I think it's fair to say that I'm getting pretty good at Andersonville, having gone 5 times in the last ten years and spent a total of 9 nights in the park as a guest speaker - there's a little cabin there where they put up the guests.
Bring food. There are picnic tables for school field trips, but they don't have any food sold on site There is a small restaurant if you go straight across the highway from the Park's exit and it's on the left. It seems to change names every time I am there, so I can't tell you what it's called, but there aren't many things up that way, so you'll find it.
Notice the large obelisque by the restaurant and museum. There's a big crack in it, but it's dedicated to Henry Wirz, "Hero and Martyr" and was erected by the UDC ladies. Wirz was the commandant hanged for war crimes after the end of the was in a farce of a trial.
After the restaurant, there's a little spot called "Drummer Boy Museum." It looks like a tourist trap and it's only one room, but trust me, you WANT to go there. It's something like $5 to get in, and it has things like uniforms, bullets with teeth marks, a diorama of the prison, and most unexpectedly the bonnet Mary Surratt wore to her execution as one of the Lincoln conspirators.
Note that the railroad tracks you cross are how the prisoners were brought in. There was once an officer's prison near the tracks, but only a small sign close to the ground indicates its presence, Note the white footprints painted on the ground, tracing the prisoners' steps from the train to the prison - 800 paces to Hell. If you want to get out and walk the route, it takes you to the North gate of the stockade.
There's an introductory video in the museum where all of the actors look suspiciously well fed and seem to be graduates from the William Shatner school of long pauses, but it's worth seeing. I think there are ranger led tours twice a day. You can ask about the times at the desk when you arrive.
When you see signs that say there are snakes, believe them. I've met a few.
The stockade itself was 26 acres and I usually walk the road around it, but if it's hot, you might want to drive. If you have a way to play a CD in your car, you can borrow a CD tour at the museum to listen to while you're there.
Two sections of the stockade have been rebuilt -- the Northeast corner and the north gate. There are stone pillars that mark the south gate. Both gates were set in the Western wall - one to the north and the other to the south. There are markers all around the stockade site that show where the stockade wall and deadline were. The place was BIG and yet by August it was so crowded that each man only had about 12 square feet (figuring a 6x2 space) to lie down in, New prisoners would be led through the first gate and the door closed behind them. They'd be counted, told the rules, and then the second gate would open and they'd get their first look of what they were in for. Out of 45,000 men who were held there, just under 13,000 of them are still there. August 23, 1864 was the worst day for deaths. 123 men died that day, an average of 1 every 11 minutes. The three most common causes of death were diarrhea, dysentery and scurvy. They were fed once a day. It rained almost every day in June.
My favorite photo op is go to inside the Providence Spring pavilion and look to the north at the reconstructed North gate and take a picture of it framed by the stones of the pavilion. The signs will say that the water is not fit for human consumption, but yeah, I've tried it. It tastes like old pipes, leading me to suspect that the signs are more about the lead content than any bacteria in the water. Do note that the "miraculous spring" is actually inside the deadline where the prisoners would have been shot if they'd crossed into it. The guards, who get a bad rep, allowed them to reach in with a stick and dig a trough to divert the water into the stockade so that the prisoners could get to it. If you go inside the Pennsylvania monument at the cemetery, there's a brass relief sculpture showing this. You'll also find capped well sights and escape tunnels in the north end, up near the museum.
People look at the stockade and wonder if there may still be bodies buried there. As far as I can tell, excluding the two who were killed by the raiders and buried under their tents, there were 5 bodies found post-war, and most of them are presumed to have either died when they were sleeping in a dug out on the hill that caved in on them, or while tunneling out. There were 3 bodies discovered up by the Ohio and Michigan monuments when they went to erect them. Archeologists who mapped out the site with ground penetrating radar tell me that there's no evidence of bodies in the stockade, but then I look at how grown over the site is near the stream and wonder how thoroughly they could have searched that area.
Oh, I almost forgot. There's no sign, but if you go through the South gate and walk straight in a few dozen yards, you'll find a cement pillar that looks like it's been whacked by the lawn mower a few times (because it has!) This marks the approximate location of the gallows where the raiders were hanged. It's visible from a lot of the prison, which made it a very convenient place to have a hanging.
There's a pretty good view of the grounds if you walk up to the Star Fort, on the right past the south gate.
You're in luck because they just erected the "Avenue of Flags" in the cemetery - they aren't usually lining the road like that. I'm told that they get plenty of volunteers to put them up, but then the poles fill with rain water and folks don't really like to be the ones to take them down. There are about 20,000 people buried here, 13,000 of the prisoners, a bunch of post war reinterments of soldiers who died elsewhere, and soldiers and family members from every war since. There are a bunch of centographs (markers with no bodies up near the place where they hold the funerals, but one of them - for 19 year old Medal of Honor winner Luther Story, who gave his life in Korea to save the men he was with, may not be a cenotaph much longer, as I heard that they just found his body and are bringing him home.
If you had an ancestor who died there, the folks at the museum can tell you his grave number and where it is. If you are in the mood to rankle them, ask them for the grave number of the Confederate soldier who's buried there, Samson Kitchener. His descendant didn't like the way his grave was being tended, and somehow managed to get his remains moved to Andersonville National Cemetery. It's the only Confederate grave there, and unlike the other, rounded grave markers, his has a peaked top "to keep the Yankees from sitting on it!")
No one is certain how many guards died there, but 116 of them were originally buried near the prisoners. Their bodies were later moved after it was announced that a fence was going to be built around the prisoners' graves, leaving the guards isolated out by the highway. Funds were raised and 115 of them were dug up and moved to Oak Grove cemetery in Americus (one grave was empty; presumably his family had come at some point and brother his home). It's worth a visit if you have time, but it's a big cemetery and I've only been there once, so I can't tell you exactly where their plot is, but I think Confederate Memorial Day is coming up, and so they would be decorated with Confederate flags, making them easier to find. If you look at this month's photo of the month entries, I have a picture I took of them last year posted there.
The Raiders' graves are not as conspicuous as they used to be. They're near the flagpole in the center. Originally, they were buried apart from the other graves because the other prisoners didn't want them buried together with the "Honored Dead" but two years ago the administration decided to fill in the space around them with new burials, a move that has me both shaking my head and spitting mad, because there's still room for new graves elsewhere. Still worth a peek. Their two murder victims and the man killed running the gauntlet are all buried as "Unknowns" in a row a few yards away to the North, but I am blanking on the numbers
When you get to the NY monument in the cemetery, go around and take a look at the back of it. That's my favorite piece of public art there, and because its on the back of the monument, hardly anyone realizes that it's there.
Take a good look at the magnolia trees in the cemetery - rumor has it that Clara Barton planted them, and that they're going to be taking them down soon because they're not healthy.
The Museum, for me, is the least interesting part of the visit. It covers POWs throughout US History, starting with the Revolutionary War and ending with Vietnam/the Gulf war, and I wish there was more Civil War stuff in it. It's dark, it's small, and I'd been there five times before a ranger mentioned that they had a log from the stockade wall there - it's so well hidden that I'd never noticed it (somewhere on the left, surrounded by identical log wallpaper, and in a dark, glass case).
Tell whoever's at the desk that Mary Gorman/Gary Morgan says "Hi," and give my book a pat if you see it in the gift shop. It's usually on the top row when it's in stock.
Wishing you a good trip!
Mary (Gary is my pen name)
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