The Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville, Georgia

The Andersonville National
Historic Site includes the
National Prisoner of War Museum,
Andersonville Prison Grounds
& Andersonville National Cemetery.

The Prisoner of War Museum

shows what all captives

endure after capture.

Visitors watch a film about

life at Andersonville Prison

& a film on the experience

of captured soldiers from

World War I through the

Gulf War.

Throughout the first three years of the Civil War, The North and  The South exchanged prisoners on a regular basis.  Union and Confederate soldiers were held for a short time in a prison camp before release.  Many returned to combat.

On April 12, 1864, after most of the Union garrison at Fort Pillow, Tennessee surrendered and were considered to be prisoners of war, Confederate troops massacred black Union soldiers.  President Lincoln demanded that black prisoners of war be treated the same as their white counterparts. This was refused by Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant suspended prisoner exchanges.  

More prisoner camps were hastily built in both the northern and southern states.  The populations in the camps rose rapidly.  Lack of planning for large prison populations and dwindling provisions for the Confederate Armies and civilians left next to nothing to supply prison camps.

The original post from the

Andersonville stockade, 1864

Built to hold 10,000 prisoners, the population of Andersonville ballooned to 45,000.  The prisoners cobbled together whatever they had with them for shelter.  Their crude tents did little to shield them from the sun and less to protect them from the cold and the rain.  Prisoners didn't have access to clean water (a fouled stream ran through the prison), food was scarce and disease ran rampant.  There were no medical services for the wounded 

and ill.

The original lock, key &
hinge from the south
gate of Andersonville Prison.

This bird's eye view lithograph

of Andersonville was created by

Union prisoner, Thomas O'Dea.

O'Dea relocated to Cohoes, New York in the early 1870s.  Drawing on memory he spent six years working on his bird's eye drawing of Andersonville, surrounded by nineteen images depicting camp life.    

Prisoners tried to escape.

Some walked away from
work details.

Most tunnelers were turned
in by informants, or
tunnels collapsed.




Confederate records show that 351 Union soldiers escaped from Andersonville Prison.

After the end of the war, Captain Henry Wirz, commander of Andersonville Prison, was charged with conspiracy to injure the lives and health of Union soldiers and murder.  He was put on trial an executed on November 10, 1865.

Conditions in prisoner camps in The North were horrendous.  Elmira Prison was built to house 5,000 prisoners of war.  The population swelled to 10,000 and prisoners lived in tents in the harsh climate of  the Southern Tier in New York.  Nearly 3,000 died there from lack of nourishment, disease, exposure, drowning in the Chemung River flood.  Had The South won, maybe the commander of Elmira Prison would have been brought up on charges and executed.

Fellow prisoners honor the

 dead in the Philippines.

O'Donnell War Personnel

Enclosure

The conditions Union prisoners endured at Andersonville are more common, than not.  Veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf War have similar stories to share.  All prisoners do their best to maintain chain of command and discipline while incarcerated.  Resistance and escape are expected of all prisoners.  In addition to losing one's freedom, isolation, lack of medical care, little food and fouled water, often, prisoners report being interrogated and tortured.

At last, the dreamed of day

arrives... liberation.

American & British prisoners

of war celebrate their freedom

after imprisonment by the

Japanese in World War II.

The names of the prisons change, the names of the captors changes.  The experience is the same, capture, transport to a prison, being stripped of one's, interrogation and possible torture, enduring difficult conditions, burying friends, escape attempts, and finally, freedom.

An estimated 800,000 American men & women

have been held as prisoners of war.  

This memorial shows the depredations that prisoners of war endure.