Andersonville memorial service
Atlanta Magazine reports that on the 18th and 19th of September, at the site of the Civil War-era Andersonville POW camp near Atlanta, folks will be holding a memorial for the 13,000 who gave up their lives to disease, hunger and battle wounds;
On Saturday, September 19, Andersonville National Cemetery will host a ceremony for those who made the ultimate sacrifice at the prison. The service will include a keynote speech by Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Dailey; remarks by Georgia poet laureate Judson Mitcham and guest historian Dr. Lesley Gordon of University of Akron; honor guard from the Army, Navy, and Marines; and to stand in for the burial, a ceremonial casket filled with 13,000 paper stars decorated by children and community members.
The National Park Service has a schedule of events for the week.
Category: Historical
I remember reading about Andersonville and how the commandant tried to improve things but kept getting slow-played by the locals, or trying to shaft him by jacking the prices up for building materials and/or refusing to provide slave workers to help build, IIRC.
I suspect in the Judgement, these civilians will be held liable for much of the misery and unnecessary loss of life there.
The brother of my 3x Great Grandmother died while at Andersonville. I have the Wisconsin flag that she made for him and another brother to carry into battle.
My 4th great-uncle was Cpl William H Lillibridge the son of a teacher and the grandson of a revolutionary War veteran. He was born in1835 in Lual Neck, MD. On14 Jan 1862 at Providence, RI, he enlisted in Company A, Rhode Island 5th Heavy Artillery Regiment. On 5 May 1864, he was captured at Croatan, NC. On 16 August 1864, he died at Andersonville from diarrhea.
I have been to that site. It’s a sobering experience.
An equally sobering experience is reading the novel, Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor. I read it more than fifty years ago and mental images from that book still flash into my brain occasionally. Because it is one of the greatest books ever written about the Civil War, it is still in print and readily available:
http://www.amazon.com/Andersonville-Plume-MacKinlay-Kantor/dp/0452269563/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
I had a relative with Co K 40th Kentucky Infantry who was wounded and captured. He died within a day of being there. In a way it was mercy.
Andersonville was the worst of the worst, But it Can be debated that Elmira (Hellmira) in the North was just as bad.
Small factiod on Andersonville. The Prisoners often were fed corn, however they had no real meand to grind it, so they could digest it or get nutrients.
Obama wants to house GITMO prisoners in the US, and I think Andersonville Georgia would be the perfect spot.
Interesting response. I was just this past weekend at Kennesaw in GA – (after watching our youngest get his wing pinned after Airborne School)
OK, bragging aside – at the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield, in the museum, is a comparison of a Yankee POW camp which had a 12.n% mortality rate with Anderson which had a 15.n% mortality rate.
In the consideration of which was worse, I offer these observations:
The Confederates were blockaided by the Union, so that everyone in the South was suffering. Read any history of the war and you will find that while the Union soldiers were very well supplied, the Confederate soldiers were in rags. In such a situation, one cannot expect that a POW would be able to receive sufficient care.
In comparison, the Union had the supplies, and the places, and built at least one of their POW camps in a swamp where they prisoners were sure to be subject to disease. Since the Union was able to provide better care to the POWs and intentionally set out to subject them to poor care and conditions, then the 12.n% mortality rate is more offensive than that of Anderson.
Then, there is the fact that U.S.S. Grant opposed and stopped the parole system, where Union soldiers and Confederate soldier could be exchanged. This led to a necessary increase in the size of POW camps and was, on his part, an intentional placing of Union soldiers in a position to be subject to the shortages the Union was subjecting the Confederacy to.
I believe that commemorations such as this help conceal the fact that, while atrocities were no doubt committed on both sides, the intentional and official nature of the atrocities on the part of the Union leave no doubt that it was the armies of the Confederacy who had the moral superiority.
If my history serves me correctly (without looking it up), I believe the Camp/Prison Commander, a CPT I think, was the only soldier on either side tried, convicted and executed for war crimes.
Anyone?
CPT Henry Wirz.
http://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/wirztestimonies.htm
From what I read, his trial was the most publicized, but there were others.
I lost ancestors at Andersonville and at Fort Delaware. Both were horrendous, but Fort Delaware was worse, because the Union deliberately (and with malice) put them in a situation that reminds me of the British prison ships in the Revolutionary War.