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Andersonville : the last depot

Author: William Marvel
Publisher: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, ©1994.
Series: Civil War America.
Edition/Format:   Book : State or province government publication : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 - one-third of them - died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on a conspiracy of higher-ranking officials.

In this carefully researched and compelling revisionist

Based on reliable primary sources - including diaries, Union and Confederate government documents, and letters - rather than exaggerated postwar recollections and such well-known but spurious "diaries" as that of John Ransom, Marvel's analysis exonerates camp commandant Henry Wirz and others from charges that they deliberately exterminated prisoners, a crime for which Wirz was executed after the war.

According to Marvel, virulent disease and severe shortages of vegetables, medical supplies, and other necessities combined to create a crisis beyond Wirz's control. He also argues that the tragedy was aggravated by the Union decision to suspend prisoner exchanges, which meant that many men who might have returned home were instead left to sicken and die in captivity.  Read more...

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Details

Material Type: Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: William Marvel
ISBN: 0807821527 9780807821527 0807857815 9780807857816
OCLC Number: 29255361
Description: xi, 337 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Contents: Preface --
I find me in a gloomy wood --
All hope abandon --
Then spoke the thunder --
A Deep and muddy river --
But yet the will roll'd onward --
Each in his narrow cell forever laid --
April is the cruelest month --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Sources and acknowledgments --
Index.
Series Title: Civil War America.
Responsibility: William Marvel.

Abstract:

Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 - one-third of them - died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on a conspiracy of higher-ranking officials.

In this carefully researched and compelling revisionist account, William Marvel provides a comprehensive history of Andersonville Prison and conditions within it.

Based on reliable primary sources - including diaries, Union and Confederate government documents, and letters - rather than exaggerated postwar recollections and such well-known but spurious "diaries" as that of John Ransom, Marvel's analysis exonerates camp commandant Henry Wirz and others from charges that they deliberately exterminated prisoners, a crime for which Wirz was executed after the war.

According to Marvel, virulent disease and severe shortages of vegetables, medical supplies, and other necessities combined to create a crisis beyond Wirz's control. He also argues that the tragedy was aggravated by the Union decision to suspend prisoner exchanges, which meant that many men who might have returned home were instead left to sicken and die in captivity.

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