Andersonville Prison
Andersonville Prison, a Confederate military prison for captured Union Army soldiers, located at Andersonville, Georgia. It was used as a prison from February, 1864, to April, 1865. It was planned to accommodate 10,000 men but at one time held over 30,000. It was an open stockade without barracks. Overcrowding, poor food, polluted water, and inadequate medical care caused the deaths of about 13,000 prisoners. After the war Captain Henry Wirz, the prison superintendent, was convicted of murdering his prisoners by neglect and was hanged. Historians believe that the verdict was unjustified, since Wirz could not obtain adequate supplies from the impoverished government.
MacKinlay Kantor's Andersonville (1955), although fiction, gives a realistic picture of life in the prison.
Prisoners in the open stockade of Andersonville.