Robert Kellogg walked up to the gate, paused briefly and then passed through into the stockade. The smell was nauseating; the buzz of millions of flies deafening. Before him shuffled figures who were “once … stalwart men,” but now had been reduced to “walking skeletons covered with filth and vermin.”
The twenty-year-old Connecticut soldier asked, “Can this be hell?”
Kellogg and his comrades had just entered a special kind of Hell known as Andersonville.
Officially known as Camp Sumter, the Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp, was located in Macon County, Georgia-deep in the Confederacy. Construction on what would become a twenty-six-acre enclosure began in early 1864. Forty-five thousand Union soldiers were incarcerated during the camp’s fourteen months of operation. In August 1864, the facility’s population soared to 33,000- three times the camp’s designed capacity.
Death stalked the camp. Thirteen thousand prisoners died, reflecting a 40% mortality rate- rivaling that of the Japanese camps of World War 2. Death took many guises: starvation, poor sanitation, exposure, disease, lack of nutrition and murder. One POW who suffered from chronic scurvy wrote, “when our sick comrades died we called it ‘being exchanged.’ Death was indeed a blessed transformation from this miserable existence to a glorious one over there.”
Violence emerged from the chaos as some prisoners formed gangs to loot food, clothing, blankets and even strips of burlap bags from their comrades. Resistance against these self-identified Raiders resulted in severe beatings and even death. William Kerns of the 89th Ohio Volunteers experienced the gang violence at Andersonville.
He wrote that the “…gangs made life for us more miserable than the rebels did. They were so bold that bands of them went about even in the daytime and robbed and cut throats by the dozens.” Kerns became a member of the police force, formed by the other prisoners, known as The Regulators. With the approval of the camp administration, the Regulators, armed with knives, clubs, and bare knuckles, fought a series of battles against the Raiders. The Regulators eventually gained control of the compound. On July 11, 1864, six of the gang leaders were hanged after being convicted of various crimes
Dozens of Clermonters from various regiments found their way to Andersonville in the spring of 1864. They, like the others, fell victim to the inhumane conditions. This was especially true of the hapless men from the 89th Ohio Infantry who were captured at the Battle of Chickamauga in September of 1863. Fourteen of those men died from common camp diseases such as scurvy, diarrhea and dysentery. Their remains are resting honorably at The Andersonville National Military Cemetery.
Gary Knepp is Clermont County’s honorary historian and is the author of eight books about Clermont’s history. Knepp’s website is www.garyknepp.com.