The Civil War's largest Confederate POW prison held 45,000 Union soldiers on 26 acres; nearly 13,000 died — a 29% mortality rate — and are buried in the adjacent national cemetery.
496 Cemetery Rd, Andersonville, GA 31711
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No entrance fee; the site is a National Park Service unit with free admission.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Mostly flat open stockade grounds with paved walkways; some unpaved sections around the earthworks and cemetery perimeter
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1864 · Largest Confederate POW prison of the Civil War (peak 33,000 prisoners) · Nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died (approx. 29% mortality rate) · Site of Andersonville National Cemetery (12,920 graves) · Commandant Henry Wirz tried and executed for war crimes (1865) — only Civil War war crimes execution · National Historic Landmark (1970); National Prisoner of War Museum (1998)
Camp Sumter was established in February 1864 near Andersonville, Georgia, as a Confederate facility to hold Union Army prisoners of war. The Confederate military selected an interior Georgia location to move prisoners away from Richmond, Virginia, which was threatened by Union advances. The prison's design was a stockade — an open stockaded enclosure with no shelter provided — intended to hold 10,000 men. By August 1864, over 33,000 Union soldiers were confined on approximately 26 acres, making it the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy by population at that moment.
Conditions inside Camp Sumter deteriorated rapidly. The site's single water source, Sweetwater Creek, ran through the grounds and served as both water supply and open sewer. Rations were inadequate and irregular. Prisoners built crude shelters — 'shebangs' — from scraps of cloth, wood, and whatever material could be obtained. Disease spread through the population: dysentery, scurvy from vitamin deficiency, and gangrene from untreated wounds were the primary killers. Of the approximately 45,000 Union soldiers held at Camp Sumter between February 1864 and April 1865, nearly 13,000 died — a mortality rate of roughly 29%. They are buried in the adjacent Andersonville National Cemetery, one of the first national cemeteries established by the federal government.
After the war, Swiss-born Confederate Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant of the prison's interior, was tried by a military tribunal, convicted of conspiracy and murder, and hanged in Washington, D.C., on November 10, 1865 — the only Civil War figure executed for war crimes. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 and is now administered by the National Park Service. The National Prisoner of War Museum, which opened at the site in 1998, interprets American POW experience across all conflicts from the Revolution through the present.
Sources
Andersonville's paranormal reputation is inseparable from its documented history: nearly 13,000 men buried in one compact cemetery, most of them young soldiers who died not in battle but from dysentery, scurvy, and exposure in open-air confinement. The sheer concentration of death in a small physical area gives the site a quality that visitors and rangers describe as distinct from other Civil War battlefields.
Reported phenomena at Andersonville center on the stockade grounds and the cemetery perimeter. Visitors have described hearing sounds — voices, crying, footsteps — in areas of the former stockade when no other visitors are present. A few accounts describe apparitions in period clothing near the Providence Spring, the site where, according to prisoner accounts, water emerged from the ground during a rainstorm in August 1864 and was interpreted by the prisoners as a miraculous provision. Rangers at the site have informally described encounters they cannot explain, though the NPS does not formally endorse paranormal interpretations.
The cemetery itself — rows of small white headstones extending across the hillside, many marked 'Unknown U.S. Soldier' — is the primary emotional focal point for most visitors. Ghost-oriented coverage of Andersonville, including the account documented at mb-henry.com, describes the grounds as producing a consistent sense of presence that the writers attribute to the density of suffering the site witnessed.
Andersonville's interpretive programming focuses on history and on the POW experience broadly. Paranormal tourism is not an organized offering at the site; the dark-tourism draw is the documented history itself.
Notable Entities
Walk the reconstructed stockade grounds where up to 33,000 prisoners were held simultaneously in open air. Interpretive markers identify the hospital area, the Providence Spring (where water reportedly emerged from the ground after a prayer), and the locations of the stockade walls. The adjacent Andersonville National Cemetery contains the graves of 12,920 prisoners who died at Camp Sumter.
The National Prisoner of War Museum at the site covers American POW experience from the Revolutionary War through the War on Terror. NPS rangers conduct programs during regular hours covering Camp Sumter's history, the trial and execution of commandant Henry Wirz, and the site's role as the first national cemetery.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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