Andersonville National Cemetery-Civil War Era National Cemeteries

Andersonv paralyzede subject area burial aim. case common Service. The Andersonville National Cemetery in Andersonville, GA contains the grave of much than 13,000 due unification soldiers. just virtually of these enlisted soldiers died while held in populate out Sumter, a assistant surround prison cognise more normally as Andersonville. The allied prison, located southwest of the burial site institutes, was ill-famed for its poor sustentation conditions. Prisoners suffered from not lonesome(prenominal) battle national injuries, provided also distemper and inadequate sanitation, fabricing, and nutrition. The caboodle graves of prisoners became a national necropolis in 1865. Andersonville National Cemetery continues to be an active burying ground. The cemetery is one of 14 national cemeteries managed by the National place Service and is decompose of the Andersonville National diachronic Site. The site interprets the stories and sacrifices of American p risoners of struggle through with(predicate) the cemetery, stockade grounds, and a modern museum. \n forward to the construction of Camp Sumter, the Confederacy held prisoners of war in Richmond, Virginia. With the citys food supplies tapered and citizens increase concern about the potential for a prison break, associate leaders chose to stimulate a juvenile prison at Andersonville. The tiny tabun village feature a foreign location, ample body of water supplies, and proximity to a railroad line. Slaves and associate soldiers began the prisons construction in January 1864. The first prisoners, euchre in total, arrived a month later, precedent to the prisons completion. The slaves and Confederate soldiers constructed a stockade of sullen upright timbers enwrap a field of approximately 16 acres. A light line, delineated by a impression wood railing, organise an inner perimeter. Guards were instructed to daunt any prisoners intersection point the line to burn up th e wall. \nConfederate maestro W. Sidney Winder knowing the prison, which he mat up could hold 10,000 prisoners. By June 1864, Andersonville held more than 26,000 prisoners. prune began to enlarge the stockade, adding 10 more acres, bringing the total size to 26.5 acres by July. In August, the turn of prisoners jumped to its highest point, with more than 33,000 coalescence soldiers held at the stockade. With increment numbers of prisoners and dwindling supplies, conditions in the camp rapidly deteriorated. Although Confederate guards provided meager rations of cornmeal and meat, initially prisoners were not provided utensils for cooking or eating. Rough shelters of branches and cloth provided inadequate shelter. near prisoners were nearly bare because their clothing was so worn. The stockades water supply, a small rate of flow running through the prison, quickly became polluted. The unsanitary conditions, compounded by disease and malnutrition, guide to the death of more than 12,000 prisoners. Over 900 prisoners died individually month. The dead, both confederation prisoners and their Confederate guards, were primed(p) in host graves at a site 300 yards north of the stockade. Trenches three feet coarse and 200 feet capacious accommodated hundreds of bodies, laid berm to shoulder. Seven months after the prison took in its first inmates, sum General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta. able inmates were transferred from Andersonville to prisons in savanna and South Carolina. The most infirm and ill stayed at Andersonville, which remained in operation until April 1865. The U.S. authorities appropriated the burial ground in July 1865, establishing the proportion as a national cemetery. A month later, the famed well-bred struggle nurse Clara Barton surveyed the cemetery to identify and shekels the graves of the kernel dead. In 1868, Union soldiers temporarily hide in the local anesthetic vicinity were reinterred at the Andersonville Nati onal Cemetery, change magnitude the number of Civil War graves to nearly 13,700. \n