Avoiding the Grave at Andersonville: Three Young Men from Leopold, Indiana, Survive the Civil War Prison

As Richmond was being attacked, a place was needed to store the Union prisoners. Andersonville had accesses to the Georgia Southwestern Railway and portable water from the Sweetwater Creek and wells around the area making it an ideal location. A pine forest surrounded the area providing a good amount of timber as well. (Rice n.d.) According to Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein, the prison began construction in January of 1864 but was being filled with prisoners before it was complete. When the first group of 10,000 prisoners arrived, only half the fence was complete, the cookhouse had barely been started, and no barracks or hospital had been established. The prisoners were supposed to be housed in tents but the governor of Georgia refused to sell them any. (Schroeder-Lein 2008) According to McElroy, who was a survivor of the Andersonville prison camp and wrote of book on his life there, the river that flowed through the camp made the area around in like a bog about a hundred and fifty feet wide that prisoners would sink into leaving even less adequate living space for the prisoners. (McElroy, Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons 1962) The pine forest around the forest was also quickly cut down for construction. This left the prisoners

At Ft. Ridgely, anger and fear festered after the first attack on the fort as to when reinforcements would come. This also held true for the town of New Ulm which was scrambling to defend itself under the leadership of Colonel Flandrau. While these towns were being attacked, Sibley had gathered an army of 1,340 troops, but still complained about the lack of supplies and training his men had. As the book aptly put it, however, “…neither were the defenders of New Ulm and Fort Ridgley, and they fought with determination, improvised when necessary, and made do without what they could not get and still they bested superior numbers of Indians” (177-178). Sibley’s delays in advancing his troops and attacking the Indians caused heavy responses from the people of Minnesota. Many called for

time to be alive. Soldier Life During The Civil War The camp life for a soldier was

After arriving at Valley Forge Martin and his fellow soldiers were about to go through the famously long cold winter that awaited them. Martin wrote, “Our prospect was indeed dreary. In our miserable condition, to go into the wild woods and build us habitations to stay (not to live) in, in such a weak, starved and naked condition, was appalling in the highest degree” (Martin 89). He talks about lying there “two nights and one day, and had not a morsel of any thing to eat all the time” (Martin 90).

Historian Watson interviewed a survivor of the Walnut Street Jail some years after the War's end. The veteran, Jacob Ritter, recalled that prisoners were fed nothing for days on end and were regularly targets of beatings by the British guards. The prison was freezing as broken window panes allowed snow and cold to be the only blankets available to the captives. Ice, lice, and mice shared the cells. Desperate prisoners dined on grass roots, scraps of leather, and "pieces of a rotten pump." Rats were a delicacy. Upward of a dozen prisoners died daily. They were hauled across the street and slung in unmarked trenches like carcasses from an abattoir.

“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person… There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet Tubman uttered these words when she arrived in Pennsylvania, a free woman at last (National Geographic). Years later, when talking about the reasons she ran away, Ms. Tubman would state, “[There are] two things I [have] a right to and these are Death and Liberty. One or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive” (America’s Civil War, 42). While most research on the Underground Railroad focuses on the northern states, the state of Iowa played an essential role in the

Life of a soldier is very tough and full of discipline, in the Army of the Potomac the soldier has to keep his body in shape for any battle that might come up. The soldier would do drills every morning. The camps for a soldier were tents, they would pitch a tent and that’s what they would sleep in. The soldier would play games to keep himself entertained and not get bored.

Valley Forge is a winter camp for soldiers. It was about 18 miles northwest of Philadelphia that had the not so clean items. If I had a choice to quit or stay at Valley Forge I would choose to quit. Showing the amount of estimates of illness and deaths is one of the main reasons why I would quit. During February 1778 the estimated amount of soldiers is 8,000. The estimated amount of illness during the encampment was 3,989 which is about 50% of the people get sick. (Doc A). Also, 1,800- 2,500 is the estimated number of people who die due to illness. (Doc A). The diary of Dr. Waldo wrote about the conditions of the troop and huts. Many reasons why soldiers are dying because of the harsh conditions such as sickness, poor food, cold weather, fatigue,

In the center of White Point Garden at the Charleston Battery, beholds a statue thats beautiful art conveys a very powerful message to the public that cannot be ignored. The Confederate Defenders of Charleston monument very clearly conveys a sense of power, but with more analyzation, a deeper meaning is found through description, visuals, and appeals.

From Trajan’s Column, completed in 113 AD, to the statue of Christopher Columbus in Easton, Pennsylvania, monuments and memorials have been a significant element of celebration and honor throughout history (Source B). Though monuments are typically meant as a symbol of honor, recent controversy over statues dedicated to Confederate leaders and generals has sparked the debate over how to choose subjects to memorialize, and the actual development of these memorials. When considering what or who to honor, one must also consider the subjects impact on history, ensuring that it is positive. In creating memorials and monuments, groups and agencies should examine the historical significance of the events or persons they wish to memorialize, and the

A “camp” where laws were left standing at the vast wooden gate, a “camp” where the instinct to survive was the only proposal in the minds of the P.O.W’s; Georgia’s very own Andersonville was the most horrible Confederate Prisoner

As Tony Horwitz illustrates in Confederates in the Attic, the Civil War is far from over. Horwitz, determined to find the answers to this conflict, treks through the South, seeking to explain man's longtime obsession with a war that divided the nation. Talking to historians and Civil War reenactors of all kinds, he finds that people are still divided today when it comes to the war and present issues in society. He collects a vast amount of data, which proves to make things very difficult in drawing a general conclusion. Horwitz learns how differently the south views the war, discovers the way in which people use history to suit their own needs, and explores issues of race.

Contrabands was a term established during the Civil War, by General Benjamin Butler. It was given to “slaves who had escaped to the Union or were captured by the Unions troops”(220). Additionally, the were considered enemy property by the Union. Union troops did not free them, but they did not reenslave them either. Instead, the Union put them to work, fed, clothed, and housed the slaves. They also still were not permitted to go and come as they pleased. However, on August 6th, 1861 congress passed the First Confiscation Act. This clarified the status of runaway’s slaves and it allowed federal forces to obtain any property that belong to the Confederates used in the war. In addition, this act declared that slaves who were used by their masters

Reading the first letter from Jourdan Anderson, one of the meanings of freedom one can take away from the tone of Anderson’s diction is the freedom to throw shade. Seriously, Anderson is now a free man and thus free to write smugly to his former master, and eloquently so. His letter essentially tells the Colonel there is no chance in hell that he and his family will return to live with the man who previously enslaved them. Anderson also expressed he knew he was already a free man in response to the Colonel promising his freedom upon his return. Anderson states, “there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville.” That line asserts to the Colonel that going returning to Big Spring would not be advantageous because he can already live freely with his family. He does not need, nor want to return to the Colonel’s home.

St. Peter Claver was a humble looking church, without the towering spires or detailed architecture that some churches possess in order to fill you with worshipful awe. In fact, it would have been almost unrecognizable as a church if it were not for the relatively small silver cross that hung above the door, not even raised above the line of the roof. Walking into the church did not change the sense of humility that the outside professed. Dark wood lined the walls and floor, and made up the pews. It felt almost like stepping into a cabin that had been built in the 1970’s. Along the walls there were small portrait sized depictions of the fourteen stations of the cross. Unlike St. Agnes’s eye catching and baroque decorations, St. Peter Claver’s artwork almost blended into the background, and was not immediately visible. It appeared that the artwork mirrored the nature of the building itself, almost as if the church wanted to dispense with frivolity and maintain its focus on the practice of its faith.