National Archives

Issuing rations to 33,000 prisoners in August of 1864. This photograph was probably taken near the North Gate on Market Street.

In the latter part of the Civil War, the Confederate States government built a large stockade prison camp in south-central Georgia. Between February 1864, when the first prisoners arrived, and April 1865, when the prison ceased to exist, more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined there. Of these more than 12,000 perished from disease, malnutrition, overcrowding, and exposure. The prison’s official name was Camp Sumter, but most people called it Andersonville.

Read a brief history of the Civil War prison camp and National Cemetery found at Andersonville here.