Prisoner Burials -- Andersonville National Cemetery, Andersonville GA
N 32° 12.100 W 084° 07.910
16S E 770368 N 3566397
One of a series of signs in the Andersonville National Cemetery, Andersonville GA, this sign discusses the how the deceased Union prisoners were buried here
Waymark Code: WMWJ03
Location: Georgia, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2017
Views: 3
This sign was erected by the National Park Service and the Andersonville National Cemetery in Andersonville. It reads as follows:
"PRISONER BURIALS
The prisoners headstones are only inches apart. As the death rate in Andersonville escalated to 100 per day, officials abandoned the use of pine box coffins and had the bodies buried shoulder to shoulder and trenches.
At first only numbered stakes marked the prisoners graves. The dead might have remained unidentified except for the efforts of Dorence Atwater, a former prisoner.
Prison officials assigned Dorence Atwater to keep records of the dead. Hoping to notify bereaved relatives after the war, Atwater made a second copy of the death list, which he smuggled out in the lining of his jacket. When he accompanied Clara Barton to Andersonville in July 1865, they were able to match his list with the numbered stakes. Each prisoner could then be honored by name.
"If a man died in good clothes he was buried nearly naked. The living needed apparel; the dead none."
--G. E. Reynolds, 86th Ohio infantry, August 3, 1864
[inset drawing of prisoner burials at Andersonville]"
Type of Marker: Park
Sponsor: National Park Service
Marker #: Not listed
Date: Not listed
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