BGuthrie Photos: GA -- Andersonville NHS

GA -- Andersonville NHS:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. AND_030828_018.JPG: From a sign: In 1865, as Clara Barton raised the United States Flag over the cemetery, the site was dedicated to recognize this somber place as a National Cemetery. The headstones which are placed close together are those of Union prisoners. The remaining headstones, placed farther apart, represent more recent wars. The cemetery, along with the prison site, was transferred from the US War Department to the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service in 1970. Prison Burials: The prisoners' headstones are only inches apart. As the death rate at Andersonville escalated to 100 per day, officials abandoned the use of pine-box coffins and had the bodies buried shoulder to shoulder in trenches. At first, only numbered stakes marked the prisoners' graves. The dead might have remain unidentified except for the efforts of Dorence Atwater, a former prisoner. Prison officials assigned Dorence Atwater to keep records of the dead. Hoping to notify bereaved relatives after the war, Atwater made a second copy of the death list, which he smuggled out in the lining of his jacket. When he accompanied Clara Barton to Andersonville in July 1865, they were able to match his list with the numbered stakes. Each prisoner could then be honored by name.
2. AND_030828_019.JPG: The Illinois state memorial
3. AND_030828_064.JPG: From the sign: The Raiders' Graves These six graves were deliberately set apart; these six prisoners were buried with dishonor. Only enlisted soldiers were imprisoned at Andersonville. With no Union officers to maintain order, life in the pen became anarchy. A gang known as the Raiders roamed the prison yard, bullying, robbing, and even murdering other prisoners. Eventually, with the blessing of Commandant Wirz, the prisoners formed a police squad called the Regulators, arrested the Raiders, and tried and hanged the six ringleaders. ... Before their execution, the six Raider leaders were court-martialed by their peers. Confederates provided lumber for the gallows, which was erected near the prison's South Gate. The remaining Raiders were forced to run a gauntlet formed by their fellow prisoners. ... The names on these headstones may not be accurate. Several of the Raiders were deserters who re-enlisted under aliases.
4. AND_030828_071.JPG: The New York state memorial. From the sign: Massive Monuments In 1911, the state of New York erected this granite monument to honor its troops who died in Andersonville prison. Large monuments were a fashion of the time, built on a scale that would symbolize enormous sacrifice. There are twelve monuments in this cemetery and eleven at the nearby prison site. Each has a unique design. Because so little remains of the historic prison, the monuments form a permanent part of the Andersonville landscape.
5. AND_030828_079.JPG: This is the back of the New York memorial, which I imagine most people never see.
6. AND_030828_098.JPG: The Connecticut state memorial. Its inscription is: "In memory of the men of Connecticut who suffered in southern military prisons 1861-1865." A statue identical to this is on the grounds of the Connecticut state capital.
7. AND_030828_107.JPG: Pennsylvania's state memorial
8. AND_030828_117.JPG: An unusual memorial. The text says: American former prisoners of war, Stalag XVII-B: Erected by an in honor of all Americans held prisoners of war in a German prison camp known as Stalag XVII-B in Krems, Austria 1943-1945. And in memory of all Americans held as POWs in European Theatre in WWII.
9. AND_030828_134.JPG: The Minnesota state memorial
10. AND_030828_155.JPG: The Iowa state memorial
11. AND_030828_169.JPG: We're in the prison now. Note the indicators for "Stockade" (the wall) and "Deadline". If you crossed the deadline, you would be shot without warning.
12. AND_030828_174.JPG: From the sign: Providence Spring. During a heavy rainstorm on August 14, 1864, a spring suddenly gushed from this hillside. The prisoners were desperate for fresh water, and over time the event became legendary. Several men claimed to have seen lightning strike this spot just before the spring burst forth. This damp slope, with its many natural seeps, would appear to be a likely site for a spring. Workmen may have inadvertently buried the spring's outlet while digging the stockade trench. Whether an act of nature or divine providence, the effect of the stream was an answer to thousands of prayers. ... Providence Spring was not exactly at the Pavilion site but on this slope within the deadline. At first, prisoners reached the spring by tying cups to tent poles, but guards later allowed them to trough the water into camp.
13. AND_030828_184.JPG: The tablets on either side say the following: This pavilion was erected by the Woman's Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, in grateful memory of the men who suffered and died in the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia from February 1864 to April 1865. The prisoner's cry of thirst rang up to heaven. God heard, and with his thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweetest waters gushing here. Erected 1901. This fountain erected by the National Association of Union Ex-Prisoners of War. In memory of the 52,345 comrades who were confined here as prisoners of war and of the 13,900 comrades buried in the adjoining national cemetery. Dedicated Memorial Day, May thirtieth nineteen hundred and one. James Atwell, National Commander SM Long, Adj't Gen'l JD Walker, Ch'n Ex Committee
14. AND_030828_190.JPG: The sign says: The North Gate The trail follows in the footsteps of newly arrived prisoners. Captured Union soldiers marched from the village railroad station [in Andersonville], past this spot, and uphill to the North Gate, the main prison entrance. After prisoners passed through the outer door, it was barred behind them. Then the inner gate swung open on the prison yard. New arrivals, or "fresh fish" as they were often called, had no idea what awaited them there. "Five hundred weary men moved along slowly through the double lines of guards. Two massive wooden gates, with heavy iron hinges and bolts, swung open as we stood there, and we passed through into the space beyond. We were in Andersonville." -- Pvt John McElroy, 16th Illinois Cavalry ... The stockade had only two entrances in its 3/4-mile perimeter. ...
15. AND_030828_214.JPG: From the signs: The "Sinks" This downstream end of Stockade Branch was the site of the camp "sinks" or latrines. According to the Confederates' original plan, prisoners would get drinking water upstream and use latrines downstream, where the current would flush sewage out of the camp. Inadvertently, the prison was designed for death. Stockade posts slowed the drainage, and during dry spells the creek became more swamp than flowing stream. Dysentery swept the camp. Stockade Branch This stream, a branch of Sweetwater Creek, was the prison's water supply. Today's neatly dredged channel is misleading. When the prison was built, the stockade posts slowed the current, turning the stream banks into acres of stagnant swamp. The prisoners' latrines stood downstream. Overcrowding soon fouled the water, and the sluggish current failed to wash sewage out of the prison. The stream's bacteria quickly became lethal. ... To Confederate officials, this source of fresh water made Andersonville an ideal site for a prison. Just upstream, however, the bakehouse and guards' camp polluted the creek before it even entered the stockade.
16. AND_030828_232.JPG: Michigan's state memorial
17. AND_030828_239.JPG: From the sign: Shebangs (Prisoner Shelters) Prisoners at Andersonville had to provide their own shelters. With sticks and pieces of clothing, the prisoners improvised leaky tents and lean-tos. Many prisoners had no shelter at all. Protection from rain, dew, and broiling sun became a matter of life or death. Exposure aggravated many illnesses and infections and contributed to the soaring mortality rate.
18. AND_030828_252.JPG: The structures above are called pigeon-roosts. From the sign: Pigeon-Roosts Sentry boxes or "pigeon-roosts" were mounted every 100 feet along the top of the stockade. The guards there had orders to shoot any prisoner who crossed the deadline. Otherwise, they had little control over conditions inside. Perched above the camp, the guards themselves became prisoners of tedium and anxiety -- always fearful of prisoner uprising or Union cavalry attack. After a while, the noise, the stench, and the view across acres of ragged men and shelters must have numbed the senses. The guards also suffered from many of the same health problems as the prisoners, resulting in a high death rate in that group as well. The guards -- mostly old men and young boys from the Georgia Reserve Corps -- were reluctant witnesses to the misery of Andersonville. More seasoned troops were sent to stop Sherman's drive toward Atlanta.
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Wikipedia Description: Andersonville National Historic Site
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Andersonville prison, officially known as Camp Sumter, served as a Confederate Prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War. The site of the prison is now Andersonville National Historic Site in Andersonville, Georgia. Most of the site actually lies in extreme southwestern Macon County, adjacent to the east side of Andersonville. It includes the site of the Civil War prison, the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum. In all, 12,913 of the approximately 45,000 Union prisoners died there because of starvation, malnutrition, diarrhea, and disease.

Conditions:

The prison, which opened in February 1864, originally covered about 16.5 acres (67,000 m2) of land enclosed by a 15-foot (4.6 m) high stockade. In June 1864 it was enlarged to 26.5 acres (107,000 m2). The stockade was in the shape of a parallelogram 1,620 feet (490 m) by 779 feet (237 m). There were two entrances on the west side of the stockade, known as "north entrance" and "south entrance".

A Union soldier described his entry into the prison camp:

"As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. "Can this be hell?" "God protect us!" and all thought that He alone could bring them out alive from so terrible a place. In the center of the whole was a swamp, occupying about three or four acres of the narrowed limits, and a part of this marshy place had been used by the prisoners as a sink, and excrement covered the ground, the scent arising from which was suffocating. The ground allotted to our ninety was near the edge of this plague-spot, and how we were to live through the ...More...
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (GA -- Andersonville NHS) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2002_GA_Andersonville: GA -- Andersonville NHS (78 photos from 2002)
- 1998_GA_Andersonville: GA -- Andersonville NHS (144 photos from 1998)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Cemeteries] [Civil War] [Park (National Park Service)]
2003 photos: Equipment this year: I decided my Epson digital camera wasn't quite enough for what I wanted. Since I already had Compact Flash chips for it, I had to find another camera which used CF chips. That brought me to buy the Fujifilm S602 Zoom in March 2003. A great digital camera, I used it exclusively for an entire year. Trips this year: Three-week trip this year out west, mostly in Utah. Number of photos taken this year: 68,000.
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