In January we were able to visit Andersonville which is about an hour away from Columbus. It is a Confederate prisoner of war camp that they help the union soldiers in horrific conditions. They were all outside with only the shelters they could build with what they had with them when they came to the camp or could scavenge or barter with other prisoners for.
Each state has a monument for the men who died from that state during their stay in Andersonville
Some men tried to dig escape tunnels under the outer fort wall but because of the watch towers being above them they had to hide their digging so there were multiple holes like this one next to trees.
The plaque about the escape tunnels
A picture illustrating how they would do this
They were authorized to dig wells after their water supply became contaminated with human waste coming down from the guards camp upstream. Also the stream was rather small so there was not enough water to go around for all the men enclosed in a very small area
More state memorials
This was a memorial with the stream
Replicas of the type of shelters some of the men built
Here was a picture taken from the pigeon roost at the time the prison camp was active
Replica of a pigeon roost where guards would watch over the prisoners
On the other side of the park is the cemetery where thousand and thousands of these men are burried
The Raiders
The raiders were a group of prisoners who were hanged and buried with dishonor for their treatment of their fellow prisoners. I included the story below.
The Raiders were a group of men (estimated in number to be anywhere from 200 to 400) who preyed on other prisoners, beating them with clubs and stealing anything of value they might have. The Raiders particularly liked the new arrivals, or "fresh fish," who frequently still had most or all of the goods in their possession when captured. Eventually the other prisoners rose up against them and managed to take many of them, including six of the worst, into custody. A delegation was sent to Captain Wirz asking him to allow the prisoners to hold a court martial for these men. The trial was held and some of the Raiders were sentenced to the stocks, and still others suffered other punishments. The six leaders were sentenced to hang. A gallows was built and the sentenced carried out on 11 July 1864.
The six hanged were Willie Collins, John Sarsfield, Charles Curtis, W.R. Riekson, Patrick Delaney, and A. Munn. It is doubtful that these were their actual names, since many had a pattern of accepting bounty for enlisting and then deserting. The six hanged Raiders are buried apart from the graves of the other prisoners who died in honor.
On Memorial Day, when the other graves are decorated with flags, the Raiders graves are left undecorated in dishonor. - National park service website
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in the picture below you can see the six headstones set apart from the others
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