We're on our way to Andersonville, Georgia We're going to the Civil War Confederate Prison officially named Sumter, but better known as Andersonville In 1863 the Confederate Command in Richmond was looking for a place to move their Union Prisoners of War they needed a place that would be safe from Yankee rage and hopefully food might be more plentiful and needed to be close to a railroad where it would be easy to transport prisoners It also needed a water source, a creek or a branch running through it, where prisoners could drink and bathe in the upper stream and the lower part of the stream could disperse human waste The Confederate Command believed that they had found the perfect location in a small community of Andersonville, Georgia. In February of 1864 the first load of Union Prisoners arrived in Andersonville. The Stockade had been built by slave laborers furnished from local farms and plantations It was ten and a half acres and designed to hold 10,000 men but within five months the number of prisoners had more than doubled So the stockade had to be doubled in size up to 26 and a half acres The prisoners were unloaded out of boxcars here, and then marched a quarter of a mile to the prison The new prisoners were herded into this, what looks like a holding pinion Now when they marched inside, the outside doors that they come through was closed and barred, way before the gate into the Stockade were opened We're now inside the Stockade You can see the rail fence on the right. This is what they called the Dead Line now the Dead Line extends around the entire Stockade And it extends out 19 feet out from the Stockade walls If a prisoner even reached through the Dead Line, he was shot dead Thus the name Dead Line Prisoners arrived within the first three days 15 men tied their clothes together in a rope and escaped over the 17 foot high stockade walls. Now, they were quickly recaptured But the Dead Line was then established See the guard Towers? The prisoners called them Pigeon Roost There was a guard tower every 90 feet along the tops of the wall Now, this is what it looks like inside the stockade The plan was to build shelters for the prisoners, but it never materialized They were left to fend for themselves They had to build their own shelters the best they could, out of sticks and scraps of lumber With blankets over the top of it for their use Now I'm standing in the middle of the stockade here Looking south. I'm right in the middle of it The little valley is where the stockade branch is located It runs west on the right to east on the left across the ... across the prison Now the stone monument that you're looking at was the Southwest corner of the stockade Now I'm now turning down the Stockade Branch to the South East corner The width of the stockade was seven hundred and seventy nine feet Now, there is where the latrines were on the East side Now, trails with the branch with a branch running through the middle of them carried off the waste and You can see they were in use when this picture was taken And of course on the west side of the stream The prisoners got their drinking water now this is a picture of Andersonville Prison Stockade from the Southeast corner and notice the Stockade branch in the middle A total of forty five thousand men served in Andersonville Although it was only operated for 14 months, a total of over 13,000 prisoners died from all types of diseases from being served rotten and spoiled food to dysentery, diarrhea, scurvy. Drinking foul water and living out in the weather Not to speak of being shot by guards. At one time, as many as a hundred bodies per day were carried, taken out of the prison stockade and buried in mass graves and if that wasn't enough they had to contend with The Raiders. A group of thugs That band together and terrorize the other prisoners by conducting raids to confiscate whatever they could find and if you refused them you were beaten up and, sometimes, killed Finally, it got so bad, that the Camp Commander Captain Wirz had to step in and organize The Regulators. A group of prisoners to confront The Raiders With the backing of Captain Wirz, The Raiders were tried by other prisoners Some were punished and six were even hung The trial and execution was conducted inside the Stockade entirely by prisoners I'm now going from the northeast corner to the excuse me from the southeast corner to the Northeast corner A distance of some sixteen hundred and twenty feet Now we're looking towards the Northeast corner The little line of white posts on the right represents the Stockade Walls where the line of white posts on the left, or, interior represents the Dead Line Now, this picture here pretty much says it all They sometimes would allow local women to come and gawk at the prisoners Some of the women was so horrified by what they saw they went back home and cooked meals and gathered up food to bring to the prisoners. And, also, the guards And we're now standing on the dead line close to the Northwest corner This is a couple of escape tunnels dug by prisoners Some of them that hadn't been completely filled up over the years There were dozens of these escape tunnels dug. These are there only two that's left sometimes they would dig them as deep as 20 feet and then they found some that had then turned toward the wall and The tunnel would be as long as 50 to 100 feet Tunnels were disguised as wells Because prisoners were finally allowed to dig wells for their own water, which they did. The first well struck water at 18 feet, and then everybody started digging wells. And there were some two to three hundred wells before it was over with, that they tried to dig Now, this is Captain Henry Wirz, in charge of prisoners at ....... Andersonville prison To the Union prisoners, he was a tyrant To the southerners, he was an unsung hero At times he would punish the guards for hesitating to shoot a prisoner inside the Dead Line At other times he would place his own soldiers in stock alongside Union prisoners for being cruel After the war, Captain Wirz was arrested and tried for conspiring to kill and injure prisoners in violation of the Articles of War It was brought out to trial that Wirz actually pardoned five prisoners and sent them with a signed petition by all the Andersonville prisoners Requesting that the union command re-established the Prisoner Exchange Program. General Grant refused On another occasion, Captain Wirz loaded up 2,400 prisoners and sent by rail to Union held Jacksonville, Florida The Union Command there refused to accept their own men They had to be returned to Andersonville Where many of them later died of starvation and disease President Lincoln had been assassinated and the Northern newspapers were clamoring for the heads of High-ranking confederates Wirz was sentenced to be hanged on November the 10th 1865 The night before he was hanged, he was approached by officials, as he had been, several times before Stating that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in this crime, Wirz's life would be spared Captain Wirz declined Stating: "It would not be true". Wirz was hung on the old Capitol Prison in Washington D. C. The Major, seen here reading the execution orders to Captain Wirz Said to him: "You understand I'm only following orders?" Wirz's reply was "I know what orders are, Major". "I'm being hung for obeying them". Now, this is a monument in the town of Andersonville, Georgia. Honoring the memory of Captain Henry Wirz Captain Wirz was buried in the Mount Olive Cemetery in Washington D. C. He was 41 years old you
