hold 10,000, but by August 1864, due to deteriorating resources and the breakdown of the prisoner exchage system, the prison population had swelled to over 32,000.
This atrocious overcrowding quickly led to health and nutritional conditions that resulted in 12, 912 deaths by war's end in May 1865. The prison guards, composed mostly of older men and boys, watched from sentry boxes (called "pigeon roosts" by the prisoners) perched atop the stockade and shot any prisoner who crossed a wooden railing, called the "deadline."

Handicapped by deteriorating economic conditions, the Confederates lacked the necessary materials and amounts of food for 10,000 prisoners, not to mention the 26,000 that were confined there by June 1864. Available shelter was deduced to crude shelters huts of made scrap wood, tent fragments, or simple holes dug in the ground. Many had no shelter of any kind against the elements of rain, heat, and cold. No clothing was provided, and many prisoners were left with rags or nothing at all.
tents

Casualties

With these unspeakably miserable conditons, almost 30 percent of the prisoners confined to Andersonville died at the camp during its 14-month existence. Diseases such as dysentery, gangrene, diarrhea, and scurvy took many. The Confederates lacked adequate facilities, personnel, and medical supplies to combat the diseases.

Today

Today, Andersonville National Historic Site is the only park in the National Park System to serve as a memorial to all American prisoners of war throughout the nation's history. The law that created the National Historic Site specified that the park is preserved to tell the Andersonville story, the story of all Civil War POW camps (north and south) and the story of all POWs in American History.

Thanks

The National Park Service wishes to thank the staff and volunteers at Andersonville National Historic Site for providing the records for our database. Thanks also goes out to Joan P. Stibitz and Susan Fuller, both Rangers at Andersonville, for working with the CWSS staff and making sure that we recieved up to date copies of the records.

Search Prison Records

Andersonville National Historic Site

Southeast Archeological Center

Sources

Andersonville: The Last Depot, by William Marvel, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1994.

Captives Immortal: "The Story of Six Hundred Confederate Officers and the United States Prisoner of War Policy", by Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, White Mane Publishing Co., Inc., Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1996.