By the spring of 1864 the South was losing its ability to provide adequate food and medical supplies to its armies and the thousands of prisoners-of-war captured during the preceding years of fighting. One Union army was steadily closing in on the capitol in Richmond and another was marching through the deep South towards Atlanta. Despite shortages of men, food ammunition,, and medical supplies, the defiant Southern armies fought on. This posed a serious dilemma for the Southern leader. What could they do with the continuing flow of captured Union prisoners? they decided to build a new prison camp in a remote location in southwestern Georgia where it could be secure from raiding Union forces. The site lay in the midst of Georgia's cotton growing land that under a war economy had been converted to growing corn. This new prison camp would confine only enlisted men. Officially named "Camp Sumter," it was more often known for the nearby town, Andersonville.

Prisoners were first sent to Andersonville in March of 1864. The camp was designed to hold a maximum of 10,000 men. By August of that year there were over 33,000 sick and malnourished inmates crammed within the stockade walls. By the end of the war in April 1865, a total of 45,000 had passed through the prison's heavy gates. Nearly 13,000 did not leave the prison camp alive. A Union enlisted man had a better chance of surviving the Battle of Antietam than of living through the horror of Camp Sumter.

The new prison camp at Andersonville was located on a tract of twenty-six acres, sloping upon both sides of a small stream, and enclosed with a wooden fence dotted with several tall guard towers. The camp was enclosed by wooden walls of hewn pine logs, from 8 to 10 inches square, 4 feet buried in the ground, 18 feet above, braced on the outside, cross-barred to make one log sustain the other, and a small platform making comfortable standing room for the guards, ever 100 feet, with above waist-high space below the top of the stockade, reached by a ladder. Later in 1864 a second stockade was built around the first. There were cannons placed at each corner of the stockade covering all directions. Within the stockade was a line of 4-inch pine boards on posts about 3 feet high, about 17 feet from the walls, It was called the "Dead Line." A prisoner could be shot by a guard for merely stepping into this forbidden zone.

There were about 1000 Confederate soldiers guarding the prisoners at Andersonville. An Andersonville inmate described them as "the worst looking scalawags…from boys just large enough to handle a gun, to old men who ought to have been dead years ago for the good of their country."

Even the camp commander, Captain Wirz, regularly complained of the carelessness and inefficiency of the prison garrison.

For the Union soldiers confined in Camp Sumter, daily life was a nightmare of boredom, discomfort, disease, and crime. Within the stockade area the prisoners were compelled to perform all functions of life including cooking, washing, relieving oneself, exercise, and sleeping. One-third of the land was not habitable since it was a virtual swamp of liquid filth. The low grounds bordering the stream were covered with human excrements and filth of all kinds, which in many places seemed alive with maggots. An indescribable sickening stench arose from these fermenting masses of human filth. The small stream that ran through the camp served for most prisoners as the source of drinking water. Some of the earliest prisoners had successfully dug wells that yielded some fresh water, but there were no latrines or bathing facilities. Garbage and human excrement had to be dumped into the stream. New prisoners often had most possessions immediately confiscated by the guards or stolen by gangs of thugs within the stockade. The only shelter from the rain, cold, and blazing sun were mud huts or crude tents, often constructed from the clothing of dead prisoners.

general John Winder, the Commissary General of Confederate prisoners-of-war, officially declared that prisoners' rations were to be "the same in quality and quantity as those furnished to the enlisted men in the Army of the Confederacy." In reality, food and fresh water were grossly inadequate in the camp. The normal daily ration for a prisoner at Andersonville consisted of one half pint of corn meal (including husk) with a little molasses or one pint of stock peas with a little bacon. Less often they received bread or rice. Prisoners were almost entirely without vegetables and fruit. Regardless of the nature of the food received, prisoners learned to eat it immediately lest it be wrenched from their hands by starved-crazy inmates. Vicious brawls were common over mere crusts of bread or rancid meat smuggled in from the outside.

There was a thriving "black market" within the camp and prisoners had to be either clever or criminal to acquire extra food. One Union sergeant whittled objects out of bone that he sold to the guards for extra food. Some prisoners set up washing facilities and hair-cutting operations. Other prisoners were not so skillful or ambitious. They either stole from living comrades, assaulted and robbed the sick, or even committed murder to secure extra food and clothing. In fact, within the camp there was even an execution by hanging of six prisoners who were part of a murdering and thieving gang known as "Mosby's Raiders."

Rather than being "fresh fish," as the newcomers to Andersonville were called by the long-term inmates, most of the Union soldiers who came to the prison camp had been transferred from other prison camps and already suffered from a variety of diseases including incurable diarrhea, dysentery, and scurvy. Conditions at the prison hospital were abysmal. It was located on a 5-acre plot outside the stockade. Sick prisoners were placed in sheds open on all sides, exposed to the weather, with no sheets or blankets. Millions of flies swarmed over everything, and covered the faces of the sleeping patients, crawled down their mouths, and deposited their maggots in the gangrenous wounds of the living. Hospital nurses were normally other prisoners, often more interested in stealing the sick man's possessions than caring for him. Wounds were cleaned merely by pouring water over them and letting everything seep onto the ground on which the men lay. Amputations and other operations were performed without anesthetics or proper sanitation and many died horribly from the effects of gangrene. When a patient died he was carried to the "deadhouse" situated in the southwest corner of the hospital grounds and left on the bare ground, often covered with filth and vermin. Prisoners from the stockade were then detailed to dig and bury them in mass graves.

The prisoners were constantly trying to escape. Tunneling became a daily activity for many prisoners. The tunnels were dug under the stockade and the prisoners then attempted to escape into the thick Georgia pine forest surrounding the camp. Few succeeded. More often than not they ended up in the nearby swampland pursued and captured by guards and savage bloodhound tracking dogs. Dragged bleeding back to camp, they could be subjected to a variety of tortures including the stocks, being tied up and gagged, or having to wear a ball and chain for several weeks. Other prisoners, driven crazy by hunger, thirst and exposure stumbled into the prohibited "dead line" and were usually shot by one of the guards in the prison towers.

Camp Sumter in Andersonville is the most infamous prison camp in American history. Conditions in many Union prison camps were similar in their brutality and deprivation. In fact, Northern prisons retaliated to rumors of starvation in the Southern camps like Andersonville by cutting rations, sometimes in half. Nevertheless, Andersonville stands out because of the many deaths and also that the prison camp commander, Captain Henry Wirz, was placed on trial after the war for war crimes. The shocking conditions that existed at Camp Sumter became public knowledge and a vengeful Northern public demanded justice. Most prisoners, Northern and Southern, regarded their camp commanders as sadistic monsters and Wirz was no exception. He was indicted for murder, conspiracy (with General Winder and other Confederate officers) to commit murder, and willfully allowing the horrible conditions to exist in Andersonville prison camp. On August 23, 1865 he was placed on trial before a military tribunal consisting of senior officers in the Union army.

Captain Henry Wirz did maliciously, willfully, and traitorously, and in aid of the then-existing armed rebellion against the United States of America, on or before the first day of March, AD 1864, and on other days between that day and the tenth day of April, 1865, combining, confederating, and conspiring together with John H. Winder, and others unknown, to injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States, then held and being prisoners-of-war within the lines of the so-called Confederate States and in the military prisons thereof, to the end that the armies of the United States might be weakened and impaired, in violation of the laws and customs of war.

Captain Henry Wirz feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did shoot, order to be shot, kick punch, stomp, and torture several prisoners-of-war resulting in death.

Shoales, Gary Parker, Justice and Dissent: Ready-to Use Materials for Recreating Five Great Trials in American History, The Center for Applied Research in Education, NewYork, 1995

                    The following are the specifications of charges against Henry Wirz:

                    Specification #1: Henry Wirz on the eight day of July, 1864, while acting as commander did make an assault upon a prisoner (unknown name) inflicting upon the body a mortal wound with a pistol - the said soldier died the ninth day of July, 1864.

                    Specification #2: On September 20th, 1864, Henry Wirz did with malice aforethought jump upon, stamp, kick, bruise, and otherwise injure with the heels of his boots a soldier (unknown name) belonging to the United States Army - the said soldier died.

                    Specification #3: On the 13th day of June, 1864, Henry Wirz, commander of the camp at Andersonville of the so-called Confederate States of America did shoot and discharge a pistol inflicting upon the body of a soldier (unknown name) a mortal wound from which the soldier died.

                    Specification #4: On May 30th, Henry Wirz with a certain pistol did feloniously and with malice aforethought, inflict upon a soldier (unknown name) a mortal wound from which the soldier died.

                    Specification #5: On August 20th, 1864, Henry Wirz, an officer of the so-called Confederate States, did confine and bind with instruments of torture a soldier belonging to the Army of the United States (unknown name) and in consequence of such cruel treatment the said soldier died on the 30th day of August.

  Specification #6: On February 1, 1864, Henry Wirz did confine and bind a U. S. soldier (unknown name) and from such torture he died on the 6th day.

Specification #7: On July 20, Henry Wirz did fasten and chain together several persons, soldiers of the U. S. (unknown names) binding the necks and feet of said soldiers closely together and compelling them to carry heavy burdens, large iron balls chained to their feet and in consequence of such treatment one of them died.

                    Specification #8: May 15, 1864, Henry Wirz did order a rebel soldier (unknown name) to fire upon a soldier of the U. S. Army (unknown name) inflicting upon him a mortal wound from which he died.

                    Specification #9: On the 21st day of July, Henry Wirz did order a rebel soldier (unknown name) to fire upon a soldier, a prisoner of war (unknown name) inflicting a mortal wound from which the prisoner died.

Specification #10: On August 20, 1864, Henry Wirz did order a rebel soldier (unknown name) to fire upon a U. S. soldier (unknown name) inflicting a mortal wound from which he died.

                    Specification #11: July 1, 1864, Henry Wirz did incite, and urge ferocious bloodhounds to pursue, attack, wound, and tear in pieces soldiers belonging to the U. S. Army, and a prisoner (unknown name) was so mortally wounded that on the sixth day he died.

Specification #12: On August 3rd, 1864, Henry Wirz with a pistol called a revolver did beat and bruise the head, shoulders and breast of a soldier, a prisoner of war (unknown name) inflicting mortal wounds from which he died August 4th, 1864.

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