Andersonville Prison: Hell on Earth

I have heard several times over the years and in some of my history classes that I have taken in college that Andersonville Prison was probably the most absolute worst prison that existed during the last months of the Civil War. I began researching a little at first before I finally decided to commit to doing the research for the class and I talked to my dad a little about the prison to see what he knew and low and behold he told me that we actually had a relative that was a prisoner at the prison during the Civil War.

           Camp Sumter Military Prison or better known as the infamous Andersonville Prison was the largest military prison during the Civil War. Only in existence for fourteen years, more than 45, 000 Union soldiers were imprisoned there. Out of these 45,000 prisoners, at least 13,000 prisoners met a gruesome end here either through the unsanitary conditions, disease, malnutrition or exposure.

            Andersonville was originally designed for ten thousand prisoners. The prison had other prisoners shipped in from other prisons in the surrounding Georgia area and the Confederate government could not provide the proper and decent housing, food, clothing or medical care because of the South’s economic conditions.

           Private Robert Knox Sneden wrote a book dedicated to Andersonville Prison called Eye of the Storm. Reading through the book I was taken aback by the conditions that are described. I thought I understood how horrid the conditions were. In reality I had no idea. The first arrivals arrived in Andersonville in February 1864, by July the number of inmates grew to over 33,000. Can you imagine being cramped in a prison that was originally built for no more than 10,000 prisoners? The Historian William Marvel has calculated that the enclosures were so small that they were about the size of a grave. I personally cannot imagine living in an enclosure the size of a grave and being surrounded by death and the conditions that Andersonville Prison was famous for.

          The death rate at Andersonville soared because of the lack of sanitation and overcrowding. Many deaths occurred because of the spread of disease including small pox, dystery, and scurvy. Malnutrition and infections were also some of the leading causes of death at the prison. Most of the time, the food that the prisoners ate was infested with maggots. Flies swarmed around them all day. I honestly do not see how the prisoners could eat that food. Of course they did not have that many options on what they ate, but I just can’t imagine what they had to go through. Most of the time, after the prisoners ate their meals they would be wrought with severe diarrhea which in turn would cause severe malnutrition and sometimes death would follow. 

          Confederate doctors begged for the conditions at the prison to be improved and for medicine to be supplied to the prison. These requests were however ignored and the doctors were left to do what they could with what they had available to them. The guilt that the doctors must of felt for these prisoners and not being able to provide the adequate medical attention the prisoners needed must have almost unbearable even though they were Confederates.

          General N.P. Chipman wrote The Andersonville Prison Trial that covered several aspects of Andersonville Prison including the conditions.  Boston Corbett, also known as the man who killed John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin provided testimony that the prison had horrible conditions. He mentioned that there was a swamp that ran on each side of a small stream and the smell coming from the stream, it was bad and offensive, and he wondered how no one had died from the stench alone.

          One thing is for certain that the prisoners who endured the conditions at Andersonville were very brave and courageous and not only heroes of the American Civil War, but they were the heroes that survived the most famous hell on Earth, Andersonville Prison.
Works Cited:

-Chipman, Gen., N.P. The Andersonville Prison Trial. San Francisco: Blair-Murdock, 1911. 65+. Print.
-Sneden, Pvt, Robert K. "This Hell on Earth." Eye of the Storm: A Civil Odyssey. New York: Free, 2000. 227-56. Print.
-www.nps.gov/ande
-www.civilwar.org