We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2010 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:06:01 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2012 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification "Theirs was not the glory of death on the firing line. Penned in by the Dead Line, wasted by disease, far from home and loved ones, they were mercifully mustered out, leaving as a heritage to the nation the memory of a devotion as limitless as eternity itself." Address by Governor A.T. Bliss, at the dedication of the Michigan Monument, Andersonville, May 30, 1904. Andersonville sucked. In 1864 the war was not going well for the Confederacy. Grant and Sherman were starting the long grind that would end the war a year later, and the pressure on Confederate resources... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html Sun, 31 Oct 2004 11:13:51 -0600 Very good post Armorer. Did you make it to the town? I saw the picture of the National POW Museum but you didn't mention it in your text. Did you like it? It's a decent place when the audio/video displays are working...I was there when it opened (John McCain was Guest of Honor) I've lived in Andersonville for 8 years and did living history programs out at the park for over 10 years. The Park has done a good job with them. Some have been at night and were done more like a play as visitors are escorted by candlelight from one scene to another all around the prison. For the 125th anniversary, the NPS actually got ahold of a steam engine and cars. That one made the best impression upon as to what a Union prisoner went through. Being marched from the depot to the prison (almost a mile), standing outside the North Gate, herded into the holding pen, divided into messes then ordered into the prison proper...trying to make a "shebang" with my messmates...being put in charge of dividing and issuing the rations. Method: rations(consisting of slightly more then a handful of cornmeal and 3-4 oz of pork, mainly fat)laid out on oilcloths. With my back to the rations and facing the prisoners, another Sgt points to one pile of cornmeal and pork/fat and asks "Who gets this ration?" and I point to a random prisoner. Seems fair no? All the marching and "shebanging" makes you hungry and you find out how short those rations really were. I've always understood that the guards received the same rations but they had better access to local farms/town. The Living History events were usually held in February to coincide with the anniversary of the prison's opening...I've slept overnight out there in a "shebang" in February and even tho it's SW Georgia it still can get cold...Mix in rain and it's really nasty. My only run in with the law resulted in community service hours and I was actually given a chance to do the hours at the park...Instead of washing county owned cars or cutting grass at a school, I got to run a weedeater over the earthworks, the Star Fort, prison walls and Dead Line, the "sinks" and even headstones in the cemetery. I considered it a honor to do work there. I recently was stopped outside the Post Office by 2 soldiers in a car who had gotten lost on their way to the National Cemetery to bury a fellow soldier who was killed in Iraq. AHS continues to have even more reasons for it to be hallowed ground. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8188 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8188 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:40:44 -0600 Unfortunately the South couldn't support its own armies and its treatment of POWs while poor cannot be compared to the North's deliberate mistreatment of the POWs it held. The North deliberately starved its POWs for which there is no defense. A comparison of mortality rates between both sides prisoners rasies numerous questions. A point you fail to bring out in the article is the kangaroo trial held against Wirtz for his supposed crimes. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8147 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8147 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:59:25 -0600 All POW camps suck, if you happen to be an inmate. All things considered, though, Andersonville and Elmira would be positively Hiltonesque in comparison with a 3x3x5 tiger cage in the U Minh Forest... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8145 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8145 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:33:05 -0600 Umm, yep, Andersonville was revolting, but don't forget Elmira, and Point Lookout, and many other horrible, and horribly deadly, FEDERAL prison camps. Not to mention Abraham Lenin's cold-blooded decision to stop prisoner exchanges, knowing that it would cause hardships up to and including nasty deaths, for US soldiers in CS custody. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8143 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8143 Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:28:21 -0600 Thanks; that takes me back. I used to live in Americus, GA almost twenty years ago, working as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes I would cycle out to Koinonia Farms, other times out to Andersonville. Quite a place... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8141 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2004/10/andersonville.html#comment-8141 Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:13:10 -0600