Andersonville :
the last depot /
William Marvel.
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| Summary: | Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 - one-third of them - died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on a conspiracy of higher-ranking officials. In this carefully researched and compelling revisionist account, William Marvel provides a comprehensive history of Andersonville Prison and conditions within it. Based on reliable primary sources - including diaries, Union and Confederate government documents, and letters - rather than exaggerated postwar recollections and such well-known but spurious "diaries" as that of John Ransom, Marvel's analysis exonerates camp commandant Henry Wirz and others from charges that they deliberately exterminated prisoners, a crime for which Wirz was executed after the war. According to Marvel, virulent disease and severe shortages of vegetables, medical supplies, and other necessities combined to create a crisis beyond Wirz's control. He also argues that the tragedy was aggravated by the Union decision to suspend prisoner exchanges, which meant that many men who might have returned home were instead left to sicken and die in captivity. |
| In collection: | Stephen Griffin Collection |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published / Created: |
Chapel Hill :
University of North Carolina Press,
©1994.
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| Series: | Civil War America (Series)
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| Subjects: | |
| Notes: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-321) and index. From the opening bell, Marvel is highly skeptical of the veracity of many of the eyewitness accounts of the horrors of Andersonville and is not afraid to state that unequivocally. Although captious at times, a good antidote to the more sensational, and exaggerated, diaries and histories. Physical description: xi, 337 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. more |
| ISBN: | 0807821527 (cloth : alk. paper) 9780807821527 (cloth : alk. paper) 0807857815 (pbk. : alk. paper) 9780807857816 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
| Call Number | View In | Collection |
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GR 5586 |
Offsite |
Griffin |