ipl-logo

Hellhole Of Andersonville

1011 Words5 Pages

The Hellhole of Andersonville Andersonville, or Camp Sumter, stands out as the worst of the prisoner-of-war camps on either side in the American Civil War. The pressures on the South during the American Civil War created an environment in Andersonville that resulted in a large number of deaths. Prisoners were decimated by disease, dehydration, starvation, overpopulation, and execution during the fourteen months of Andersonville’s existence. It was one of the largest camps during the Civil War holding 45,000 or more prisoners. Built in 1864, Confederate officials decided to transfer federal prisoners to Richmond (Andersonville). The first prisoners arrived on February 25, 1864. Approximately four hundred people arrived each day (Council …show more content…

Some look at Captain Henri as a scapegoat from a failed Confederacy, while others see him as a murderer to inmates in Andersonville (Andersonville). Captain Henri’s cruelty was quickly visible. Captain Henri made sure the food handed out to the prisoners was decreased each day. Wirz had a reputation for his cruelty to prisoners and was also known as a murderer. One soldier testified that Wirz ordered a prisoner into the stocks during a rainstorm. The soldier observed the prisoner who was drowning and placed an umbrella over him and questioned Wirz, who replied, “Let the damned Yankee drown” (National Park Service Omnipresent and Omniscient). These actions toward the prisoners doomed Wirz ultimately. Captain Henri was arrested in May 7, 1865 at the prison. (Military Prison Career of Captain Henri Wirz). He was charged with conspiracy to kill or injure prisoners in violation of the laws of war and multiple counts of murder. Nearly 150 former prisoners, guards, Confederate officials, civilians, and medical staff testified against Wirz (Military Prison Career of Captain Henri Wirz). In Washington D.C. in 1865, before Captain Wirz hanging he told the officer in charge “I know what orders are Major. I’m being hanged for obeying them.” Though he was indifferent toward inmates, he was indeed a scapegoat and some evidence against him was …show more content…

These deaths occurred because of diseases and afflictions resulting from the crowded conditions, lack of adequate shelter, poor water supply, and nutritional needs not being met. Deaths also resulted from violence within Andersonville. This violence came in the form of gunshots from guards killing prisoners crossing the deadline and from violent encounters within the prison community itself, including six executions carried out against individuals convicted by the prisoners themselves. The hell that was Andersonville finally ended with the South’s surrender April

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Chapter One By Ovid Futch

    1170 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chapter 1 is the Power to impress. It talks about how some people were all for the prison that was trying to be built, but then there were people higher up in the governmental chain that had a feeling that it would cause trouble and havoc down the road. Most of the men that were against it were higher up in the government and were preventing it by not giving the prison their support or money. This chapter of the book gave an in-depth look at how the prison’s start was not an easy 1,2,3 type of start. The author goes through and includes the names of people that were important in the making or breaking of Andersonville Prison.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Rebels At Rock Island By Benton Mcadams

    1286 Words  | 6 Pages

    This goes to show that there was hunger on both sides of the war, not only in the prisons. According to Exploring American Histories, Value Edition, union soldiers were basically fighting two battles, the Civil War and Hunger. “Rations, too, ran short.” The prisoners of war were sent to war prisons like the Rock Island where rations were also short. The Civil War also provided a somewhat a boom for companies and markets.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of John Hunt Morgan's Escape From The Ohio Penitentiary

    1489 Words  | 6 Pages

    This short paper will examine General Morgan’s escape from the Ohio Penitentiary in 1863, and provide insights as to how he was able to make this escape despite the presence

    Read More

  • What Are The Reasons For John Henry Working On The C & O Railroad

    614 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Henry was one of these prisoners. The state of Virginia had become so much in debt that they had given the railroad over to a railroad tycoon by the name of Collis P. Huntington. Huntington had tried to get the Irish to work on the C&O railroad because they were a part of the cheap labor system. The Irish however did not want to work for Huntington because they did not like the dangerous conditions that his workers faced. Huntington was using nitroglycerin which was very dangerous because it was more powerful than

    Read More

  • Summary Of Slave Resistance In Natchez, Mississippi By James Boler

    898 Words  | 4 Pages

    So, in the absence of speedy official governmental justice, there was the spontaneous generation of what was called a “Vigilance Committee” or “Examination Committee.” Committees formed to be the judge and jury to mete out the punishment to both black and white citizens that worked to incite, plan, or support any form of insurrection within the counties. Responding to the fears, a planter-dominated vigilance committee rounded up slaves in the Second Creek neighborhood, where talk of a conspiracy first surfaced. Committee members believed that the slaves schemed not just to “kill their masters,” but to “ravish,” “ride” and “take the ladies for wives.” Ten slaves were hanged on Jacob Surget’s Cherry Grove plantation on September 24, 1861.

    Read More

  • Wilbert Rideau Peculiar Case

    611 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Peculiar Case of Wilbert Rideau The Farm has destroyed many that have entered its camps. First, it was slaves from Africa, then Union army troops during the Civil War, and finally hundreds of thousand of men of every race and background. For those inmates on death row, Angola can be particularly cruel and inhumane. Prisoners in the row spend most of their time, and in many cases, their life, deprived of human interaction. However, through all the hardships of life in Angola, a select few are able to overcome.

    Read More

  • What Are The Benefits Of The Andersonville Prison During The Civil War

    1275 Words  | 6 Pages

    Andersonville was the worst prison during the civil war. The prisoners were forced to live in the worst conditions, with disease killing most of them because there wasn’t medicine that they could take to fight off the illness. There were many dangers facing the prisoners in the prison like raiders and thieves. However, the flag displayed in the prison helped these men in hopeless times, acting as inspiration and giving them hope.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Medical Advancements During The Civil War

    1660 Words  | 7 Pages

    As soon as the Civil War started, injuries increased and diseases spread at a rapid pace. Sickness spread to millions. In fact, disease caused 65% of deaths, while war injuries caused up to 100% (“Disease”). Abundant amounts of medical issues caused medical procedures to evolve at a rapid speed. The medical advancements during the Civil War led to future medical technologies and procedures.

    Read More

  • Confinement In Night

    663 Words  | 3 Pages

    People on death row even wished for freedom from this tragic, cruel world. “Long live liberty! My curse! My-The executioner had completed his work.” (62) Smells and mental illnesses filled Germany at the time; the smell of death and confinement and the mental illness at losing your own self due to lost of

    Read More

  • Hitler's Execution Essay: The Nuremberg Trials During World War II

    664 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gustav Krupp, a factory owner who employed thousand of slaves in his factories, was deemed unfit for trial because of his physical and mental condition. Martin Borman, Hitler’s second in command, was ordered to flee Germany in order to avoid capture. He was tried in absentia and found guilty on counts one, three and

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: The Impact Of The Civil War

    466 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Civil War The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history with over 600000 American deaths reported. This war was fought to keep the Confederate States from leaving the Union. The Union won because they had a telegraph system and had more resources. The effect of the Union victory has had a large impact on society.

    Read More

  • Creative Writing: A German Prisoner Of War

    314 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Americans had 200 such Prisoner of War camps scattered across Germany. You are marched to a compound surrounded with barbed wire fences as far as the eye can see. Thousands upon thousands of your fellow German soldiers are already in this make-shift corral. You see no evidence of a latrine and after three hours of marching through the mud of the spring rain, the comfort of a latrine is upper-most in your mind. You are driven through the heavily guarded gate and find yourself free to move about, and you begin the futile search for the latrine.

    Read More

  • Robert Butler Background

    1131 Words  | 5 Pages

    The evidence identifies the Butler of the Iowa soldiers’ account as Robert J. Butler whose plantation sat upon the aptly named Butler’s Hill. This land is now the City of North Augusta in Aiken County, South Carolina. In 1865, it would have sat within the southwestern corner Edgefield District, a region known for its fine homes and political power players. In the northwest section of the district lived another Butler family, of distant if any relation, which had become one of the state’s wealthiest families and bonified political dynasty producing two Congressman, a Senator, and a Governor of the South Carolina in the first sixty years of the republic. They were members of ruling planter class in the least democratic state in the nation.

    Read More

  • English Civil War Analysis

    1151 Words  | 5 Pages

    This probably would have shocked some people because the Levellers (a political movement during the war) believed that the only crime you could be executed for was

    Read More

  • Examples Of Conscientious Objectors

    515 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sixteen young men, including Methodists, socialists, a Quaker, International Bible Students (Later known as Jehovahs Witnesses), a Lay reader and a Congregationalist, were illegally taken from Richmond Castle and transported to the French front in iron bonds. (ENGLISH HERITAGE. 2000.) Once they reached the front they were told that they were considered to be on active service which meant that they would face a firing squad if they refused to obey orders. Due to their refusal to obey orders they were severely punished including being fixed to a cross with barbed wire, ams stretched on either side, and left in this position for two hours at a time. Later on, the ‘Richmond Sixteen’ were court-martialled and sentenced to death.

    Read More

More about Hellhole Of Andersonville

Open Document