Night at the Museum at Andersonville on Nov. 16

Andersonville National Historic Site

An outstanding event is set for Andersonville National Historic Site and the National Prisoner of War Museum on the evening of November 16.

The park and museum will host "Night at the Museum." The event offers an extremely rare opportunity to visit the museum and prison site after dark.

Special films will be shown in the museum There will be a special presentation on the 15 American Indian men from Company K, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters who were held prisoner at Camp Sumter (Andersonville). Plus the path to the prison site will be illuminated with lanterns and you will be able to visit the reconstructed northeast corner of the historic prison to interact with living history volunteers who will be reenacting life at the Civil War stockade during the winter of 1864-1865.

Please click here to learn more about "Night at the Museum."

Please click here to learn more about Andersonville National Historic Site.

149th anniversary of the Battle of Dunlap Hill - Macon, Georgia

Dunlap House at Ocmulgee National Monument

Today is the 149th anniversary of the day that "Stoneman's cavalry came to tear up the tracks again" at Macon, Georgia (to borrow a line from the old song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down").

Confederate Gen. Howell Cobb was waiting at Macon with a force of Georgia Reserves, militia and a few regular troops. With them he would turn on Union Gen. George H. Stoneman who was raiding south from near Atlanta with 2,000 men in hopes of liberating the Federal prisoners of war at Camp Oglethorpe in Macon and Camp Sumter at Andersonville. 

Confederate Fortifications at Dunlap Hill

The action, fought on the northern edge of Macon and in part on the grounds of today's Ocmulgee National Monument, is remembered today as the Battle of Dunlap Hill or Battle of Dunlap's Farm. A Confederate victory, it ended any hopes Stoneman had of riding on to Andersonville and instead set in motion a change of events that would lead to him becoming the highest ranking Union officer captured during the entire Civil War!

A preliminary action to the coming Battle of Sunshine Church, but an important encounter that turned the tide of Stoneman's Georgia Raid, the Battle of Dunlap Hill was a significant event in the history of the Atlanta Campaign.

Read more about the battle at:

• http://southernhistory.blogspot.com/2013/07/battle-of-dunlap-hill-149th-anniversary.html.
• www.exploresouthernhistory.com/dunlaphill.

And be sure to watch for more tomorrow and throughout the week on the Battle of Sunshine Church!

Andersonville National Historic Site - Andersonville, Georgia

Home to the National Prisoner of War Museum, Georgia's Andersonville National Historic Site is a place for reflection on the cost paid by America's prisoners of war throughout the centuries.

Located at the site of Camp Sumter, a major Confederate prisoner of war camp, the national historic site interprets both the importance of Andersonville during the Civil War and the story of American prisoners of war in all conflicts.

Established in 1864 to relieve overcrowding at Confederate prison camps, the facility at Andersonville was originally designed to house up to 10,000 prisoners. Captain Henry Wirz, its commandant, soon found himself overwhelmed by more than 30,000. Conditions deteriorated and by August of 1864 more than 100 men were dying each day at the stockade from exposure, disease and malnutrition. By the end of the war, 13,000 men died at Camp Sumter. Despite evidence that showed he tried desperately to secure relief for the prisoners, Captain Wirz was the only man tried, convicted and executed for war crimes at the end of the Civil War.

The park today preserves the site of the original prison, small sections of which have been reconstructed. Other features of the park include escape tunnels and wells dug by prisoners, the well-preserved Confederate forts that ringed the prison, the National POW Museum and Andersonville National Cemetery. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/andersonvillenhs.

The Wirz Monument - Andersonville, Georgia

Often overlooked by visitors to the nearby Andersonville National Historic Site and its National Prisoner of War Museum, one of the South's most interesting monuments stands on Church Street in the small South Georgia town of Andersonville.

Erected in 1908 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the stone shaft honors Captain Henry Wirz, the only person tried, convicted and executed for war crimes following the close of the Civil War.

The commandant of the Confederate prison stockade at Camp Sumter (better known as Andersonville), Wirz faced the overwhelming task of trying to care for more than 30,000 Union prisoners of war in a prison originally designed for just one-third that number. Unable to provide proper nutrition or medical assistance for the prisoners in a South being strangled by the Union blockade and cut to pieces by Northern armies, Wirz oversaw a system that resulted in the deaths of more than 13,000 men.

Much of the misery at Andersonville resulted from a decision by Union commanders, including General Ulysses S. Grant, to end the practice of exchanging Confederate prisoners of war for Union soldiers held by the South. Grant believed that the only way to end the war was by ending the South's ability to put armies in the field. By stopping exchanges, he prevented the South from retrieving p.o.w's and returning them to the front lines.

When the war ended, the population of the North was anxious for vengeance - particularly following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Captain Wirz was arrested and tried before a military tribunal in Washington, D.C. Despite evidence that he had pleaded for food and medicines to save the lives of the Andersonville prisoners, he was convicted and executed.

Passions soon cooled and Wirz was the only former Confederate executed by the Union following the war. By strange coincidence, the gallows where he met his fate stood on the site of today's U.S. Supreme Court building.

To learn more about the Wirz Monument in Andersonville, Georgia, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/andersonville.