(papers shuffling) (upbeat music) During the American Civil War, one of the most terrible places a soldier could end up wasn't the battlefield.

It was a prison camp located outside the small town of Andersonville, Georgia.

Officially called Camp Sumter, Andersonville Prison was built by the Confederate Army in 1864 to hold captured Union soldiers.

These captured soldiers were prisoners of war or POWs, and they were at the mercy of their enemy.

There were a number of POW camps during the Civil War, so what made Andersonville particularly horrible?

Well, we need to look to the past to find out.

[Narrator] Imagine you are at Andersonville Prison at the end of the Civil War.

Union troops are here to occupy the area and investigate reports of ill treatment of prisoners by the Confederates.

- My name is Mark Stivitz.

I'm the first sergeant of the 117th Illinois.

The 117th Illinois is here on occupation duty.

The war has been over for a few months now, and we are here under military rule as part of the reconstruction effort to bring the South back into the Union in a more orderly manner.

(gentle drumming music) - [Narrator] What the Union Army found was an abandoned stockade built by the Confederates in 1864 to hold Union prisoners.

This is where over 30,000 POWs struggled to survive the last year of the Civil War, and these flimsy shelters that they built themselves were all they had to protect them from the summer sun and the winter frost.

- We're inside the prison now and what you see here is an example of the types of shelters that the prisoners had to live in.

When the prisoners first arrived, they had no material to build things that were supplied to them by the Confederacy.

So they took whatever was laying around inside the prison and constructed these shelters.

They were called shebangs.

Now, this shelter here would house eight people.

- [Narrator] The men crowded together shoulder to shoulder, 30,000 in a stockade designed to hold 10,000.

And for all these men, there was only one source of water, a pleasant little stream with grassy banks that was soon polluted.

- The stream that ran through the prison was intended to give them their fresh drinking water and a place to bathe, and then the lower end of the stream was intended to be the toilet.

And the idea was that the water flowing through would flush the sewage out.

[Narrator] The wooden structure in the foreground of this photograph is the latrine, built right beside the stream where the men got their drinking water.

- Well, by June, when they had so many prisoners here and the sewage started backing up, and the whole area down around the stream was flooded and soon became one large cesspool.

In fact, the stench got so bad inside the prison that the people in the town of Americas, which is only 14 miles in that direction, could smell this place.

[Narrator] The prisoners were filthy, and the little they had to eat was usually rotten, so they became weak and sick, and had dangerous infections.

In the midst of all this suffering, some of them stayed alive in extraordinary ways.

One prisoner was reported in a diary amputated his own legs.

He had gangrene in his feet, and he knew that if he went to the prison hospital, he would die.

So rather than do that, he took out his pocket knife and he cut off his legs at the knees, both of them, and he survived the prison.

He made it home after the war was over.

[Narrator] Although many prisoners survived the brutal conditions at Andersonville prison, nearly half of them died, sometimes over 120 men in one day.

They were buried in trenches, most died of starvation, infections, or diarrhea, which was the main cause of death.

But some were killed by other prisoners.

(gunshots firing) (group yelling) A group of outlaw prisoners called the Raiders attacked fellow prisoners and stole whatever valuables they could, money, boots, food, even clothing.

If you look closely, you can see a Raider running away with someone's shirt.

Charles Hopkins, a prisoner from Hope, New Jersey, wrote in his diary in June, 1864.

[Charles] Very often a man is killed outright by some of the Raiders, just for a little sugar or onions or anything of the type.

I expect they will be hanged, if they get their just dues.

[Narrator] And six of the Raiders' leaders were hanged for their crimes.

Charles Hopkins looked strong and healthy before the war, but after Andersonville, even after months of recuperation, he was gaunt with sad, tired eyes.

[Bob] I weighed 174 and I came out minus 71 pounds.

[Narrator] Bob Windham was a prisoner of war during World War II.

He volunteers at the POW Museum at the Andersonville National Historic Site.

[Bob] And it amazes me that anybody lived in that camp here at Andersonville.

[Narrator] Because he was also a prisoner of war, Bob Windham feels a bond with the POWs of Andersonville.

And then I get out and get on the ground, and I looked down at my feet and said, "Windham, you don't belong here.

This is sacred ground.

This is people fighting for your country and giving their lives for your country, and they died because of neglect."

And that just floors me how people, our own people, our own American citizens, could treat one another like that is beyond my comprehension.

But it happened.

It's sad.

(gentle music) It really is sad.

And the thing is, Andersonville wasn't the only harsh prison during the Civil War.

Both the North and South had camps with horrible conditions, but Andersonville stood out for the scale of death and the emotional stories that came from the survivors.

After the war, the camp's commander, Captain Henry Wirz, was arrested, tried and executed for war crimes, one of the only people in American history to be executed for such charges.

Some people believed he was a scapegoat for larger confederate failures, while others saw him as directly responsible for the suffering of thousands.

Today, the site of Andersonville Prison is part of the Andersonville National Historic Site.

It includes the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum, which honors U.S.

POWs from every American conflict, not just the Civil War.

The story of Andersonville is more than just a chapter in a history book, it's a lesson in ethics, leadership, and humanity.

It reminds us that even in war, how we treat others, including our enemies, reflects our own values.

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