Camp Sumter, more commonly
known as Andersonville, was a Confederate-run
prisoner-of-war camp built to house Union soldiers
during the Civil War. Oh, and it was also a hellhole. Thanks to rampant disease,
overcrowding, and exposure to the elements, 13,000 men
died within its brief 14 months of existence. At its worst, well over 130
Union prisoners died every day. Today we're going
to find out what it was like to be one of those
Union prisoners at Camp Sumter. But before we get started,
take a second to subscribe to the Weird History Channel. And let us know what weird
historical phenomenon, person, or event you'd like
us to cover next. Now we go to Macon County,
Georgia, in the mid-1860s. You have to remember,
the Confederacy could barely take care
of their own soldiers. So it was no surprise that they
had little provisions or care for their Union prisoners. Many of these Union soldiers
wore rags or nothing at all. Sometimes due to
the elements, they were robbed by their own rogue
comrades for their clothes. Union Private Prescott Tracy,
an Andersonville prisoner, gave harrowing firsthand
testimony on August 16, 1864, of his time captured. "The clothing of the men was
miserable in the extreme. Very few had shoes of any kind. Not 2,000 had coats and pants,
and those were latecomers. More than one half were
indecently exposed, and many were naked. These prisoners had no
protection from the elements either," as Private
Tracy continued. "Our only shelter from the
sun and rain and night dues was what we could
make by stretching over us our coats of scraps
of blankets, which a few had. But generally, there was
no attempt by day or night to protect ourselves." Escaping from Andersonville
was a routine pastime among the prisoners,
but the men who tried were rarely successful. And if they did escape, the
elements usually killed them. But that didn't stop a
large segment of inmates from forming small groups that
would constantly dig tunnels under the fort's
walls to freedom. POWs dug at night and
carried away the fresh dirt in their pockets,
letting it fall as they walked the camp during
the day, a la Andy Dufresne in Shawshank, while sick
inmates lay over the holes during the daytime so
Confederate guards wouldn't discover their schemes. The exits of these
tunnels would end up towards the nearby forests,
approximately 50 feet from the walls. Unfortunately for the POWs, even
if they escaped Andersonville through a tunnel, they
were too weak to make a legitimate run for it. When these prisoners
were caught, they were either denied
rations, chain-ganged, or shot. Some prisoners escaped
by playing dead. Because so many
men died every day, it was easy for an inmate to
lay down with a bunch of corpses and then get carried out to a
row of bodies outside the walls and await their mass burial. As soon as night fell, the
men would get up and run. Almost immediately after it
accepted their first prisoners, a dozen or so Union
prisoners tied their clothes together to scale
Andersonville's 15-foot-tall stockade. Confederate soldiers
caught them, which then inspired the deadline. The deadline was a simple
stake-and-wire fence which lined the inner
walls of Andersonville, and its function was simple. It acted as a warning track,
and it kept Union prisoners away from the prison stockade. Prisoners knew that if
they touched the deadline fence, much less
attempt to cross it, the Confederate
soldiers, who were stationed atop the stockade,
were ordered to shoot to kill. Enlisted Union soldier John Levi
Maile described the deadline. "It consisted of a
narrow strip of board nailed to a row of stakes
about four feet high. Shoot any prisoner who touches
the deadline was the standing order to the guards. A sick prisoner inadvertently
placing his hands on the deadline for
support or anyone touching it with suicidal intent
would be instantly shot at, the scattering balls
usually striking other than the one aimed at." Food was nearly non-existent
at Andersonville. And when the Union prisoners
did receive rations, it was usually rotten and barely
fit for human consumption. Most of the men ate cornbread
made from ground corncobs and 4 tablespoons
of rice per week. When they were lucky enough to
receive meat, it was usually condemned pork, offensive
in appearance and smell. Private Prescott Tracy
went on to describe the Confederates dumping
rations onto the ground at 4:00 PM, feeding time. "It was the custom to consume
the whole ration at once rather than save any
for the next day. The distribution
being often unequal, some would lose the
rations altogether." But the lack of rations
began even before these POWs reached Andersonville. Tracy stated that on the
five-day march to the prison camp, Union troops barely ate. The sum of their rations for
the five days was 13 crackers. The only source of water the
Andersonville prisoners had was a man-made
channel that trickled through the middle of the camp. The water came from a
nearby creek, which also served as the camp's latrine. And it was filled at all times
with urine and fecal matter from the inmates. The Confederate
guards didn't help, as it was reported that
they also contaminated the water on purpose. Private Tracy's
testimony reported that the guards
frequently dumped a large amount of the vilest
material into the stream. The stream was the only source
of drinking and cooking water for the POWs at the camp. Unfortunately, it also kept
them sick for the entirety of their time there. Besides polluting the prisoners'
only source of clean water, Confederate guards inflicted
cruel and unusual punishment on their union prisoners. For example, when the
inmates got caught stealing-- and there was a lot of
stealing amongst POWs-- they'd be either
put in the stocks, or they were forced to
wear a ball and chain. And if a sick prisoner was
missing at the daily roll call, inmates might be
deprived of the ration. One Union prisoner,
John L. Ransom, a quartermaster of Company
A, Ninth Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, kept a diary during
his time at Andersonville. In one horrific scene,
he wrote about witnessing Confederate guards
shoot a sick POW. Ransom recalls watching the
feverish half-dressed POW deliberately walking
to the deadline, where the guard fired, sending
a ball through his brain. And the poor fellow
fell in the ditch. Ransom wrote, "Perhaps he is
better off and a much easier death than to die of
disease, as he undoubtedly would in a few days longer." Basically a self-imposed
death by firing squad, and this method wasn't uncommon. As bad as Andersonville's
conditions were, its medical
facilities were worse. And attempting to
get first aid almost ensured ones excruciating death. Between February 25 and May 9,
1864, a total of 4,588 patients visited the prison hospital. 1,026 of those perished. Private Tracy worked as a clerk
in the Andersonville hospital. He reported, "I've seen
150 bodies waiting passage to the dead house to
be buried with those who died in hospital. The average of deaths
through the earlier months was 30 a day. At the time I left, the
average was over 130, and one day the
record showed 146." Because over 100 Union
men were dying every day, the Confederacy was
having a difficult time dealing with the dead. Eventually, the
prisoners were forced to dig long, shallow pits
in order to bury their own. The POWs would then lay
their fallen comrades side by side, dozens
of men at a time, and cover them with fresh
dirt and planks of wood-- no coffins, no
ceremony, nothing. Private Tracy touches on the
mass graves during his arrival to Andersonville. "On entering the
stockade prison, we found it crowded with
28,000 of our fellow soldiers. By crowded, I mean that
it was difficult to move in any direction without
jostling and being jostled." Statistically
speaking, the longer you were within
Andersonville's walls, the greater your
chances were of dying. But the Confederates did
offer their prisoners an out, with a catch. The Confederate Army
offered freedom and money for any Union soldier who
took an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, a
tempting offer for sure. Picture it-- living
in feces, no clothes no food, disease and
death everywhere. And to escape it all and walk
away with money in your pocket? It was a no-brainer,
but Union soldiers were a different breed. In one of Private Tracy's
pieces of testimony, he reported that none
of his fellow Union men took the offer. It would have been so
easy for these soldiers to fake the Confederacy's
allegiance oath, walk away free men, and
return back to the Union. But their honor and loyalty
to the United States knew no breaking point. As the Civil War came to an
end, news and photographs of the atrocities
at Andersonville started spreading, and
it horrified Northerners. After meeting with
recently released POWs, Walt Whitman wrote,
"There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven. But this is not among them." Much of the blame fell on Henry
Wirz, the Confederate captain at Andersonville and perhaps
the second-most hated person in America after
John Wilkes Booth. Two days before the Civil
War ended, Wirz was detained and soon after put on
trial for war crimes he committed during his
tenure as the man in charge of the Union's prisoners. More than 100 witnesses
testified in the trial. Wirz was blamed for the loss
of over 13,000 Union men and received a sentence
of capital punishment. On November 10, 1865, at
the Old Capitol Prison in Washington DC, Wirz met his
end underneath the gallows. Just before his hanging,
Wirz told the officer overseeing the job, "I know
what orders are, Major. I am being hanged
for obeying them." Decades later, some Southerners
felt that Wirz got a raw deal. After all, he said he was
just following orders. So in 1908, the United
Daughters of the Confederacy built a monument honoring
Wirz about a mile away from the prison
camp to rescue his name from the
stigma attached to it by embittered prejudice. It is one of the few
Confederate monuments that still stands today. We want to know what you think. Could history repeat
itself, and could America ever see another Camp Sumter? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
