The Life of a Prisoner at Camp Sumter During the Civil War

4. The Confederate guards unwittingly helped contaminate the Stockade Branch water supply

The Stockade Branch crossed Camp Sumter flowing from west to east, thus making the west wall the upstream side, and the east wall the downstream. When the first prisoners arrived they recognized the need to use the only source of water wisely. They made the area closest to the west wall designated for drinking water, along the middle of the compound for bathing. The area closest to the east wall, their downstream section, was designated for use as latrines. Sinks were installed for the purpose. As conditions became more crowded, and the area around the stream became a marsh, the orderly system gradually fell apart. But it didn’t matter. The system was doomed to failure from the beginning. The Confederate guards used the same stream as their source of fresh water, outside the walls of Camp Sumter.

The Confederates’ primary camp at Andersonville stood outside the western side of the compound, and northwest of where Stockade Branch entered the camp. The same branch provided the same uses to the guards as it did to the prisoners. However, the Confederates used the water upstream of their camp for drinking water, alongside it for bathing, and downstream for their latrines. Thus, the latrines of the Confederates, though downstream for them, were upstream of the prisoners. By the time the water flowed into the compound, it was already contaminated. Whether this was pointed out to Wirz by any of the inspecting officers who visited the camp during its existence is undocumented. Any experienced military officer of the day should have recognized the problem. Yet it continued throughout the existence of the camp.

5. Wirz issued little firewood for the prisoners

Captain Wirz justified the existence of the deadline as necessary to protect the wooden walls of the stockade from the prisoners building fires too near them. Though a cookhouse was built within the camp for the preparation of the prisoners’ food, he issued small amounts of firewood for their use. He seems to have been concerned about fire in the prisoners’ hands. By early June, the only rations issued to the prisoners daily was a flour made of coarsely ground corn. The corn was ground still on the cob, and the whole was intended to be mixed with water and baked, or boiled into a pudding. Either way, fire was needed to cook the ration. In the absence of sufficient firewood, many prisoners ate their daily ration raw, either mixed in water or as it came. Many others simply didn’t eat.

They gained little in the way of nutrition, and much in the way of physical ailments. The combination of contaminated water and bad food quickly weakened and sickened the prisoners. By the summer of 1864, poor rations were common throughout the Confederacy, despite relatively good harvests that year. The problem for the Confederacy did not arise from a lack of crops. Instead, the movement of foodstuffs from farms to markets faltered. The Southern railway system by then was near total collapse. Disruptions from Union raids and the confiscation of food for the use of the troops defending Atlanta and Richmond deprived much of the South. Nonetheless, the guards at Andersonville received more and better rations than they provided to the prisoners. Their rations included the fresh vegetables essential to the prevention of scurvy. Scurvy became a leading cause of prisoner expiration in the camp that summer.

6. The camp’s chaotic chain of command complicated life for the prisoners

Henry Wirz did not command the Confederate complex at Andersonville. He only commanded the stockade. This limited authority handcuffed him when attempting to obtain supplies, medicines, tools, and even guards. Each guard unit had its own commanders, most of them senior to Wirz. Yet Wirz held total authority of the stockade and the men within. He exercised that authority, regarding the prisoners, with punishments and fear. Wirz often threatened to have prisoners shot. He placed them in stocks for sins such as being late for roll calls or minor offenses. He withheld the meager rations of prisoners as a punishment. Once, when a guard called his attention to a prisoner in the stocks, threatened with drowning in a rainstorm, Wirz replied, “Let the damned Yankee drown”. A day in Camp Sumter was one of constant fear of Wirz for the prisoners.

Confederate apologists later claimed Wirz was a scapegoat, and that the conditions at Camp Sumter were not his fault. He could not have issued food and clothing unavailable to him. The arguments ignore the fact that Wirz, at his trial for war crimes after the war, was also charged with several counts of murder. In one such charge, Wirz ordered a sentry to shoot a prisoner. The sentry did. Later, the sentry testified to the event at Wirz’s trial. Wirz responded by saying the order was made to threaten the prisoner, and that he hadn’t expected the Confederate soldier to obey him. Wirz was not responsible for the lack of food and sanitary conditions at Camp Sumter. His superiors were. But he was responsible for issuing orders which led to the demise of prisoners and denying them the food which was available.

7. A Catholic priest toured Camp Sumter in the spring of 1864

By May 1864, a hospital had been erected in the stockade. That month, a Catholic priest named William Hamilton stopped at Camp Sumter while on a visit to a mission in Americus, Georgia. Stunned at the deteriorating conditions at the camp, he reported to General Howell Cobb and requested the general to look into obtaining paroles for the men there. Father Hamilton described the men dying in the hospital of diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, and scurvy, “…not only covered with the ordinary vermin but also maggots”. Prior to visiting General Cobb, Hamilton visited his bishop, Augustin Verot, and suggested a Catholic chaplain be assigned to the camp. Bishop Verot asked Father Peter Whelan to serve in that capacity. Father Whelan was experienced ministering to prisoners, having earlier been held as a prisoner of war himself.

Whelan had been captured after the surrender of Fort Pulaski by Union troops. As a non-combatant, Whelan was offered his freedom. He declined, choosing to remain with the troops. Father Whelan returned to Georgia after he was paroled and exchanged, where he learned of the conditions at Andersonville from Father Hamilton and Bishop Verot. Whelan agreed immediately, arriving at Camp Sumter in June 1864. He resided in a small wooden hut outside of the compound, about a mile distant. He walked that distance twice daily, entering the stockade around 9 AM, and returning to his hut around sundown. Other priests soon joined him, though none were assigned permanently to the camp other than Father Henry Clavreul. The latter priest arrived in August and found the conditions too appalling to bear. Continuously ill, Father Clavreul soon left. Father Whelan remained.

8. Some of the men dug burrows to shelter them from the Georgia heat

Prisoners arrived at Camp Sumter carrying whatever they had with them when they were captured, minus the accouterments of war. Some wore only the remnants of their uniforms, others, captured while not actually in battle, had packs, blankets, and even tents. No new clothing, nor shoes, nor any other forms of protection against the elements, were issued at the camp. There were none to issue. Uniforms rapidly wore out, since many were made of the cheap, flimsy material used by war contractors. The material had a name. Contractors called it “shoddy”. The name became synonymous with poor quality. The only way to replace worn clothing was to steal it, from either the living or the dead. At Camp Sumter, nobody was buried wearing any of their clothing.

To protect themselves from the searing heat of the Georgia summer, some men dug burrows into the ground, where they shielded themselves from the glaring sun. Men also died in their burrows, sometimes from drowning during heavy thunderstorms, after having become too weak from disease to emerge. The sight of men digging became common to the point that the guards ignored it unless it occurred too close to the deadline. Many men, usually newer arrivals still possessing some strength, attempted to dig escape tunnels, explaining their efforts as attempts to dig water wells. United States Army records report 32 men escaped from Camp Sumter and successfully made it back to the Union lines. None succeeded in escaping via tunnels. There were two other methods of escape available.

9. Escape via parole and deception

Work gangs of prisoners, under guard, left the stockade during the day. Their main reasons for doing so were to collect corn flour delivered via the railroad, cut and collect wood, or serve as burial parties. During the course of the day, as men died, they were carried outside the stockade, left in rows near the burial ground. They were buried en masse by work parties. Father Whelan attended the burial parties each day that grim summer. A few enterprising prisoners made it outside of the stockade by feigning their demise, lying in the rows with the other bodies until sundown. Afterward, they rose and fled for the nearby woods. Most were recaptured. The deception was revealed when it was noticed that some of the “dead” retained their clothing. When Wirz learned of the practice, he ordered all bodies carried from the stockade be first examined.

Men in work parties gave their parole in order to leave the stockade, though most considered it to be non-binding. If an opportunity presented itself, they simply ran for freedom. Approximately 350 escaped in this manner, though nearly all were caught in a matter of hours, Returning to the camp they faced harsh punishment for their misdeed. Wirz used food deprivation, the stocks, shackles, and even execution as punishments for escape. Prisoners at Andersonville expected to be exchanged, unaware the cartels for such events had broken down. They attempted to escape more to flee from the conditions of the camp than out of patriotic duty. Nonetheless, most were hampered by their weakness, as diarrhea and other illnesses usually set in almost immediately.

10. Confederate officials knew of the conditions of Camp Sumter in the summer of 1864

Apologists for the Confederacy later claimed the government in Richmond remained unaware of conditions in Camp Sumter. Official documents and personal records captured after the war proved otherwise. Officials responsible for the care of prisoners of war were informed of the dire situation at the camp and failed to respond. General Howell Cobb, one of the founders of the Confederacy in 1861, knew of conditions there. He received reports from Fathers Hamilton and Whelan, Bishop Verot, Confederate Army officers, and Protestant ministers who visited the camp. Yet efforts to ease conditions there were virtually non-existent. Cobb had been instrumental in locating Camp Sumter at Andersonville. During the summer of 1864, he continued to advocate relocating prisoners from other facilities to the camp. The population of the overcrowded prison expanded throughout the summer.

During the summer Dr. Joseph Jones arrived at Camp Sumter to inspect the facilities and report to the Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America. Reportedly, during his somewhat hasty visit, he vomited twice at what he saw in the camp. His official report included a description of a “defective system of police”, as well as “bad air, bad food, and neglect of personal cleanliness”. In his conclusions, Dr. Jones wrote, “Finally, this gigantic mass of human misery calls loudly for relief…for the sake of suffering humanity…”. Yet Confederate authorities continued to increase the overcrowding of Camp Sumter throughout the summer. Dr. Jones also decried the lack of medical supplies and professionals, indicating in his report that most of the attendants and nurses were paroled Union troops, better fed and clothed than the rest of the prisoners.

11. Daily existence among the prisoners focused on survival

Without a secure police procedure from the guards, and with the breakdown of military discipline among the prisoners, life in Camp Sumter was dangerous. In his report, Dr. Jones wrote, “…the stronger preyed upon the weaker” of the prisoners. He also reported, “…even the sick who were unable to defend themselves were robbed of their scanty supplies of food and clothing”. Social groups arose in the prison. Men collected into groups based on shared experiences, their home states and towns, and other things held in common. These groups housed together, ate together, and moved about the camp together. Some formed for mutual protection. Others formed for mutual predation. Wirz did not punish theft among the prisoners, though he punished harshly for theft of Confederate property and supplies.

Wirz’s failure to exercise control over the prisoners led to the formation of an organized gang which became known as the Andersonville Raiders. The Raiders, which numbered around 100 at their peak, used several tactics to better supply themselves in the prison. They targeted new prisoners as victims of theft. They used strong-armed tactics, theft by deception, sneak-thievery, and even murder during their brief reign of dominating the camp. In late June 1864, a victim of the Raider’s thefts requested an audience with Wirz. Wirz responded by announcing to the camp all rations were to be withheld until the prisoners turned in all of the Raiders. Wirz effectively made the prisoners responsible for their own security by denying them their food. Another group of prisoners organized as what they called the Regulators.

12. The Regulators arrested and tried several of their fellow prisoners

The group known as the Regulators had existed before Wirz issued his demand for the detention of the Raiders. But his statement granted them greater power, as well as the authority to both detain and try men suspected of crimes. Most of the Raiders were seized by the vigilante force between June 29, and July 10, 1864. The prisoners who formerly lived in fear of them established a court, including a jury, a judge, and a prosecuting attorney, to try the men. For those found guilty, as most were, the prisoners had at their disposal all of the disciplinary measures available to the camp. Among these were the stocks, thumbscrews, stringing up by the thumbs, whipping, and even execution by hanging. Most of the convicted Raiders were forced to run the gauntlet, beaten by two rows of men armed with clubs and whips.

Some of the men sentenced to the gauntlet were met their end by beating, or passed away shortly afterwards from the injuries sustained. The six most hated of the Raiders, accused of founding the criminal enterprise, were sentenced to hang. On July 11, 1864, the prisoners erected a gallows in the camp. One of their prisoners attempted to flee, but Confederate guards caught him and returned him to their executioners. All six were hanged that day, with the approval of Henry Wirz, in view of the rest of the Camp. Their bodies were taken down and carried outside of the stockade, to be buried at a site separate from those of the Union dead from the prison. Despite the end of the Raiders, thefts and violence continued among the prisoners, though Wirz allowed them to continue to police themselves rather than establish enforced order in Camp Sumter.

13. The Confederates established a Military Prison Hospital outside of the stockade

According to Dr. Jones, from the opening of Camp Sumter until late May 1864, the sick and prisoners arriving at the camp wounded were confined together within the stockade. By July, a separate stockade, outside the camp on a small rise, held the Military Hospital. At its peak, fifteen physicians worked there, though usually there were fewer. Men were admitted based on available space, according to one physician they could only admit new patients when a vacancy occurred. Most vacancies occurred via prisoners passing away, few men entered the hospital and returned to health. By July 1864, more than 2,000 patients crowded the hospital. Men lay upon the ground, or on planks, there were no mattresses or even straw to cushion them. They were attended by the doctors and nurses, most of the latter paroled prisoners.

Dr. Jones observed that most of the parolees were better fed and clothed than the other prisoners, and in overall better health than even some of the Confederate guards. He did not speculate as to the cause of such a discrepancy. Other parolees were allowed exit from the stockade as well. They worked as clerks, loaded and unloaded trains, and other such duties. They too, appeared to Dr. Jones to be in better health, indicating supplies meant for the prison, which the doctor claimed to be in abundance in the area, were accessed by the Confederates and parolees before they ever reached Camp Sumter itself. On August 5, 1864, the Inspector General wrote to the authorities recommending Brigadier General John Winder, commander of all Confederate prisons, be relieved of his post. In the letter, the Inspector General referred to the prison as a “disgrace to civilization“.

14. A providential storm swept the camp in August 1864

Throughout the early summer of 1864, the weather around Andersonville remained hot and dry. The Stockade Branch slowed to a trickle, and the water holes, dug as cisterns to collect rainwater, dried up. By the first week of August, the lack of water became critical, both within Camp Sumter and in the surrounding area. On August 9, in the early evening, a storm arose which released its fury throughout the night. Heavy rains raised the creeks outside the stockade and finally entered the stockade in a torrent. The rushing water knocked down the stockade where it entered and again where it exited the camp. The water scoured the creek bed and the surrounding marsh. Prisoners leapt into the flood to recover wood being washed away. The Confederate guards were forced to endure the storm in battle lines to prevent prisoners from fleeing the stockade.

Uprooting some of the stockade revealed an underground spring, previously undiscovered. Before the storm had ended the water from the spring was diverted into the compound. When the storm ended, Stockade Branch and its feeders had been cleaned of the filth with which they had been polluted. The stream soon returned to its fetid condition, but the diverted spring provided a source of water other than that of the creeks. The prisoners name it Providence Spring. Following the storm, the stockade walls were repaired. Winder ordered a second stockade, some distance away and surrounding the first, erected later that month. He also received orders to begin reducing the population of Camp Sumter by transferring prisoners to other camps. Sherman’s approaching army and the possibility of cavalry raids inspired the Confederates to move their prisoners.

15. The Confederates offered to release their prisoners in the late summer of 1864

Faced with the impossible task of feeding their prisoners, and the approaching armies of Grant in the East and Sherman in Georgia, the Confederates offered to free the prisoners they held. The offer included the release of all prisoners, without any exchange. A contingency of the offer was the Union picking up the prisoners with ships, at ports to be designated. Camp Sumter was located far from any port then in Confederate hands, accessible only by road or rail. Moving the prisoners presented logistical difficulties which delayed the move. When Sherman approached Atlanta, the possibility of cavalry raids led General Winder to address the response of the guards should the facility come under attack. Winder ordered the artillery pits to fire upon the stockade. Fortunately for the prisoners, the attack never came.

After Sherman outflanked Hood to take Atlanta, the Confederates began moving prisoners out of Andersonville. In the fall, 1864, prisoners from Camp Sumter, at least those well enough to be moved, were transferred to Florence, South Carolina and Millen, Georgia. From Millen, some prisoners were sent by rail to Savannah, Georgia. When Sherman’s troops threatened Millen, the remaining prisoners there were returned to Camp Sumter. General Winder moved his headquarters to Florence, South Carolina, and conditions in Camp Sumter improved dramatically. The camp remained overcrowded and disease remained rampant. There was still insufficient food, and a total lack of fresh food. In January, 1865, rules of the camp were officially promulgated for the first time. By then, Sherman’s armies threatened the Carolinas.

16. Rules of the camp divided the prisoners into controlled units

New Year’s Day, 1865, saw the first official rules for the prisoners within Camp Sumter. The prisoners were assigned to divisions, with each consisting of five detachments of 100 men. Each detachment elected a sergeant. One of the sergeants was elected to draw rations for the entire division each day. Officially those rations included bacon or another preserved meat. Most days meat was unobtainable. Each division was assigned its own area of the camp, and the sergeants were responsible for the condition of the area. They were also responsible for carrying the sick to the hospital, and for those not admitted, returning them to the assigned area. Two roll calls were scheduled each day, and all men assigned needed to be present or otherwise accounted for at each. Prisoners were not allowed to speak with the guards.

If a sergeant failed to report the whereabouts of any man absent during roll call or reported it falsely, the entire division was denied rations for the day. Additionally, if it became evident the missing prisoner had escaped or attempted to escape, the sergeant was placed in irons, under close confinement. He was to remain in that condition until the missing man was recaptured or killed. The prisoners were granted the privilege of writing two letters each week, though the letters were closely censored by the Confederates. Descriptions of conditions within the camp were not allowed. The prisoners were also granted the privilege of requesting a private interview with the commanding officer, between the hours of 10 and 11 AM, by addressing themselves to the Sergeant of the Guard. The majority of the day at Camp Sumter was spent in hunger and crushing boredom.

17. Escape attempts continued as the war wound down in 1865

Escapes from Camp Sumter continued and even increased, following the fall of Atlanta. At first, the prisoners were unaware of Sherman’s departure from the area on his March to Savannah. The prisoners believed the relative proximity of Union forces meant the possibility of being picked up by pickets and cavalry patrols. Though many tried, according to Confederate records, few succeeded. Yet a disparity exists between the Confederate records of the number of escapees recaptured and returned and the Union records of successful escapes. It’s possible some escaping prisoners chose to simply return to their homes rather than report to Union authorities. Far more likely is the prisoners died after getting out of the prison. The ruggedness of the terrain, the hostility of the local population, and the fervor with which they were sought all worked against them.

The Confederates had long experience chasing down runaway slaves, and they used the same techniques to recapture escaping prisoners of war. Among the techniques were the use of hounds, to both track prisoners and take them down. Some were mauled by dogs, and in their weakened condition, died of their injuries. By that stage of the war, armed groups of deserters and bandits roamed the South, pillaging, looting, and killing. An escaping Yankee encountering such a group was unlikely to be received sympathetically. The same helds for the local population, which had to protect itself from runaway slaves, roaming bandits, and foragers from both armies. Those who escaped and were caught were often shot by their captors, others returned to the camp died as a result of their harsh punishments.

18. Eventually, some wooden sheds were built as shelters for the prisoners

In late summer, 1865, thousands of prisoners were transferred from Camp Sumter, significantly easing the overcrowding in the camp. Five sheds, each about 135′ by 20′, open in the front, were built on the north side of the camp. Each shed was intended to provide a “barracks” for 270 men. An additional five sheds were built on the south end of the camp in the fall. These sheds were smaller, about 120′ by 20′. Eventually, the medical department took over the sheds on the north end of the camp for use as a medical dispensary and receiving hospital. All remaining prisoners were then confined to the south end of the camp, no longer permitted to cross Stockade Branch unless they were paroled to do so. The south side of the camp again became overcrowded, more so when prisoners returned from Millen.

By late 1864, peddlers were permitted to enter the camp, and they maintained stalls or lean-tos along one of the two streets laid out in the camp. Prisoners who had money purchased items from the peddlers, including fresh vegetables at times. Others traded watches or any other items of value in their possession. The presence of the peddlers contributed to the thievery in the camp by prisoners and tradesmen alike. Food shortages continued, largely because Henry Wirz had insufficient funds with which to purchase food and medical supplies, or so he claimed. Nonetheless, when a new Chief Surgeon arrived at the Camp in early 1865, he found over $100,000 missing from his supposed funds. Suspicion arose surrounding his predecessor. Henry Wirz wrote letters defending the former surgeon. The war ended before a formal investigation could be conducted, and the funds were never found.

19. General Winder shifted his command to South Carolina

As the population of prisoners in Camp Sumter decreased, General Winder shifted most of his men to the new prison camps in Florence, South Carolina. He returned to Andersonville in the fall of 1864 and again in early 1865. Both trips were to ensure all prisoners healthy enough to be exchanged had been transferred from the camp. On February 7, 1865, Winder suffered a fatal heart attack while in Florence. His end led to Major General Gideon J. Pillow assuming Winder’s former position. Later that same month, Henry Wirz requested either a shipment of shoes or leather with which to make shoes be sent to the camp. Wirz reported many of the parolees in the camp were without shoes, though several of them possessed cobbler skills. Neither shoes nor leather was sent to the camp.

After the war, Henry Wirz, who predicted his own fate, was tried for what would today be called war crimes, by a military tribunal in Washington. He argued that the general parole granted By General Sherman when he accepted the surrender of the last Confederate army covered him. But too much evidence from former prisoners and Confederate guards convicted him. Apologists for the Confederacy claimed Wirz was scapegoated, and the man who ensured the suffering of the prisoners at Camp Sumter was really General John Winder. Wirz, convicted, was hanged in the Old Capitol Prison, one of only two Confederate’s to be executed following the war. In May 1865, townspeople and former guards looted the storehouses at Camp Sumter, coming away with supplies which had never been issued to the prisoners.

20. Many of the Camp Sumter prisoners died on their way home

In late April 1865, with the war over, the riverboat Sultana prepared to depart Vicksburg, Mississippi, to travel north. Outside Vicksburg was a Union parole camp, which held prisoners exchanged from Confederate camps, most of them from Camp Sumter. Though Sultana’s design allowed a capacity of 376, including crew, an estimated 1,960 survivors of the Confederate camps crowded aboard the vessel. Over 2,100 people left Vicksburg in the steamboat, which also carried cargo bound upriver. Sultana departed Vicksburg on April 24, 1865. As the vessel steamed north it made stops at Helena, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, discharging and taking on cargo and passengers. About 200 men remained behind in Memphis, the rest continued upriver approximately 7 miles, when the steamboat suffered an explosion. The vessel’s wooden superstructure was severely damaged and set ablaze.

At least three separate explosions were reported by survivors, leading some to suspect sabotage by Confederate agents. Over 1,000 men who had survived the horrors of Camp Sumter died in the explosion, fire, or drowning when they tried to escape by swimming. The Mississippi River that spring was near flood, with a strong current. Even the strongest swimmer would have experienced difficulty reaching the banks. In their weakened condition, few of the former prisoners of war could make it without help. The official cause of the explosions found that three of Sultana’s four boilers exploded, due to mismanagement of their water levels. At least three individuals claimed to have sabotaged the steamboat, by varying means. All have been discredited. Boiler explosions on steamboats were not uncommon, and Sultana’s had been problematic. The tragedy is remembered with historical markers in several locations along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“History of the Andersonville Prison”. Article, National Park Service (NPS). Online

“Anderson Prison”. Article, American Battlefield Trust. Online

“Victory from Within: Exploring the Stories of Prisoners of War”. Article, Andersonville National Historical Site. Online

“Punishment and Tragedy at Andersonville Prison. Virtual Exploration of Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia”. Google Arts and Culture. Online

“Daily Life at Andersonville Prison”. Virtual Exploration, Google Arts and Culture. Online

“Prison Camps of the Civil War”. Bruce Catton, American Heritage Magazine. August 1959

“How the Trial and Demise of Henry Wirz Shaped Post-Civil War America”. Kat Eschner, Smithsonian Magazine. November 10, 2017

“Andersonville: The Story of a Civil War Prison Camp”. Raymond F. Baker, National Park Service Handbook. Pdf, Online

“Andersonville Prison of the Civil War”. Kathy Weiser-Alexander, Legends of America. January, 2018. Online

“The Last Confederate Prison”. Editors, American Heritage Magazine. Fall, 2010

“Fugitive Federals”. Article, arcgis.com. Online

“The Legacy of Andersonville Prison; Who is to blame?” Article, The History Engine. Online

“Union Private Describes Raiders at Andersonville Prison” Article, The History Engine. Online

“General John H. Winder, CSA”. Arch Frederic Blakey. 1990

“The Sultana Disaster”. Article, American Battlefield Trust. Online