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Civil War America
Andersonville: The Last Depot
Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 of them died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on a conspiracy of higher-ranking officials. According to William Marvel, virulent disease and severe shortages of vegetables, medical supplies, and other necessities combined to create a crisis beyond the captors' control. He also argues that the tragedy was aggravated by the Union decision to suspend prisoner exchanges, which meant that many men who might have returned home were instead left to sicken and die in captivity.
350 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
8 people are currently reading
176 people want to read
About the author
William Marvel
29 books15 followersWilliam Marvel grew up on Davis Hill in South Conway, New Hampshire where he still lives. He has been writing about nineteenth-century American history for more than three decades.
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August 28, 2022
Andersonville, the Confederacy’s notorious prisoner-of-war camp in southwest Georgia, was indeed “the last depot” for thousands of unfortunate Union soldiers during the American Civil War. Over 45,000 Union P.O.W.’s were held at Andersonville in 1864 and 1865, and almost 13,000 died there; and their sad story is chronicled by historian William Marvel in his 1994 book Andersonville: The Last Depot.
Marvel, a prolific Civil War historian, conscientiously sets forth the sufferings and rigors of imprisonment at the camp that its rebel founders called Camp Sumter, with careful attention to detail. When it comes to the notoriously inadequate and unhealthy food supply for prisoners at Andersonville, for instance, Marvel explains, in a chapter with the suitably Dantean title “All Hope Abandon,” that “In rural Georgia…grinding mills were not equipped with bolting cloth, so the meal was delivered with the cob ground up in it.” Because cornmeal being produced for thousands and thousands of prisoners could not be sifted one pound at a time, the way Southern women did in their kitchens, prisoners received their cornmeal cob and all, and “The shredded cob turned hard and sharp as the meal dried” (p. 53), contributing to the prevalence of gastrointestinal disease at Andersonville.
The camp also lacked adequate drinking water; the one creek that ran through the camp quickly became a place where prisoners relieved themselves. It became known as “The Swamp,” and men who drank from there invariably became ill. Unlucky prisoners who arrived at Andersonville when the camp was most crowded might find themselves “forced into a plot near the swamp, where the stench hung thickest” (p. 101). Along with inadequate food, a lack of drinkable water, a comparable lack of shelter (except for whatever the prisoners could rig up for themselves), and filthy conditions that facilitated the spread of disease, the lack of internal policing of the camp by rebel authorities allowed renegade Unionist “Raiders” to prey upon their fellow prisoners. Marvel puts appropriate emphasis on all the factors that made Andersonville a veritable hell on Earth.
Andersonville: The Last Depot breaks with earlier histories of Camp Sumter in focusing on the situation of African American Union soldiers held at the camp – though those soldiers themselves might well have taken issue with some aspects of Marvel’s characterization of their captivity. Marvel writes that African American prisoners from regiments like the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (whose story is chronicled in the 1989 film Glory) faced “some petty cruelties…but for the most part the prison authorities treated their black prisoners little differently than they did the white ones” (155).
Marvel claims that camp commandant Captain Henry Wirz, who is depicted more sympathetically in this book than in other histories of Andersonville, “resisted turning over…alleged contrabands” to local slaveholders. He even states that the forced labor assigned to African American prisoners at Andersonville – “they were put to work on the lumber piles” – may have provided an “opportunity for exercise and extra rations” that “contributed to their impressive survival rate: despite a longer average incarceration than most prisoners, only a dozen black soldiers died at Andersonville out of a hundred who eventually landed there” (p. 155).
I found these claims dubious. Even if the survival rate for black prisoners was twice that for white prisoners, I can’t help observing that the small number of black prisoners might make those statistics suspect for purposes of comparative analysis. And knowing what we all know regarding how angrily many Confederates responded to seeing African American soldiers in uniform, I still believe that these soldiers themselves would have seen their situation at Andersonville very differently.
I was equally doubtful regarding Marvel’s sympathetic portrayal of Captain Wirz – who, as a commissioned officer, could have resigned his commission if the condition of the prisoners at Andersonville had gone against his conscience. Wirz was tried and convicted of war crimes, and hanged at Washington’s Old Capitol Prison, after the war’s end – the only commissioned officer on either side to face such a fate. Marvel describes Wirz, on his way to the gallows, as a “frail Swiss immigrant” (p. xi); I can only say in response that prisoners at Andersonville were likely to be much more frail by the end of their imprisonment there.
As Union forces made deeper and deeper inroads into the Confederacy, the beleaguered rebel authorities began closing down Andersonville and transferring its prisoners to other prisons that were deemed “safer” from Union liberators. Marvel emphasizes that the slow decommissioning of Camp Sumter did not spell much relief for the camp’s unfortunate inmates, as they found themselves in “stockades some of them would find far worse than Andersonville….[T]he new pens at Millen [Georgia] and at Florence, South Carolina, quickly deteriorated below the summer standards at Camp Sumter, and guards grew increasingly testy, killing men just for coming too close to the dead line, or for the crime of asking a question” (p. 202).
Looking back on the Andersonville experience in the American mind, Marvel writes that Unionist survivors of Andersonville, “almost without exception…appear to have exaggerated their tribulations at that place”, and laments that “These men did not…have to embellish their accounts to produce a picture of immense suffering…without any malice” (pp. ix-x). Here, again, I found myself taking issue with Marvel.
I acknowledge, of course, that there are false or exaggerated accounts of Andersonville, as there are for every aspect of the American Civil War; but Marvel lost me when he questioned the veracity and reliability of John Ransom’s book Andersonville Diary (1881), claiming that “Ransom’s published diary, the original of which he later claimed to have lost in a fire, contains so many inconsistencies as to raise a serious doubt whether any original ever existed; few of the messmates whose deaths he records, for instance, appear on any of the death or burial registers, although the dead from that period were nearly all identified” (p. 257).
For me, by contrast, John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary has the ring of truth. The details of Andersonville that Ransom recounts feel drawn-from-life, not fabricated to gratify the tastes of a “bloody shirt” audience hungry for horrors. In recounting his Camp Sumter experience, Ransom fair-mindedly takes pains to identify good and bad people from both sides at Andersonville. As to the question of Ransom’s unknown messmates, any soldier can tell you that nicknames are rife in any camp; and Marvel himself acknowledges that not all the dead of Andersonville – those whose graves extend out in one long row after another at the Andersonville National Historic Site of today – were able to be identified. I believe John Ransom.
Andersonville: The Last Depot, for all the ways in which I found myself taking issue with it, is a compelling historical work. It is well-illustrated with a helpful map of the camp, and with photographs of Andersonville then and now. Anyone who finishes this book is likely to agree with Marvel’s suggestion, at the book’s beginning, that Andersonville, for its prisoners, was “undoubtedly the most unpleasant experience of the Civil War” (p. ix). Marvel’s book provides a helpful introduction to one of the most tragic chapters in the vast historical saga of the American Civil War.
Marvel, a prolific Civil War historian, conscientiously sets forth the sufferings and rigors of imprisonment at the camp that its rebel founders called Camp Sumter, with careful attention to detail. When it comes to the notoriously inadequate and unhealthy food supply for prisoners at Andersonville, for instance, Marvel explains, in a chapter with the suitably Dantean title “All Hope Abandon,” that “In rural Georgia…grinding mills were not equipped with bolting cloth, so the meal was delivered with the cob ground up in it.” Because cornmeal being produced for thousands and thousands of prisoners could not be sifted one pound at a time, the way Southern women did in their kitchens, prisoners received their cornmeal cob and all, and “The shredded cob turned hard and sharp as the meal dried” (p. 53), contributing to the prevalence of gastrointestinal disease at Andersonville.
The camp also lacked adequate drinking water; the one creek that ran through the camp quickly became a place where prisoners relieved themselves. It became known as “The Swamp,” and men who drank from there invariably became ill. Unlucky prisoners who arrived at Andersonville when the camp was most crowded might find themselves “forced into a plot near the swamp, where the stench hung thickest” (p. 101). Along with inadequate food, a lack of drinkable water, a comparable lack of shelter (except for whatever the prisoners could rig up for themselves), and filthy conditions that facilitated the spread of disease, the lack of internal policing of the camp by rebel authorities allowed renegade Unionist “Raiders” to prey upon their fellow prisoners. Marvel puts appropriate emphasis on all the factors that made Andersonville a veritable hell on Earth.
Andersonville: The Last Depot breaks with earlier histories of Camp Sumter in focusing on the situation of African American Union soldiers held at the camp – though those soldiers themselves might well have taken issue with some aspects of Marvel’s characterization of their captivity. Marvel writes that African American prisoners from regiments like the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (whose story is chronicled in the 1989 film Glory) faced “some petty cruelties…but for the most part the prison authorities treated their black prisoners little differently than they did the white ones” (155).
Marvel claims that camp commandant Captain Henry Wirz, who is depicted more sympathetically in this book than in other histories of Andersonville, “resisted turning over…alleged contrabands” to local slaveholders. He even states that the forced labor assigned to African American prisoners at Andersonville – “they were put to work on the lumber piles” – may have provided an “opportunity for exercise and extra rations” that “contributed to their impressive survival rate: despite a longer average incarceration than most prisoners, only a dozen black soldiers died at Andersonville out of a hundred who eventually landed there” (p. 155).
I found these claims dubious. Even if the survival rate for black prisoners was twice that for white prisoners, I can’t help observing that the small number of black prisoners might make those statistics suspect for purposes of comparative analysis. And knowing what we all know regarding how angrily many Confederates responded to seeing African American soldiers in uniform, I still believe that these soldiers themselves would have seen their situation at Andersonville very differently.
I was equally doubtful regarding Marvel’s sympathetic portrayal of Captain Wirz – who, as a commissioned officer, could have resigned his commission if the condition of the prisoners at Andersonville had gone against his conscience. Wirz was tried and convicted of war crimes, and hanged at Washington’s Old Capitol Prison, after the war’s end – the only commissioned officer on either side to face such a fate. Marvel describes Wirz, on his way to the gallows, as a “frail Swiss immigrant” (p. xi); I can only say in response that prisoners at Andersonville were likely to be much more frail by the end of their imprisonment there.
As Union forces made deeper and deeper inroads into the Confederacy, the beleaguered rebel authorities began closing down Andersonville and transferring its prisoners to other prisons that were deemed “safer” from Union liberators. Marvel emphasizes that the slow decommissioning of Camp Sumter did not spell much relief for the camp’s unfortunate inmates, as they found themselves in “stockades some of them would find far worse than Andersonville….[T]he new pens at Millen [Georgia] and at Florence, South Carolina, quickly deteriorated below the summer standards at Camp Sumter, and guards grew increasingly testy, killing men just for coming too close to the dead line, or for the crime of asking a question” (p. 202).
Looking back on the Andersonville experience in the American mind, Marvel writes that Unionist survivors of Andersonville, “almost without exception…appear to have exaggerated their tribulations at that place”, and laments that “These men did not…have to embellish their accounts to produce a picture of immense suffering…without any malice” (pp. ix-x). Here, again, I found myself taking issue with Marvel.
I acknowledge, of course, that there are false or exaggerated accounts of Andersonville, as there are for every aspect of the American Civil War; but Marvel lost me when he questioned the veracity and reliability of John Ransom’s book Andersonville Diary (1881), claiming that “Ransom’s published diary, the original of which he later claimed to have lost in a fire, contains so many inconsistencies as to raise a serious doubt whether any original ever existed; few of the messmates whose deaths he records, for instance, appear on any of the death or burial registers, although the dead from that period were nearly all identified” (p. 257).
For me, by contrast, John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary has the ring of truth. The details of Andersonville that Ransom recounts feel drawn-from-life, not fabricated to gratify the tastes of a “bloody shirt” audience hungry for horrors. In recounting his Camp Sumter experience, Ransom fair-mindedly takes pains to identify good and bad people from both sides at Andersonville. As to the question of Ransom’s unknown messmates, any soldier can tell you that nicknames are rife in any camp; and Marvel himself acknowledges that not all the dead of Andersonville – those whose graves extend out in one long row after another at the Andersonville National Historic Site of today – were able to be identified. I believe John Ransom.
Andersonville: The Last Depot, for all the ways in which I found myself taking issue with it, is a compelling historical work. It is well-illustrated with a helpful map of the camp, and with photographs of Andersonville then and now. Anyone who finishes this book is likely to agree with Marvel’s suggestion, at the book’s beginning, that Andersonville, for its prisoners, was “undoubtedly the most unpleasant experience of the Civil War” (p. ix). Marvel’s book provides a helpful introduction to one of the most tragic chapters in the vast historical saga of the American Civil War.
February 8, 2026
How does an otherwise very good book manage to torpedo itself with a two-page preface? This is a detailed, informative, generally objective history of the Andersonville prisoner of war camp notorious for its abysmal conditions that led to the deaths of thousands of Union soldiers.
But the brief preface reads like a brazen apologia, suggesting that the camp’s commander, Henry Wirz, was innocent of any culpability and conditions weren’t so bad there anyway. “Almost without exception,” Marvel declares, “those who wrote about Andersonville appear to have exaggerated their tribulations at that place,” cynically suggesting that they did so “because accounts of prison misery sold well in the postwar North.”
He goes on to solicit sympathy for Wirz by describing him as a “frail Swiss immigrant” and implicitly blames “Northern stubbornness” for their own citizens’ suffering. The Confederacy’s refusal to treat captured Black Union soldiers as true prisoners of war eligible for exchange brought prisoner swaps to a halt and caused the populations of prison camps on both sides to swell. This “breakdown of prisoner exchange was responsible” for the overwhelming overcrowding at Andersonville, Marvel writes, pointedly noting that “it was the Federal government that suspended the exchange cartel.” After the war, “it behooved the victors to establish that enemy malevolence had caused it all” instead of “the victims’ own government.”
The pronouncements in this brief preface fatally tarnish anything that comes after. Which is a shame, because the rest of the book is almost entirely lacking this strident tone. It’s generally a straightforward telling of how the Andersonville camp was created, how it quickly became overcrowded, and how conditions spiraled out of control. Marvel does not shy away from describing the illnesses, the malnutrition, the unsanitary conditions and the harsh discipline doled out to prisoners who violated the rules - including those who were shot on sight for straying beyond the “dead line,” the interior boundary situated several yards back from the camp’s exterior walls.
Even so, Marvel can let the opinions expressed in the preface seep into his narrative in subtle ways. And they might not be as noticeable had he not spelled out his point of view up front. It was on Wirz’s orders that prisoners were shot for purposely or even mistakenly crossing the dead line. But in one of the most notorious examples of such an incident, Marvel describes how Wirz himself pointed one of his pistols at a prisoner who crossed the line, but claims both of his pistols were “defective” so he couldn’t possibly have meant to actually shoot. This is presumably meant to refute allegations made at his later military trial that Wirz himself was responsible for killing prisoners. But is pointing a “defective” pistol at a prisoner really meant to absolve him of any blame, as though ordering underlings to shoot to kill when he wouldn’t do so himself was any better or more noble?
At one point, Marvel also describes how Black prisoners were often forced to work alongside slaves and whipped if they didn't. But given these Black Union soldiers’ survival rate in Andersonville, which exceeded that of their white counterparts, “the opportunity for exercise and extra rations… seemed to redound to the blacks’ benefit.” Sure, forced labor is a fine means of “exercise”!
After the war, when Wirz was arrested and put on trial, Marvel suggests he was railroaded by a vindictive North, but only spends a few pages describing the trial and making his case. While it is true the trial may not have been completely fair and its outcome seemed preordained, that some witnesses’ testimony may not have been completely accurate, that Wirz may not have acted out of malice in purposely allowing the camp’s condition to deteriorate and causing prisoners to suffer and die, and that Confederate leadership and indifference toward prisoners of war put Wirz in an impossible position, Marvel discounts any evidence to the contrary. He’s dismissive of survivors’ accounts, and only testimony that absolved Wirz is deemed credible. He makes “but they did it too” arguments about the Union’s treatment of its prisoners of war, even though Andersonville was far and away the most deplorable and deadly prison camp on either side. And he laments that Wirz was scapegoated, without acknowledging that he was complicit in a rebellious cause, and that the real question is not why Wirz was the only Confederate put to death for war crimes, but that so many others were not.
Two other easily-overlooked quotes in the book stand out. The title page includes an oft-cited, out-of-context quote from Garry Wills with no elaboration: “Only the winners decide what were war crimes,” which suggests what Marvel thinks of how Wirz’s trial turned out. And an author’s note at the very end contains the curious lament that “my Andersonville research has been attended by a greater number of unfulfilled promises, unreciprocated favors, and refusals to share sources than I have experienced in all my other historical efforts combined,” which seems to suggest some kind of conspiracy of silence around the “true story” of Andersonville, but is it possible it might have more to do with other researchers’ reluctance to cooperate with a self-professed “revisionist” historian seeking to tell what he claims is the “true story” of Andersonville?
Even though I’m emphasizing my complaints here, I’ll again underscore that most of the book is not like this. The unfortunate preface set the tone and raised my antennae to look for subtle biases as highlighted above, but the book is otherwise an informative history of the camp and the conditions that its prisoners endured. Lop off the introduction, and the book could stand on its own as the definitive, factual, authoritative history of the camp. But the average of a five-star narrative and a one-star preface is a three-star review, which is the best I can offer for a book whose point of view disappointingly detracts from its promise.
But the brief preface reads like a brazen apologia, suggesting that the camp’s commander, Henry Wirz, was innocent of any culpability and conditions weren’t so bad there anyway. “Almost without exception,” Marvel declares, “those who wrote about Andersonville appear to have exaggerated their tribulations at that place,” cynically suggesting that they did so “because accounts of prison misery sold well in the postwar North.”
He goes on to solicit sympathy for Wirz by describing him as a “frail Swiss immigrant” and implicitly blames “Northern stubbornness” for their own citizens’ suffering. The Confederacy’s refusal to treat captured Black Union soldiers as true prisoners of war eligible for exchange brought prisoner swaps to a halt and caused the populations of prison camps on both sides to swell. This “breakdown of prisoner exchange was responsible” for the overwhelming overcrowding at Andersonville, Marvel writes, pointedly noting that “it was the Federal government that suspended the exchange cartel.” After the war, “it behooved the victors to establish that enemy malevolence had caused it all” instead of “the victims’ own government.”
The pronouncements in this brief preface fatally tarnish anything that comes after. Which is a shame, because the rest of the book is almost entirely lacking this strident tone. It’s generally a straightforward telling of how the Andersonville camp was created, how it quickly became overcrowded, and how conditions spiraled out of control. Marvel does not shy away from describing the illnesses, the malnutrition, the unsanitary conditions and the harsh discipline doled out to prisoners who violated the rules - including those who were shot on sight for straying beyond the “dead line,” the interior boundary situated several yards back from the camp’s exterior walls.
Even so, Marvel can let the opinions expressed in the preface seep into his narrative in subtle ways. And they might not be as noticeable had he not spelled out his point of view up front. It was on Wirz’s orders that prisoners were shot for purposely or even mistakenly crossing the dead line. But in one of the most notorious examples of such an incident, Marvel describes how Wirz himself pointed one of his pistols at a prisoner who crossed the line, but claims both of his pistols were “defective” so he couldn’t possibly have meant to actually shoot. This is presumably meant to refute allegations made at his later military trial that Wirz himself was responsible for killing prisoners. But is pointing a “defective” pistol at a prisoner really meant to absolve him of any blame, as though ordering underlings to shoot to kill when he wouldn’t do so himself was any better or more noble?
At one point, Marvel also describes how Black prisoners were often forced to work alongside slaves and whipped if they didn't. But given these Black Union soldiers’ survival rate in Andersonville, which exceeded that of their white counterparts, “the opportunity for exercise and extra rations… seemed to redound to the blacks’ benefit.” Sure, forced labor is a fine means of “exercise”!
After the war, when Wirz was arrested and put on trial, Marvel suggests he was railroaded by a vindictive North, but only spends a few pages describing the trial and making his case. While it is true the trial may not have been completely fair and its outcome seemed preordained, that some witnesses’ testimony may not have been completely accurate, that Wirz may not have acted out of malice in purposely allowing the camp’s condition to deteriorate and causing prisoners to suffer and die, and that Confederate leadership and indifference toward prisoners of war put Wirz in an impossible position, Marvel discounts any evidence to the contrary. He’s dismissive of survivors’ accounts, and only testimony that absolved Wirz is deemed credible. He makes “but they did it too” arguments about the Union’s treatment of its prisoners of war, even though Andersonville was far and away the most deplorable and deadly prison camp on either side. And he laments that Wirz was scapegoated, without acknowledging that he was complicit in a rebellious cause, and that the real question is not why Wirz was the only Confederate put to death for war crimes, but that so many others were not.
Two other easily-overlooked quotes in the book stand out. The title page includes an oft-cited, out-of-context quote from Garry Wills with no elaboration: “Only the winners decide what were war crimes,” which suggests what Marvel thinks of how Wirz’s trial turned out. And an author’s note at the very end contains the curious lament that “my Andersonville research has been attended by a greater number of unfulfilled promises, unreciprocated favors, and refusals to share sources than I have experienced in all my other historical efforts combined,” which seems to suggest some kind of conspiracy of silence around the “true story” of Andersonville, but is it possible it might have more to do with other researchers’ reluctance to cooperate with a self-professed “revisionist” historian seeking to tell what he claims is the “true story” of Andersonville?
Even though I’m emphasizing my complaints here, I’ll again underscore that most of the book is not like this. The unfortunate preface set the tone and raised my antennae to look for subtle biases as highlighted above, but the book is otherwise an informative history of the camp and the conditions that its prisoners endured. Lop off the introduction, and the book could stand on its own as the definitive, factual, authoritative history of the camp. But the average of a five-star narrative and a one-star preface is a three-star review, which is the best I can offer for a book whose point of view disappointingly detracts from its promise.
November 26, 2010
Ok so this is really 3 1/2 for me. The research is amazing and the writing is good, and I even agree that Wirz was the scapegoat for this massive Confederate fail; however, he is not without guilt and the constant excuse making for this tragedy coupled with the dismissal of first person reports of cruelty disgusted me.
June 15, 2009
I have read several books on Andersonville and feel this is the best that is out there that I have read. It was re-published in 2008 with great fanfare among Civil War enthusiasts and historians. What Marvel accomplishes is a thoughtful, fact supported discussion concerning one of the most controversial Civil War P.O.W. camps in America., He also makes a strong argument in defense of Capt. Henry Wirtz who was the administrator of the prison and ultimately hanged as a war criminal(the only soldier from either side to suffer such a fate)in 1865. A good read with some compelling photographs take during the height of the camp's activity. If you are interested in the Civil War, and this aspect of the war, this book is a must read. This book has extensive notes and bibliography.
August 16, 2022
Really enjoyed the book.
July 11, 2024
Very historically detailed outlining all the challenges of managing a confederate prison.
December 26, 2025
A slightly different slant than the book written 40 years earlier.
December 27, 2025
MacKinley Kantor’s historical fiction Andersonville closely mirrors this well documented account. I suggest reading them together. I read the fiction first.
February 26, 2017
Good to read in conjunction with Mackinlay Kantor's great novel, Andersonville. The novel gives a vivid sense of the suffering humanity of all those involved with, or incarcerated in, the prison. The work of non-fiction then shows that one's natural emotional response to the novel - anger and blame - may not do full justice to the captors.
February 10, 2014
I liked the perspective Marvel took; unemotional and objective presentation of facts forces the reader to formulate his own opinions. Having viewed the events in the prison through the eyes of some of its inhabitants gave a new validity to these cold, hard facts. The representation of men from different backgrounds, motives, morals, and objectives gave me insight to their humanity, and even their inhumanity. I found it interesting that even though the circumstances that brought each man to Andersonville might have been different, their eventual outcomes were frighteningly similar.
Even though I was aware of some of the difficulties Wirz faced in administering Andersonville, I never realized that he faced so many obstacles. Even before the first prisoners arrived, Wirz faced a constant battle of politics, prejudice, insubordination, and his own health issues in order to provide even the most minimal living conditions for the men imprisoned there. The circumstances with which he was presented appeared insurmountable. It appears that the man did the best he could with what he was allowed. I was fascinated to discover that the man would retain some semblance of humanity considering the frustration he must have felt.
I was also unaware of the impact of the change in the exchange program. Even though the intentions behind the changes may have been founded in good faith, the outcome was horrific.
Even though I was aware of some of the difficulties Wirz faced in administering Andersonville, I never realized that he faced so many obstacles. Even before the first prisoners arrived, Wirz faced a constant battle of politics, prejudice, insubordination, and his own health issues in order to provide even the most minimal living conditions for the men imprisoned there. The circumstances with which he was presented appeared insurmountable. It appears that the man did the best he could with what he was allowed. I was fascinated to discover that the man would retain some semblance of humanity considering the frustration he must have felt.
I was also unaware of the impact of the change in the exchange program. Even though the intentions behind the changes may have been founded in good faith, the outcome was horrific.
Read
August 4, 2011Great book on the history and stories surrounding the Andersonville Prison. Marvel does a great job of telling the stories of the people as well as the events that drove what those people did, both inside and outside the wire. Recommended.
September 3, 2014
Very well written historical synopsis of Confederate prison camps. The author is somewhat sympathetic to Wirtz and the extreme difficulty of feeding and caring for Union prisoners. My electronic copy had no images or maps hence, the four stars.
March 8, 2012
Well written and informative for those interested in the Civil War. This book also reinfroced my opinion that the excution of Captain Witz was not warranted.
July 8, 2015
More details after tour at Andersonville. This book give more interesting and excatly numbers of prisoners with small stories of witnesses who faced horror in prison during the Civil War.
March 13, 2016
An informative, thoroughly researched, well-written, and balanced historical account of the infamous Confederate prison camp.
July 1, 2020
Well written. Well researched. Objective.
Read
September 11, 2009CW9737Mar
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews