Punishment and Tragedy at Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Map

Swiss-born Captain Henry Wirz worked at several Confederate prisons before coming to Camp Sumter. Known for his tough demeanor, Wirz was sent to Andersonville in 1864 to serve as stockade commander.

For his role in the deaths at Camp Sumter, Wirz was arrested after the end of the Civil War and charged with conspiracy and murder.

General John Winder was a West Point graduate and a veteran of the Mexican War. Upon joining the Confederacy, he was given the command of prisons in Richmond, Virginia.

To relieve overcrowding in Confederate prison camps, Winder's son was tasked with finding a new location near a railroad but not too close to a large city. Andersonville, Georgia was the perfect town.

General Winder assumed direct command of Camp Sumter in 1864 and enlarged the stockade to accommodate the increasing number of inmates, but to little avail. He died suddenly from a heart attack in 1865, which likely spared him the same fate as Captain Henry Wirz.

Inmates at Andersonville Prison greatly outnumbered guards and officers. But with weapons like this cannon, capable of firing a six-pound ball, prisoners were dissuaded from resisting authority or staging an uprising.

Of the 45,000 Union prisoners detained at Camp Sumter, some 13,000 men died of malnutrition, disease, poor sanitation, overcrowding, and exposure.

According to records from August 1864, an average of 96 prisoners died everyday.

At the end of the Civil War, Andersonville National Cemetery was established as a permanent resting place to honor those who served their country.

The graves commemorate Andersonville prisoners, fallen soldiers from surrounding Civil War battlefields, and recent veterans of the United States military. Today the cemetery includes nearly 20,000 burial sites.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, many northern states erected monuments throughout Andersonville National Cemetery.

A common theme is of women or men in mourning, as seen in this Iowa monument, dedicated in 1906.

Inmate Dorence Atwater was tasked with keeping a record of the individuals who died and were buried at Andersonville Prison.

He secretly kept an additional record that helped federal officials after the Civil War to better understand what had happened at Camp Sumter.

Along with Clara Barton, Atwater helped inform the families of the deceased about the final resting places of their loved ones.

In 1976, Georgia erected a contemporary monument by sculptor William Thompson. Dedicated to all Americans, the sculpture features three crippled men walking forward while leaning on each other for support.

The inscription at the base of the monument recalls the book of Zechariah: "Turn you to the stronghold ye prisoners of hope."

Because the prison had so few staff, policing the large population of inmates was difficult. In an effort to protect themselves and create order, gangs formed among the prisoners.

One notorious group of 200 men was known as the Raiders. Because conditions were so dire, they began to rob other inmates of their food and shelter.

The six ringleaders were eventually tried by their peers and hanged for crimes against fellow prisoners.

Although the ringleaders of the Raiders gang were publicly disgraced, they were still buried in the same cemetery as their fellow prisoners.

However, there were a couple of clear differences in their graves. Some of their names were likely aliases because they had previously deserted their units and reenlisted under fake names. Their graves were also set apart from the other soldiers as an indication of dishonor.