he Bataan Death March. The Hanoi Hilton. Abu Ghraib. The horrifying stories and the striking images of prisoners of war make for some of the most emotional and devastating memories of armed conflict. But most Americans forget there was a time when our own nation was home to thousands of POWs-during the country's bloodiest battle, the Civil War.
Sites like Antietam, Gettysburg, and Manassas are among the best known and most visited Civil War sites in the National Park System, but the soldiers who were fortunate enough to survive those battles-but unfortunate enough to be on the losing side-often found themselves in one of the 16 prison camps scattered throughout the nation.
Georgia's Camp Sumter was the most infamous: More than 45,000 prisoners walked through its gates in the span of 14 months; about one in three never walked out. Today the 515-acre plot of land now known as Andersonville National Historic Site serves as a memorial to those soldiers. The grounds include a national cemetery where former inmates are buried, along with the POW Museum, a memorial for all Americans held as prisoners of war throughout our nation's history.
In the early days of the Civil War, prison camps were unnecessary-Union and Confederate forces exchanged prisoners, returning captured soldiers to the opposition so many could fight again. But the agreement fell apart in 1863 for a number of reasons; for instance, the South insisted on returning black soldiers to slavery, which was unacceptable to the North, whose leaders soon recognized that their manpower advantage provided less incentive to participate in the exchange.
When the program was suspended, each side faced the challenge of housing thousands of men and providing for their care. Union and Confederate prisons were little more than oversize holding pens with primitive campsites. Both sides had limited resources, so all of the prisons were severely lacking, but the conditions at Camp Sumter were extreme. Food was hard to come by, the water supply was unhealthy, and disease was just as likely to claim a life as a bullet wound.
Many inmates tried to escape by digging tunnels, but few succeeded. Others ran away from work and burial details, and at least one inmate even feigned his death, waiting until he had been carried out of the camp before getting up and running away. But the conditions of the camp were so miserable and many inmates were in such poor physical health that when a flood provided an opportunity for escape, most were too ill to flee.
Those who lost their lives at Camp Sumter were buried in a field about a quarter mile from the prison site. A numbered wooden post was placed at each grave, and the soldiers' names were recorded in a burial register. Years later, wooden markers, and eventually marble headstones, were put in their place to honor the dead.
For obvious reasons, the site isn't an easy one for every visitor to experience.
"A lot of the Andersonville POW story is depressing because we see man's inhumanity to man," says Alan Marsh, cultural resources program manager at Andersonville. "But at the same time, we see stories of compassion and hope [among POWs in every war]. We also see the best of the human spirit, whether that's a POW along the Bataan Death March who picks up another American and carries him down the road, or a prisoner of war sharing the few rations he has with another POW, or an Andersonville guard helping one of the prisoners. We do the best we can to tell the whole human story and that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly."
To tell that story, the POW Museum contains hours of interactive displays, such as video segments and taped interviews with former prisoners of war, along with photographs, journals, and descriptive text that accompany archived objects. The museum contains one of the best oral history programs in the National Park System, including more than 900 interviews with former POWs, now being transferred to DVD. Thanks to a special volunteer program, the museum even hosts former POWs for days at a time, so they can offer visitors a better understanding of their experiences - sharing a lesson with the next generation as they're honored by every generation.
