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Contact: Stephanie Steinhorst, 229 924-0343, ext. 203
Experience the National Prisoner of War Museum and the prison site after dark. ANDERSONVILLE, Georgia – On the evening of Saturday, November 15, the popular "Night Museum" program will return to Andersonville National Historic Site. From 6:00 - 9:00 p.m., the National Prisoner of War Museum will be open for a rare night-time opportunity to view the museum exhibits and experience the prison site by lantern light. At 7:00 pm a special program, "Andersonville in Motion: Prison Transfers, Mass Escapes, and the Collapse of the Confederacy" will be presented by Professor Lorien Foote. Ms. Foote's program will explore the history of United States prisoner confinement and relocation during the Civil War and how this "prison transfer debacle" in the fall of 1864 contributed to the collapse of Confederate home front and ended effective Confederate authority in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. This program will also include stories of thousands of escaping Union prisoners and the slaves, deserters, and southern Unionists who helped the fugitive Yankees to Union lines. Lorien Foote is professor of history at Texas A&M University. She is the author of two books, most recently The Gentlemen and the Roughs: Manhood, Honor, and Violence in the Union Army (2010), which was a finalist and Honorable Mention for the 2011 Lincoln Prize. She is the creator and principal investigator of a project with the Center for Virtual History at the University of Georgia that is mapping the movement of 3,000 Federal prisoners of war who escaped from the Confederacy during the American Civil War (http://www.ehistory.org/projects/fugitive-federals.html). "A visit to the National Prisoner of War Museum is a moving experience under any circumstance," stated Acting Superintendent Eric Leonard, "but we hope that this Night Museum program will better illuminate the complex prison experience for soldiers. Thousands of prisoners waited for the cover of darkness to make their bids for freedom, and when we have an opportunity to share that setting, it reveals the desperate acts of dying men." Andersonville National Historic Site is located 10 miles south of Oglethorpe, GA and 10 miles northeast of Americus, GA on Georgia Highway 49. The national park features the National Prisoner of War Museum, Andersonville National Cemetery and the site of the historic Civil War prison, Camp Sumter. Andersonville National Historic Site is the only national park within the National Park System to serve as a memorial to all American prisoners of war. Park grounds are open from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The National Prisoner of War Museum is open 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., daily. Admission is free. For more information on the park, call 229 924-0343, or visit at www.nps.gov/ande/ Visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AndersonvilleNPS, Twitter www.twitter.com/andeNHS About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 401 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov. |
Last updated: April 14, 2015