Andersonville
No Civil War prison was more notorious than Confederate Camp Sumter near the town of Andersonville in southwestern Georgia. Designed to accommodate 10,000 prisoners, “Andersonville” as the prison became known, held nearly 33,000 in August 1864—the largest number held at any one time during the prison’s fourteen-month existence. Lack of adequate shelter, food, and sanitary facilities ensured that diseases ran rampant. Thirty percent of the inmates died. Prisoner Samuel J. Gibson, a corporal in the 103rd Pennsylvania Infantry, reassured his wife in a letter dated June 12, 1864, that the conditions could be worse, but his August diary entry revealed the depths of his despair. A later lithograph based on Maine infantryman Thomas O’Dea’s recollection of his own incarceration, reminded the public of the emaciated and diseased state of those prisoners in the horrific summer of 1864.
No Civil War prison was more notorious than Confederate Camp Sumter near the town of Andersonville in southwestern Georgia. Designed to accommodate 10,000 prisoners, “Andersonville” as the prison became known, held nearly 33,000 in August 1864—the largest number held at any one time during the prison’s fourteen-month existence. Lack of adequate shelter, food, and sanitary facilities ensured that diseases ran rampant. Thirty percent of the inmates died. Prisoner Samuel J. Gibson, a corporal in the 103rd Pennsylvania Infantry, reassured his wife in a letter dated June 12, 1864, that the conditions could be worse, but his August diary entry revealed the depths of his despair. A later lithograph based on Maine infantryman Thomas O’Dea’s recollection of his own incarceration, reminded the public of the emaciated and diseased state of those prisoners in the horrific summer of 1864.