Andersonville Prison...

[Wheeler]

Andersonville .. On February 27, 1864, the first Union prisoners arrived at a new Confederate camp located near the tiny village of Andersonville, Georgia. Officially named Camp Sumter, the prison grounds were 16.5 acres surrounded by a fifteen foot high stockade. Within its walls, a fresh water stream flowed through the middle, to be used as a latrine as well as for drinking water. Originally designed for 10,000 men, the first arrivals at the camp found life tolerable. Supplies were meager, but sufficient to sustain life. However, by July the camp's population swelled to 33,000, spawning starvation, disease, and death - to such a degree that Andersonville was described as "this hell on earth."

[logcabinmama]

One of my great-grandfathers was in that prison and he survived. He did lose an arm though because of having been shot.