Existing comment:
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. |