Andersonville Prison Essay, Research Paper
Andersonville Prison
Andersonville prison opened on Feb.
24, 1864. It was the ideal prison.
It’s located in Sumpter County,
Georgia. The prison was originally
called Camp Sumpter. At first it was
16.5 acres then expanded to 26
acres. It was 1010′ long and 780′
wide, constructed of pine logs with
thickness of a foot. A small creek
ran through the middle, it was the
only source of water.
The prison caused many things like:
misery, suffering, and death. It was
only open for 14 months; from Feb.
1864 till May 1865. During that
time,13,700 died in confinement.
They died of various reasons like:
tainted food, starvation, dirty
water, filth, and diseases such as
scurvy, gangrene.
The prison was designed to hold only
10,000 union soldiers. In June,
1864, it held 20,000 men and in Aug.
‘64 it held a whopping 33,000! A
total of 49,485 men were detained.
In 1822 Henry Wirz was born. He
earned a medical degree. He was a
captain. He worked at other prisons
before taking command of
Andersonville in April, 1865. He
became a major at the end of the
war. He was took into custody by the
Union in Nov. . On Nov. 10 1865 he
was hanged in the Old Prison in
Wash. DC for various war crimes,
such as: murders of Union soldiers.
It is now a national cemetery and it
became a national historic site in
1970.