Andersonville And Elemira Prison Essay

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The prison camps, Andersonville and Elmira were the absolutely worst prison camps to be held captive in during the time of the Civil War. One of the reasons that these are the worst prison camp to be a part of is because they were treated horribly, hardly fed, and there wasn’t the best medical support. Surrounding these camps was a nineteen foot tall fence. It is said that if any Union solider got anywhere close to this fence that they would get shot with no reason, and no question. If you got lucky, you would maybe be able to survive. Those who did survive through the life in the prison camps were said to look like skeletons because they would be starved. When soldiers died in the prison camps, they were buried in what were called mass graves. …show more content…

It was located near Andersonville, Georgia. In June of the same year, the prison had become 26.5 acres. There were so many soldiers held captive and such little room that many of them suffered with all kinds of different dieses. Also the water sources that they had there were polluted so people got sick from that, too. The Elmira Prison was made for the Confederate soldiers that have been captured. It was located in New York. It had 30 acres of land; they also suffered with poor health conditions. In the beginning, it was more of a death camp than a prison, but slowly changed over time. They did not have a stable hospital which also caused many problems. The people there lived in tents during the seasons including winter because they didn’t have any prison cells due to not having the proper materials. The Andersonville prisons were so overcrowded that it was nearly 3 times the capacity that it was supposed to hold! There was very little shelter and most people slept out door. Things became more dangerous at the Andersonville prison as the war went on. Many prisoners starved to death mostly later on in the war because the Confederates had a serious problem with their supplies. This included supplies like bullets and food, they became very

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