This historic marker preserves the history of the prisoner's morale at Andersonville National Historic Site at Andersonville GA.
The marker reads as follows:
"WORLD OF LOST SPIRITS
When the inner gates swung open, new prisoners had their first vision of life inside. The noise, the stench, the crowd of the emaciated men desperate for news, must have been overwhelming.
New arrivals were known as “fresh fish.” Anything of value -- Money, buttons, clothing -- might be conned or stolen from them. Even worse was the sight of other prisoners; in those skeletal forms and lifeless eyes, a new prisoner could foresee his own fate.
Directly ahead stretched "Market Street,” the only defined path through the jumble of shelters. Food wagons stopped there, prisoners had bartering sites, and prison merchants set up stalls in a pathetic parody of a commercial street.
“Once inside . . . men exclaimed: ‘is this hell?’ Verily the great mass of gaunt unnatural looking beings, soot-begrimedd, and clad in filthy tatters, that we saw stalking about inside this pen looked, indeed, as if they might belong to a world of lost spirits.” – W. B. Smith, 14th Illinois Infantry, October 9, 1864”
[photo]
Issuing rations to 33,000 prisoners, August 1864."
From the National Park Service: (
visit link)
National Prisoner of War Museum
Hours of operation
The National Prisoner of War Museum, which also serves as the park's visitor center, opens at 9:30 a.m. and closes at 4:30 p.m. It is open every day of the week year-round, except on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day.
Park Grounds
The park grounds are open daily from 8:00 am until 5:00 p.m., allowing access to the National Prisoner of War Museum, the historic prison site and the Andersonville National Cemetery. The park grounds including the National Prisoner of War Museum and the historic prison site are closed only three days per year: New Years Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
Andersonville National Cemetery
The National Cemetery is open every day of the year from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. On New Years Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day access to the National Cemetery is provided through the Cemetery Entrance Gate.”