Update on Archaeological Work at Camp Lawton

dlofting

Sergeant Major
Joined
Aug 13, 2013
Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Life Inside a Civil War POW Camp

In the waning months of the Civil War, Camp Lawton, located in eastern Georgia, held Union prisoners of war for a six-week period of time. The Confederate General John H. Winder built the prison to alleviate the overcrowding at the notorious Andersonville, where conditions were so dire that nearly a third of the prisoners held there would die in captivity. After its evacuation in November 1864, Camp Lawton was all but forgotten until 2010, when a graduate student from Georgia Southern University discovered remains of the prison's stockade. Archaeologists from the school have been excavating since, turning up artifacts belonging to the prisoners and their captors and learning how they sheltered themselves during their time within the stockade.

To see what the team digging at Camp Lawton has learned about POW life at a Confederate prison camp, read "Life on the Inside" from Archaeology's November/December 2013 issue.

And click here to view a gallery of scrollable watercolors made by Union Private Robert Knox Sneden, a prisoner who 150 years ago was held at Camp Lawton. His detailed depictions capture scenes from his time as a POW and a parolee living in and around the prison.
 
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