(7-01) Museum Display: Andersonville prison, officially named Camp Sumter, occupied a bare 26 ½ acres enclosed by a double palisade made of pine logs. A railing inside the stockade constituted a "deadline." Guards had orders to shoot anyone who crossed the deadline. No shelter was furnished; men bought wooden poles for $1.50 and pooled their blankets to make tents. Water came from wells the prisoners dug and from the Stockade Branch of Sweetwater Creek which ran through the center of the camp. Open latrines bordered the lower end and sewage from the guards' camp, outside the stockade, also emptied into it. Spread by flies and maggots, a fatal dysentery, along with scurvy, resulted in a death rate of up to 130 men daily. Lithograph by Pvt. Thomas O'Dea
  
Larger view of the lithograph courtesy of the NPS Tour Guide