Andersonville, Georgia. War is hell and prisoner of war camps on all sides of any war are the worst. The largest Confederate run prisoner of war camp built to house Union soldiers was intended to hold 5,000 Union prisoners in a wooden stockade without barracks or shelter. The prison population swelled to 45,000 souls crammed in to the cramped stockade with a putrid fecal-infested stream running through the centre which was supposed to provide water to the prisoners. 13,000 Union prisoners died. The place brought out the worst in some of the Union prisoners. The so-called Andersonville-Raiders were Union prisoners who preyed on their comrades and stole everything they could get their hands on while generally terrorizing their fellow prisoners. A prisoner-based police force called the Regulators rose up from the ranks and called the Raiders to task eventually resulting in a prisoner-run trial where six Raiders were convicted by their peers and hanged by their fellow prisoners. Very Lord of the Rings. The prison commander Henry Wirtz was tried and executed after the Civil War ended. Every time I visit one of these historical sites I really experience a powerful feeling that it was on this very ground where soldiers fought and died or, in this case, prisoners died in horrible conditions. Even though it happened 150 years ago, I really felt it here.

Reconstructed prison wall 

Present day site of the old prison

This is the present day site of the prison

Reconstructed prison wall

An old photo of the prison yard with makeshift tents built by the prisoners

After the Civil War, bodies of the 13,000 victims of the prison were given a proper burial in an adjoining cemetery

This is a drawing of the stockade from back in the day