Golden Thread Andersonville National Historic Site

bdtex

Major General
★★ Sr. Moderator
Silver Patron
Annual Winner
Regtl. Quartermaster Chickamauga 2018 Vicksburg 2019
Joined
Jul 21, 2015
Location
Texas

goldenthread.jpg

Nominated by @Buckeye Bill

2018-06-22 07.05.01.jpg



2018-06-22 07.05.13.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I visited Andersonville National Historic Site on 6/22/2018 during a trip to southern Georgia. Posted about the trip in this thread that I started in May 2018 looking for some Civil War Traveler's Companion tips from CWT members:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/upcoming-trip-to-southern-georgia.146203/

My life was crazy busy at the time of that trip and it never let up for the rest of 2018. I never got around to posting much about my visit to Andersonville. I wanna do that now.
 
From Thursday night 6/21/2018- Sunday 6/24/2018,my spouse and I were in Valdosta,GA which is 2 hours south of Andersonville. My spouse doesn't care for Civil War sightseeing but she tolerates mine pretty well with well-placed bribes. More on that in a minute. I left Valdosta at 6am on Friday 6/21/2018. My plan was to get there at 8am when it opened. When I got there,I would only have about 2 hours there. I had to be back in Valdosta around noonish. The price for being gone for 6 hours that morning was an afternoon trip to a nice outlet mall in Valdosta and $400/cash. She didn't ask for that. That was my bribe. Anyhoo...it was a nice drive...interstate highway a good part of the way up there. Here's Civil War Traveler's Companion tip #1. If you're getting close to ANHS and you have to go to the restroom and you see a place but you think there might be someplace better a little ways up the road....there's not. I do not know what I would have done if the bathroom at Andersonville National Cemetery had been locked when I got there. I didn't have a spare set of skivvies or fatigues with me and a big ole mess was about to happen. :bomb:
 
I had read a couple of books about Andersonville before our trip to Georgia. Thought I posted book reviews but I guess I didn't. Both books describe how isolated it was. It still is. That struck me on the drive up there and back. It was in the middle of nowhere during the Civil War and it still is. I didn't have time to go to the town of Andersonville,which is 1.3 miles from ANHS. Other than that, for miles around ANHS,there's only a convenience store here and there. That sense of isolation you get travelling to and from ANHS extends to the grounds itself. At least it did for me. I was there on a summer Friday morning and only saw 2 other visitors there during my visit. There were a few groundskeepers at the Cemetery and the occasional sounds of a weedeater and sounds of birds was about all I heard my entire time there.
 
From Thursday night 6/21/2018- Sunday 6/24/2018,my spouse and I were in Valdosta,GA which is 2 hours south of Andersonville. My spouse doesn't care for Civil War sightseeing but she tolerates mine pretty well with well-placed bribes. More on that in a minute. I left Valdosta at 6am on Friday 6/21/2018. My plan was to get there at 8am when it opened. When I got there,I would only have about 2 hours there. I had to be back in Valdosta around noonish. The price for being gone for 6 hours that morning was an afternoon trip to a nice outlet mall in Valdosta and $400/cash. She didn't ask for that. That was my bribe. Anyhoo...it was a nice drive...interstate highway a good part of the way up there. Here's Civil War Traveler's Companion tip #1. If you're getting close to ANHS and you have to go to the restroom and you see a place but you think there might be someplace better a little ways up the road....there's not. I do not know what I would have done if the bathroom at Andersonville National Cemetery had been locked when I got there. I didn't have a spare set of skivvies or fatigues with me and a big ole mess was about to happen. :bomb:

Nice thread, Bobby!

Bill

P.S. DNA!
 
I visited Andersonville National Historic Site on 6/22/2018 during a trip to southern Georgia. Posted about the trip in this thread that I started in May 2018 looking for some Civil War Traveler's Companion tips from CWT members:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/upcoming-trip-to-southern-georgia.146203/

My life was crazy busy at the time of that trip and it never let up for the rest of 2018. I never got around to posting much about my visit to Andersonville. I wanna do that now.
Is there any Union POW sights that are National historic sites? Is there not one near Chicago where Confederate soldiers recieved the same treatment or has historians rather overlook these sights due to the prejudice in this arear of CW history in the North.as the South had slaves and the North did not.
 
Is there any Union POW sights that are National historic sites? Is there not one near Chicago where Confederate soldiers recieved the same treatment or has historians rather overlook these sights due to the prejudice in this arear of CW history in the North.as the South had slaves and the North did not.
I don't know.
 
Is there any Union POW sights that are National historic sites? Is there not one near Chicago where Confederate soldiers recieved the same treatment or has historians rather overlook these sights due to the prejudice in this arear of CW history in the North.as the South had slaves and the North did not.

From a TRUE Southern boy, this thread was posted by @bdtex (another Southern boy) on his visit and what he saw. It was not about the politics, just his trip.
 
So it was overcast when I arrived at Andersonville NHS and the Georgia humidity in June had a layer of dew on the ground. I wore comfortable tennis shoes on the ride up but had a pair of waterproof hiking boots in my truck. After my mad dash to the Cemetery restroom,I got my boots and dropped the tailgate on my truck to change footwear. Immediately,I started getting buzzed by gnats. In their letters,diaries and memoirs,the prisoners at Camp Sumter aka Andersonville Prison wrote a lot about the gnats/flies at the prison. That hasn't changed either. I thought about that and them while I was changing shoes. Sorta appropriate that I experienced that from the outset.
 
Is there any Union POW sights that are National historic sites? Is there not one near Chicago where Confederate soldiers recieved the same treatment or has historians rather overlook these sights due to the prejudice in this arear of CW history in the North.as the South had slaves and the North did not.
This thread is about @bdtex 's visit to Andersonville. It is not an open discussion on prisons of the Civil War. Can we not just appreciate Bobby's travel report without degenerating into a north/south mud fight?

Posted as member.
 
I had read a couple of books about Andersonville before our trip to Georgia. Thought I posted book reviews but I guess I didn't. Both books describe how isolated it was. It still is. That struck me on the drive up there and back. It was in the middle of nowhere during the Civil War and it still is. I didn't have time to go to the town of Andersonville,which is 1.3 miles from ANHS. Other than that, for miles around ANHS,there's only a convenience store here and there. That sense of isolation you get travelling to and from ANHS extends to the grounds itself. At least it did for me. I was there on a summer Friday morning and only saw 2 other visitors there during my visit. There were a few groundskeepers at the Cemetery and the occasional sounds of a weedeater and sounds of birds was about all I heard my entire time there.
ummm you know that sense of isolation means you can go to bathroom bout anywhere...…...:D
 
I already had one of the NPS brochures on Andersonville NHS. Not sure when and where I got it. I had also gone online before the trip and printed some stuff on the NPS website. Don't think I had either out when I got there. Don't believe it was a coincidence that I ended up first at the oldest section of Andersonville National Cemetery. The sight of those smaller national cemetery gravestones packed so closely together is heart-stopping.

2018-06-22 07.23.39.jpg


2018-06-22 07.24.04.jpg


2018-06-22 07.32.05.jpg
 
One of the books I read before our trip to Georgia was Andersonville: The Last Depot by William Marvel. Really good book. If I ever make it back to Andersonville,I'm gonna read it again. There are a number of wartime and immediate postwar pictures of Andersonville in it. Behind me and across the road from the pictures above is this sign and cemetery section. In the book,the name of the soldier being laid to rest is identified.

2018-06-22 07.34.36.jpg
 
Just to the right of where I was standing when I took the picture above is the Georgia Monument,south gate of Andersonville National Cemetery and a road leading to the Prison Site. My pics of the monument didn't turn out too well. Lopped off the top of the flagpole in the one I'm posting. As you can see,it was still a bit hazy too.

2018-06-22 07.36.41.jpg


2018-06-22 07.35.29.jpg


2018-06-22 07.37.15.jpg
 
The cemetery sign in the 2nd pic above mentions the Raiders' graves. Went to find them next. They weren't hard to find. The thought occurred to me last night that I really know nothing about the Raiders' biographical information or their service records prior to capture and imprisonment at Andersonville. Someone should write a book about that.

2018-06-22 07.39.38.jpg


2018-06-22 07.41.38.jpg


2018-06-22 07.42.19.jpg
 
@btex some people claim to have had very emotional episodes while visiting Andersonville. Was this something that you experienced? I do not think I felt anything unusually emotional when I visited. Maybe I am simply a cold fish.
 
Back
Top