why did people have to do to be sent Andersonville Prison?

Question

I am doing a report that is due tomarrow and I can't find anymore information on it. I have found out a lot about the Prison in general but I want to make my essay more interesting. So I thought that i could put something about what the prisoners did in order to be sent to this prison in 1864's. Any ideas will help....please

Answer 1

Union (North) soldiers went to Andersonville Prison because they were captured or they surrendered to the Confederate army.

Notes about the camp's commandant:

Henry Wirz was hanged by a kangaroo court's verdict. The "key" witnesses the North paraded through the trial were NEVER at Andersonville; they perjured themselves (fancy word for lied). The defense, Wirz, was not allowed to introduce witnesses; Wirz was a scapegoat.

Make no mistake about it, prisoner-of-war camps were hell. Neither captured Yankees or Rebels enjoyed a "club med" or Sponge Bob under the sea atmosphere.

By late 1863, the South had its army in the field withOUT shoes, clothes, and even food. So, the Union prisoners suffered; they took the proverbial backseat.

Conditions were so horrible in the South by 1865, when Joe Johnston's Army surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; it took the Confederates three hours to find "white cloth" for its flag-of-truce. Why? Because all the material had been used up as bandages on wounded Confederates.

Camp Morton and Camp Douglas in the North (which held Rebels) were no better, period.

Answer 2

During the first years of the war, North & South exchanged prisoners on a regular basis. It was very standard- we'll give you 5 of yours for 5 of ours, and there was even an exchange rate (a lieutenant equalled 6 privates, or a general equalled 10 lieutenants, etc.). All that changed when the Union started training black regiments (most famously the 54th Massachusetts as portrayed in GLORY).

Jefferson Davis, who was a white supremacist EVEN BY 1860s STANDARDS (though weirdly he broke the law to teach slaves on his plantation to read and write), flipped. He ordered that any black person taken prisoner during a battle was to be sold into slavery (money going to the Confederacy) UNLESS that black person was in a military uniform, in which case they were not to be taken prisoner but SHOT DEAD on the spot along with any white officers.

This made Abraham Lincoln furious. He demanded Davis rescind this (North and South had something like diplomatic relations, usually held on ships off the Virginia coast as neutral ground), but Davis absolutely refused. Lincoln gave the order that the North would no longer trade prisoners if Davis did not take back the order to shoot black soldiers who were taken prisoner and Davis refused, so they stopped exchanging prisoners. Before this each side had perhaps a few hundred prisoners (because they were always exchanging them), but after this each side suddenly had thousands and then tens of thousands of prisoners.

Also, the North realized "Hey, we have an almost inexhaustible supply of men- we've got 3 times as many people as the South and ships with immigrants from Europe are coming in every day, and the South can't reinforce what they have", so not getting their prisoners back really hurt the South. The South was already having major trouble feeding its own troops, and now they had to feed 10s of 1000s of Union prisoners.

Andersonville was built to hold a few hundred prisoners, then enlarged to hold a few thousands, but before it was ever finished it held 4 times the number it was built for. If you've never seen it or been there, it's a tall fort-like stockade on a long hill- there are NO barracks, it's totally open to the elements. It has a stream that runs downhill and it's in a particularly hot part of Georgia. Men made shelter out of anything they could including clothing and later even dead bodies, and by the time the water from the stream came down to the bottom of the hill it was filled with sewage and germs and all else, and sometimes the stream dried up. (Look up "Providence Spring" for a cool story- a second stream was opened during a storm and the men called it a miracle.) The commandant, Heinrich Wirz, was a Swiss citizen by birth but sent to command, and he did not intentionally starve these men or force them to die of disease: he did not have enough food or medicine or manpower or materials to build shelter. (He was hanged for war crimes, the only man who was, after the war, but even some of his former prisoners tried to save him as they thought it was unfair.)

Anyway, the reason men were sent there was because the South unexpectedly had 10s of 1000s of prisoners they couldn't handle. Why an individual would be sent there was usually where they were captured- there were many other prison camps, but A'ville was the biggest AND it was in an area of the Confederacy (southwest Georgia) that the Union didn't have troops in, so it was safe from being liberated and prisoners were sent there from the north.

The word "deadline" comes from A'ville, by the way. Inside the stockade there was a small fence a few feet from the wall that ran the entire stockade, and prisoners were ordered not to go any further than that fence, because when they were on the other side it was hard for the guards to see them (and there were 20,000 prisoners and only a few hundred guards). If a prisoner ever went past that line they were shot dead, hence "deadline". (One A'ville survivor later became a newspaper editor and used deadline for "last possible moment".)

There is one other reason at least one person was sent to Andersonville: her husband was there, so she disguised herself as a man and went with him. She had a baby there before anybody learned her secret. Her name was Jane Scadden Hunt and you can read about her in the link below.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Andersonville was a POW camp used by the south During the civil war. Union soldiers were sent there if they were captured by confederates. It was overseen by Captain Henry Wirz. Conditions were deplorable and diseases like scurvy, dysentery, typhoid, and malaria were very common due to poor sanitation practices, malnutrition, and overcrowding. These conditions were every bit as dangerous to the soldiers who guarded the camps as they were to the prisoners.

Following the war Captain Wirz was executed following a tribunal for crimes against humanity.

Answer 4

Wear a blue uniform instead of a grey one (or just civilian-type clothing), and be in the wrong place at the wrong time with too little ammo, and too few reinforcements.

It's a bit messed up that the warden was the only POW who's war crimes were not forgiven. He practically begged the Union to take some of the prisoners outta there, but they refused to make a trade deal. It's not his fault they were under-supplied.

Answer 5

It was a prison for Union soldiers during the civil war. Because of the conditions there I'm sure they were more concerned about survival than entertainment.
It's now a historic site
http://www.nps.gov/ande
http://www.civilwarhome.com/andersonville.htm

Answer 6

Enough has been said but this hasn't been said - - - to get a Reservation in the 'swank' Southern Prison of Andersonwille one merely needed to fight to preserve the Union which meant Putting an End to Slavery.

Peace...

PS and at Andersonville Yankee soldiers were treated to true Southern Hospitality.

Answer 7

They were captured by the other side in the Civil War. These were prisoners of "war" ... pure and simple.

Answer 8

They had to be Union soldiers.