The military prison at Camp Sumter, simply known as Andersonville, held more than 45,000 Union soldiers during its 14 month existence. More than 13,000 died of starvation, overcrowding and disease. Books and diaries have brought Andersonville back to life, going well beyond prisoner counts and numbers of the dead. MacKinlay Kantor relates a poignant account of the prison camp, detailing the miserable lives of its prisoners and Confederate guards. Kantor's Andersonville, often ranked among the greatest of America's Civil War novels, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1955.
   Today's Andersonville National Historic Site is the only national park serving as a memorial to all American prisoners of war. All housed in one area, visitors are able to explore the National Prisoner of War Museum, the Andersonville National Cemetery and the Confederate Prison Site. The cemetery, pictured here, was created in 1865 and is the permanent resting place for 13,000 deceased veterans. The Georgia Monument, sculpted by William J. Thompson, delivers a startling welcome at the cemetery entrance. Remarkably only 460 graves are marked unknown, thanks to the efforts of Clara Barton and Dorence Atwater. Atwater, a Union record-keeper returned to this horrible site to mark the graves and identify the dead.

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