Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Ghosts of Andersonville's Prisoner of War Camp


In 1864 the Civil War was raging through parts of the South, but actual fighting hadn't reached remote Andersonville, Georgia, where the prison camp, Fort Sumter, had been built. On one particularly hot July evening that year, a Confederate guard from the 26th Alabama regiment stood watch on the parapet of the stockade prison, which was more commonly referred to as Andersonville Prison by the locals, and as "hell" by the Union soldiers and sailors incarcerated there.


The prison was nothing more than acres of open ground surrounded by a stockade fence and earthworks barricades. The destitute prisoners sheltered themselves as best they could, some with makeshift tents, others in shallow holes dug in the dirt, lined with pine needles, and covered with whatever scrap of fabric the men had-a tarp, a blanket, maybe a tattered coat. The prison was so crowded that each man had just enough room to lie down.

Andersonville.jpg

As dusk gave way to night, the guard looked out on thousands of prone, wretched bodies-some of them nearly skeletons from dysentery and malnourishment-and he thought of Andersonville as a massive graveyard where the corpses were still breathing and graves were yet to be covered.

It was a damn pity, the guard thought, but this was war, and from what he'd heard, the Yankees had their own prison camps. (source: http://vcwsg.org/PDF%20Files/Andersonville.pdf)

From About.com, "American Civil War: Andersonville Prison," by Kennedy Hickman:

"Andersonville" Prison Camp History  --  In late 1863, the Confederacy found that it needed to construct additional prisoner of war camps to house captured Union soldiers waiting to be exchanged. As leaders discussed where to place these new camps, former Georgia governor, Major General Howell Cobb stepped forward to suggest the interior of his home state. Citing southern Georgia's distance from the front lines, relative immunity to Union cavalry raids, and easy access to railroads, Cobb was able to convince his superiors to build a camp in Sumter County. In November 1863, Captain W. Sidney Winder was dispatched to find a suitable location.

Map: Andersonville, Georgia USA

Arriving at the tiny village of Andersonville, Winder found what he believed to be an ideal site. Located near the Southwestern Railroad, Andersonville possessed transit access and a good water source. With the location secured, Captain Richard B. Winder was sent to Andersonville to design and oversee the construction of the prison. Planning a facility for 10,000 prisoners, Winder designed a 16.5 acre rectangular compound that had a stream flowing through the center. Naming the prison Camp Sumter in January 1864, Winder used local slaves to construct the compound's walls.

Built of tight-fitting pine logs, the stockade wall presented a solid facade that did not allow the slightest view of the outside world. Access to the stockade was through two large gates set in the west wall. Inside, a light fence was built approximately 19-25 feet from the stockade. This "dead line" was meant to keep prisoners away from the walls and any caught crossing it was shot immediately. Due to its simple construction, the camp rose quickly and the first prisoners arrived on February 27, 1864. While the population steadily grew, it began to balloon after the Fort Pillow incident in April.


On April 12, 1864, Confederate forced under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest massacred black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, TN. In response, President Abraham Lincoln demanded that black prisoners of war be treated the same as their white comrades. This was refused by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. As a result, Lincoln and Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant suspended all prisoner exchanges. With the halt of exchanges, POW populations on both sides began to grow rapidly. At Andersonville, the population reached 20,000 by early June, twice the camp's intended capacity.

With prison badly overcrowded, its superintendent, Major Henry Wirz, authorized an expansion of the stockade. Using prisoner labor, a 610 ft. addition was built on the prison's north side. Built in two weeks, it was opened to the prisoners on July 1. Despite this 10-acre expansion, Andersonville remained badly overcrowded with the population peaking at 33,000 in August. Throughout the summer, conditions in the camp continued to deteriorate as the men, exposed to the elements, suffered from malnutrition and diseases such as dysentery.

With its water source polluted from the overcrowding, epidemics swept through the prison raising its monthly mortality rate to around 3,000. These prisoners were buried in mass graves outside the stockade. Life within Andersonville was made worse by a group of prisoners known as the "Raiders" who stole food and valuables from other prisoners. These were eventually rounded up by a second group known as the "Regulators." Following their capture, the Raiders were put on trial by the prisoners and found guilty. Punishments varied from ball and chain to, in six cases, hanging.

As Major General William T. Sherman's troops marched on Atlanta, General John Winder, the head of Confederate POW camps, ordered Wirz to construct earthwork defenses around the camp. These were not needed as following Sherman's capture of the city, the majority of the camp's prisoners were transferred to a new facility at Millen, GA. In late 1864, with Sherman moving toward Savannah, some were transferred back to Andersonville raising the prison's population to around 5,000. It remained at this level until the war's end in April 1865.

andresn.jpg

Andersonville has become synonymous with the trials and atrocities faced by POWs during the Civil War. Of the approximately 45,000 Union soldiers who passed through Andersonville, 12,913 died within the prison's walls. This represented 28% of Andersonville's population and 40% of all Union POW deaths during the war. In May 1865, Wirz was arrested and taken to Washington. Tried for conspiring to impair the lives of Union prisoners of war, he was found guilty that November. In a controversial decision, Wirz was sentenced to death and hung on November 10, 1865. He was the only individual tried, convicted, and executed for war crimes during the Civil War. The site of Andersonville was purchased by the Federal government in 1910, and is now the home of Andersonville National Historic Site. (source: http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/civilwar/p/andersonville.htm)

John W. January of the 14th Illinois Cavalry, former prisoner of Andersonville

Eliza Andrews of Washington, Georgia wrote: "It is dreadful. My heart aches for the poor wretches, Yankees though they are, and I am afraid God will suffer some terrible retribution to fall upon us for letting such things happen. If the Yankees ever should come to southwest Georgia and go to Ander-sonville and see the graves there, God have mercy on the land!"

 Bodies at Andersonville
Nazis? No, these are victims of the Confederate Concentration Camp in Andersonville, Georgia, U.S.A., 1864. United States soldiers who were white, Christian, English speaking men fighting for the freedom.



38 comments:

  1. Ummm... what does the fact that they were "white, Christian [and] English speaking" have to do with the severity of these atrocities? Does that somehow make it worse than what happened to the Jews during WWII? Color, religion and language do not have anything to do with a person's worth.

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    1. I think the author was making reference to the fact that these men were treated this way by men that were of the same origin. In fact, some of them were actually brothers. Based on the fact that Jefferson Davis refused to treat Blacks like real people, the North didn't think the South would treat White men this way. Hence the reference "white, Christian and English speaking" assumes they would be treated better than Blacks.

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    2. I don't think it had anything to do with the severity simply that these people weren't different in any way aside from where they were from.

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    3. I don't think that's what the author meant. I think what he meant was that, the only such photos and stories most people know of, are of Hitler's victims - the Jews, Poles, Russian POWs. Most people simply don't know that such things have happened elsewhere - at the hands of people other than the Nazis. Nazis, being the worst of the worst, but - actually, others were just as bad, if truth be told.

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    4. Must be a Jew arguing, arguing, arguing

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  2. All people are worth the same amount, whether they be Jewish and in Germany, or American at the Andersonville POW camp.

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  3. the prison opened in 1864, the South surrendered in 1895. Virtually no goods reached the South in the last year of war, especially medicines. People were dying from starvation everywhere in the South. The "Anaconda plan" was engineered for that purpose...so how can we be surprised if POW's where starving too? Plus, POW’s exchange stopped because the North knew that the nr. of soldiers in the South was limited whereas the North was receiving fresh cannon fodder every day from Ireland so they just had to sit on their fat asses and wait until where was no one left still alive or fit to fight for Dixie.

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    1. During the Civil War times, virtually NOBODY on the continent had "fat asses"... just look at the photographs of both United States and the Confederacy, and ALL of the men were virtual skeletons. General Butler seems to be the ONLY exception to the skeleton rule. Other than that, ALL troops, north and south were skinny as hell.

      The soil in Georgia could have grown enough food to feed the POWs AND the population of the south. Food grows in shit, so there was no excuse NOT to have food. Wild greens like dandelions grow in poor soil, they are edible, and rich in iron and vitamins. Crowder peas (cowpeas) mature in 60-90 days, that's only 2-3 months. ANY variety of greens (collard, kale, mustard, turnip) matures within 40 days. A gilt (female hog) reaches sexual maturity at 6 months old, A sow averages 12 piglets per litter. And they eat crap. A hen lays 2 eggs a day, and they also eat crap and worms. In three months those eggs will be mature chickens, capable of reproducing themselves and perfectly edible.

      I come from a family of Mississippi farmers, it's not that hard to grow food. I haven't even mentioned fish and wild game or wild fruit/nut bearing trees (acorns, mulberries, blackberries, walnuts, pecans).

      Perhaps to those who only know how to obtain sustenance from their local Walmart, you argument may seem salient, but as for southern farmers we ALL know better.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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    2. The Confederacy should have consulted with their enslaved population of how the heck they were able to survive off the meager food rations given to them. The Confederates would have been surprised to know that the slaves foraged on their way to and from the field for wild onions, paw paw, elderberries, huckleberries, wild greens, pokeweed, wild berries. They ate the complete hog from the snout to the tail, along with squirrels, possums, raccoon, birds, rats, gophers, etc. Cotton was still being grown and harvested during the Civil War ... and we all know that cotton depletes the soil more than any food crop or even raising livestock.

      Heck even that Yankee General Sherman abandoned his supply line and foraged through Georgia. Even he know how rich the land was in the south. The southern food was a vital supply to the Union Army, so why didn't the Confederacy exercise the same resourcefulness?

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  4. Sorry, I’m Italian and live in Italy so, thank God, we still don’t have Walmart and we still try to eat as natural as possible, keeping any of such rubbish at an arm’s length. Having said that, I know what the land can provide and I know very well that one person can live from what nature can give, though only if well skilled. A whole nation a doubt it very much. In any case, Ron, I would like to focus your attention on Sherman’s march to the sea in 1864. Everything (livestock, food, houses, farms and people were destroyed. No living animal could be seen after he marched through the “bread basket of the Confederacy”.
    As for skinny soldiers on both sides, please allow me to doubt what you are saying. Supply trains were constantly targeted by the southerners as their Supply dept. was always short of everything. Including clothes as it is visible on photos of dead Confederate soldiers wearing federal clothes and weapons. If you read accounts on both sides on the bodies of Confederate and Federal dead soldiers, you’ll see that the first ones, even after days, did not increase in size and that is a sign of a poor diet, mainly consisting of what was available i.e. fruit, wild berries, game etc. The second ones bloated almost straight away and that is a sign of a rich diet, full of proteins.
    As for cotton, it was the only resource of the Confederacy. In Europe millions of people worked and lived around the cotton coming from the South. More than half a million people’s lives in Liverpool alone depended on it. Cotton was the only thing the South could trade in exchange of rifles and ammunition, medicines and supply good, not having an industrial economy. It is therefore a must for the South to carry on producing the only valuable resource available and trying to get it to Europe with the help of fast ships and courageous Captains, through the blockade imposed straight away by the Feds.
    As I mentioned before, I’m Italian so please excuse my English…

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    1. Okay Italy, now watch your timelines. Andersonville Prison February 1864, Sherman's March through Georgia mid-November 1864. That's at least 9 months. Crops planted in February would have reached harvest maturity by April. Anybody could have reaped at least 2-3 crops BEFORE General Sherman BEGAN his march. Moreover, General Sherman didn't even march on that stretch of Georgia. As you know, Andersonville is about 120 miles south of Atlanta, and it's inland so it certainly wasn't apart of the "seaward march."

      Give that whole General Sherman torched the entire state of Georgia crap a rest. Yes, he did burn many farms, mostly cotton crops, but not ALL FARMS IN GEORGIA were burned by General Sherman's troops. Furthermore, slaves built the prison camp in Andersonville. Surly, you can't tell me that Captain Wirz of the Confederate Army couldn't order those same slaves to plant a couple of crops for food. You need to grow-up!

      In the USA in 2013, with a black president, the former Confederate States STILL operate prison plantations with enslaved prison labor in Texas (Jester Prison Plantation, formerly Harlem Prison Plantation), Louisiana (Angola Prison Plantation), Mississippi (Parchman Prison Plantation) and Arkansas (Cummins Prison Farm). Even to this day, the south still covets slavery. They're like a bunch of Smegols from Lord of the Rings always searching for their "precious" slaves.

      So, what was honestly stopping the Confederate Captain Wirz from strapping leg irons on the Yankee POWs and working them by the lash like a regular field-hand? After all, the South became the wealthiest region in the USA by extracting unfree labor with a bull-whip. When did they get any morals.... They were growing cotton for Heaven's sake during the entirety of the Civil War.

      It doesn't take a genius to convert cotton fields to food production (the only difference is the seed).

      The State of Georgia is a little larger than half or England....there is enough land to feed the entire Confederate Army just in the state of Georgia alone. Heck the UK is smaller than the state of Oregon, Germany is about the size of Montana. [Oregon: about 98,466 square miles with a population estimated at nearly 3.8 million, while The United Kingdom: about 93,278 square miles and a population of 61 million people in 2012]. There was more than enough land and resources to grow food in the southern states.

      I personally couldn't give a crap about the millions of Liverpool laborers who were chained to their spinning jennies yearning for slave grown cotton. Screw them. If the south had diversified their industries and built factories instead of exporting raw goods like some bleeping third-world country, perhaps they could have sustained their economy better. They didn't need Old England or New England, they just needed to utilize their labor force (free and enslaved) for a more sustainable and self-contained future.

      The south could have easily vertically integrated cotton into a powerhouse, but their lazy asses just wanted to keep their "way of life" -- that of a feudal lord -- in tact. They've got acres of dead bodies to as trophies to the "southern way of life."

      Sorry, I just can't justify an ignoble war for slavery in perpetuity.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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    2. I won't try to answer you with such a lengthy, eloquent response, but here are three things for you and all such people as you to research: (1) The tyrant and war criminal, Abraham Lincoln; (2) The possession of slaves in northern states; (3) The northern prisons and what they did to increase the suffering and death of our people!!

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    3. O'Hoopee Woman i am so glad you said that! I was thinking the same things but just didn't know how to put it. I have read articles on those subjects.

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  5. P.S. Prisons like Andersonville, if one studies history in depth, were present everywhere, including the North which, In my opinion, is far less excusable then the South as it never run out of food, medicines, blankets and so forth. As an example, in 1864, the South begged the North to let them have medicines, at least morphine to be used strictly on Federal POW’s as the South had none, the North refused. Southern Surgeons had to amputate limbs of wounded Southern soldiers (and POW’s) with no morphine!

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    1. Now you're just being melodramatic. Give me a freaken break on the whole morphine, Confederate veteran junkie syndrome. Poppies can be easily grown in Georgia, too. After all, it's a wildflower (a weed of sorts) that only needs bright sunlight and lots of heat -- that sounds like Georgia to me.

      Hot off the heels of the SECOND Opium War with the Qing Dynasty in China, Britannia couldn't offload their stores of Indian and Afghanistan grown opium through the blockades in the South? It looks like privateers were able to smuggle bales of cotton and deliver luxury goods during the height of the Civil War.

      You say you're from Italy. If you know ANYTHING about the USA you should know that this country is capable of growing and producing EVERYTHING that is needed. There are only a couple of exceptions to the homegrown rule that only grow in around the equator such as the cocoa (chocolate), coca (cocaine), coffee and rubber. These are products grown between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, not in the USA. But, poppies (the plant that makes opium) grows quite freely in the USA. Heck, poppies are the FLOWERS of Veterans Day. There was even a poem penned to commemorate poppies called "In Flanders Fields."

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    2. the song you refer to was written after the first world war, years after the War between the states. The poppy is the symbol of the Veterans primarily in Britain where the tradition started.
      I'm sure you are right. In the states you can grow almost everything. And you are probably right when you speak about a better use of pow's in Andersonville and other prisons. You seem to know a lot about plantations and planters and whatever can be planted in the states. I'm sure you are right when you speak about slaves still existing in parts of the South. I'm also sure you are right when you mention luxury goods during the civil war. I can tell you more, some of them become very rich in doing so.
      There were people of every sort , a bit of this and a bit of that, in the South like anywhere else in the world. People are basically the same everywhere.
      What doesn't add up is why you get so fired up to the point of insulting me. And that is because I don't see things the same way you do. I agree, the South should have done this and should have that, if you ask me it shouldn't have attacked Fort Sumter in the first place. Though it happened. More than 600000 people died in one of the bloodiest wars in history because some states decided to leave a union that didn't represent them anymore. That was clearly allowed in your constitution, at least you must accept that. There was no doubt that the northern one was a war of aggression on to the South. After the first battle (Bull Run) Pres. Davis stopped his troops that wanted to march on to Washington because it wasn't in the intentions of the South to invade other states.
      The war, believe it or not, accept it or not, wasn't fought over slavery! Slavery (as accepted by a State’s Legal system, not other forms of slavery that still exist...) was ending everywhere in the world in those same years, and it was for economic reasons. Slaves cost a lot of money and the industrial revolution was changing the world. In Brazil it happened about 10 years after the War between the States without the cost of a single life! So, the war was done to preserve the union and for no other reasons. You see, people like you see the world in black and white, a bad person and a good person, the evil and the hero. Things in this world are never that clear. I refuse to believe that MAJOR Wirtz was a sort of Dracula and the South deliberately decided to starve to death the federal prisoners or that the South went to war to carry on whipping the slaves and the federals, including Lincoln, were the good ones, the heroes who saved the day... I'm sure that someone in the north had his good hidden agenda and was already calculating his profits with the war and especially with the "reconstruction". Not surprised that the same path is still followed nowadays and will be followed until there will be people who never wonder on why certain things happen and those who profit from things occurring in a certain way.
      Yes, I am Italian and I can suggest a good question that the ancient Romans always asked themselves when certain things happened: "Qui prodest": who gains from it! Start asking yourself this question and, no matter where and when certain wars take place in the world appear clearer.
      And never forget that your point of view, as good or bad as it might be, is only your point of view, not the truth! (Whatever that might be)

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    3. {{the song you refer to was written after the first world war, years after the War between the states. The poppy is the symbol of the Veterans primarily in Britain where the tradition started. }}

      That's not the point. The point is that a poppy isn't some exotic, rare floral species. They can grow as north as zone 4 (like North Dakota), or even in zone 3 (southern Canada), and the entire state of Georgia is zone 8! In the Great State of Georgia, farmers are able to plant brassicas such as kale, mustard greens, collard greens, cabbage, spinach and turnip greens in January!

      The Confederate Army could have commissioned the planting of enough food and medicinal plants in and around the prison camp long BEFORE any POWs were even captured. It's inexcusable NOT to prepare for a supply collapse by 1864. '

      They were just a bunch of selfish, stupid, greedy bastards who wanted to grow cotton to make money. The price of cotton soared from 10 cents a pound in 1860 to $1.89 a pound in 1863-1864. They just wanted to make money, to hell with their starving population.

      Yes, you gleaned the sincerity of my righteously indignant tone correctly. I can't stand those slave harboring ignoble bastards. This site is an educational site that centers on slavery, the slave trade and its aftermath. I'm not a neutral bystander on the slavery question -- NOBODY has the birthright to own human beings.

      Enslaving other human beings can not be justified, rationalized or whitewashed. It's wrong. I don't care who enslaves, or who is the slave, slavery is immoral and inhumane.

      As far as your notion of point-of-view, I feel very strongly on the issue of slavery, that is why I use scholars with a more measured tone than my own. But, I do base ALL of my assertions in FACT.

      The fact is that the south could have grown and stockpiled the medicines that it would need. They had blockade runners buying and selling a number of items they could have strategically planned for disruptions in their supplies. Foxglove, Fever Tree, Willow, Cannabis, poppies, and any sucrose producing plant will make alcohol with a little yeast and fermentation all easy to grow in the southern states. That's not conjecture, nor it it some emotional rant. It's just the facts.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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    4. NOBODY has the birthright to own human beings.
      Nobody can deny it! That has to be clear. I couldn’t agree more!
      Let’s not deny also the fact that Slavery had nothing to do with the war between the states.
      And saying that the Confederates were all “just a bunch of selfish, stupid, greedy bastards” is a very strong RACIST comment!
      There were also people in good faith who fought for their independence from the tax vampires from the North.
      And, believe or not, not all who fought for the north were the good heroes.
      Black Confederates POW’s (because they really existed despite what your “official history” says, were shot as soon as they entered US prison camps by the Federal guards, so they didn’t have to feed them at all!
      Playing the card of the slavery was just a very smart move by Lincoln in order to stop the intervention of England and France on the side of the South which was imminent.
      Don’t forget to read Lincoln extremely racist speeches before and during the war.
      Except then being enlightened (only in 1863 -emancipation Act which freed only those who were slaves in the conquered territories and not in the territories that were part of the union) and start changing his tone exactly for the a.m. reasons!
      These are FACTS!
      Yours are just suggestions on what could and should have been done by a Confederate Army that couldn’t even feed itself!!!

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    5. If your assertion of -- "Let’s not deny also the fact that Slavery had nothing to do with the war between the states." -- I'll slap the table and call BULLSHIT. On that so called "fact." I have post after post on the monetary benefit of slave-grown cotton all over this blog. Eugene Dattel's piece from Mississippi History Now offers a good starting point: http://usslave.blogspot.com/2011/05/cotton-in-global-economy-mississippi.html

      Slave grown-cotton was 80% of the GDP in the USA (North and South) prior to the Civil War. Accordingly, slave-grown cotton from the USA was 75% of the World's Supply of Cotton. Cotton prices rose from 10 cents to $1.89 a pound (a bale of cotton is 500 pounds) -- in other words cotton went from $50 a bale to $945 a bale in 1864 dollars. A bale of cotton that cost $945 of 1864 dollars would be worth: $13,897.06 in 2012 dollars. There are 2,000 pounds in a ton or the cotton would be worth $1,890,000 in 1864 or $1,890,000 of 1864 dollars would be worth: $27,794,117.65 in 2012. Remember the slaves who grew, harvested, loaded, ginned, and baled the cotton received exactly ZERO DOLLARS.

      Sing the Leadbelly song, about "Pick a Bale a Day" and you can hear the cash registers ringing for the PLANTERS while the slave labor gets the middle finger of life.

      Gonna jump down Spin around
      Pick a bale of cotton
      Gonna jump down Spin around
      Pick a bale a day

      Oh, lordy
      Pick a bale of cotton
      Oh, lordy
      Pick a bale a day
      Oh, lordy
      Pick a bale of cotton
      Oh, lordy
      Pick a bale a day

      Good God! Slavery wasn't about racism it was about M-O-N-E-Y! Don't get it twisted. Lehman Brothers made their fortune off of slave-grown Alabama Black Belt cotton. They were Confederate Jewish Alabama cotton factors who started the Cotton Exchange in New York City, they brought Goldman Sachs and Sears and Roebuck public.

      Slavery was about the money, money, money. Don't ever get it confused. I'm not a racist, I'm a realist.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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    6. Now, let's address your question of "Cui bono?" I think of it as a declarative statement: WHO BENEFITS!

      After 246 years, or 12 generations of perpetual racialized slavery who benefited? or another 100 years of racialized Jim Crow Apartheid? Who benefits?

      400 years of racialized oppression -- who benefits?

      The Confederacy regained control of the land, labor, and political resources of the south. They re-enslaved their black population with elaborate black codes *the Mississippi Plan*, sharecropping, peonage, and the convict leasing system (you should read Douglas Blackmon's "Slavery By Another Name" for a more full explanation of how slavery was continued in the USA until WWII).

      So, who benefited from slavery? Certainly, it was the Planter Plutocrats, the Lords of the Loom (in New England and Old England), Wall Street-like Cotton Exchanges in New Orleans, Memphis, Alabama, etc., slave traders who rode the slave bubble until the end of the Civil War, merchant shippers, ship builders, iron works, salt works, mining concerns, lumber companies; white males (voting rights were extended and more inclusive, public was offered for the first time in the south -- most whites were illiterate during the heyday of the old south).

      Blacks were just given the middle finger, or their neck in a noose for making the south the richest land in the USA.

      You tell me who benefits.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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  6. Question is: who benefited from the war, not from the slavery that was just another mean to make money.
    You are a smart bloke, don't fossilize yourself on slavery and look beyond it.
    In the USA it was slavery, somewhere else it was and is something else. Your nation’s history is packed with good causes, good enough to justify a war, then an invasion, then a reconstruction and so on…
    Some of us are just sick with those excuses and start looking into the “supposed” good boys, the saviors. The Lehman Bros, if u want…
    Don't forget that, despite whatever you might say, slavery ended everywhere else in the world without people dying for it!!!
    That, at least, in a smart bloke like you (although you never answer my questions… ) should ring a bell…
    Best regards

    Stefano Ambrosi – Just a citizen…

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    1. Citizen Stefano Ambrosi:

      The Civil War was not, by any means, the first nor the last war in the land called the USA. First and foremost, the USA was not "Terra nullius" or the "land belonging to no one." There were 500 indigenous nations that existed on this land, BEFORE they were cleansed from the land and whitewashed out of the historic narrative. BEFORE the cotton kingdom of the deep south became a Confederate enclave it was highly contested land of many Native American Indians as well as European claims in Spain, France, and Great Britain.

      Only 4 rebellious Confederate states were among the original 13 states -- Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia -- Tennessee and Kentucky were cut out of the Carolinas and Virginia, respectively -- the Cotton Kingdom of the deep southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana became apart of the union AFTER the ethnic-cleansing, land-grab War of 1812 -- Fresh off the heels of the War of 1812, the then General Andrew Jackson started invading Florida during the Seminole Wars, in 1819 the land was sold to the USA by Spain -- Texas was a shameless land-grab from Mexico during the Presidents Taylor's and Polk's Administration -- California became a state in 1850.

      The Civil War was about the WESTWARD EXPANSION OF SLAVERY into the newly acquired states and territories, not about the institution of slavery itself.

      The Civil War didn't even start with the firing on Fort Sumter, it began with the Jayhawkers vs. the Bushwhackers in Kansas -- they call it Bleeding Kansas (1856). AGAIN, the South Carolina Palmeto State flag flew LONG BEFORE the Confederate Southern Cross ever flew over the contested lands of Kansas over what question .... SLAVERY EXPANSION.

      There were more than two sides in the Civil War, it wasn't just about the North vs. South. There were Free Soilers (anti-slavery, anti-black, yeomen farmers), the Copperheads (pro-slavery northerners), Pro-Union Southerners (largest stronghold could be found when pro-union West Virginia seceded from Virginia), Know Nothing Party (anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish) ... the country wasn't in a two-way split, but a complete ideological implosion. It's cute how history is packaged into neat compartments, because the truth is way too complex for most people to handle.

      Who benefited from the Civil War? The USA. It became a large nation with two major oceans (Pacific and Atlantic), that opened trade with Asia as well as with Europe; the United States became a superpower that excelled beyond its European counterparts in France, England, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany. The land became more democratic for white men, more free for all people (except the original inhabitants, the Native Americans who were sequestered on to reservations and controlled by the Department of Interiors and Department of Indian Affairs and of course Americans with one-drop of African blood were sequestered in ghetto colonies across the USA as Jim Crow Apartheid laws of "separate but equal" became entrenched).

      In other words, the US Civil War decreased the likelihood of sectional balkanization of the United States.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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    2. Sure it decreased the likelihood of sectional balkanization. It was one huge economic interest winning over another. And that was all. Slavery was a horrible thing, but it was just as mean, as I said, just like machineries, seeds, money, horses and so forth. The mistake, here, is that we consider the end of it, through all the struggle and pain we ‘ve been speaking about which in my opinion were unnecessary, like the end of a very naughty world. As I’ve mentioned before, slavery ended in Brazil only a few years after the War without any pain. And we are talking about a nation which was still to be discovered so, following your reasoning, slaves would have been needed very much, though slavery ended just because it’s time was up!!!
      The same would have happened in the South, whether they liked it or not, because it just had become to embarrassing for European nations or any other to deal with them. Very simply, otherwise we can’t explain Brazil’s decision.
      And let me tell you, as a European I know Portuguese people were amongst the worst ones in their colonies!
      Nice hearing you talking about your history but believe me, there’s no need. I am perfectly aware of everything you say. Especially when you talk about the Natives.
      it’s not a case that the last land unit of the CS Army to surrender was the Cherokee Mounted Rifles lead by General Stand Watie, a Cherokee himself. The Indian Nations allied themselves to…guess what…the CSA, when they could have easily done guerrilla war behind Confederate lines.
      All this history doesn’t change the main point anyway. If you were right, with the end of slavery in your country everything would have been fine but, let me tell you, you still nowadays dream about the social services like health care that we have in Europe!
      Your nation has been and still is in the hands of a bunch of slave traders, not only from the South but mainly carpet baggers (like the Bush family) who still treat workers like slaves only with the hypocrisy of pretending they live in a free world.
      Anyway the balkanization of the USA has happened, it is within it and between it and the rest of the world!
      I really hope that will change but I know it won't be painless for the world...

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    3. Why do you keep saying that the South LOST the Civil War? When in fact, the South WON the Civil War, they just had to divest themselves of their slave property and they were ALL pardoned by Andrew Johnson (the 17 President of the USA), they kept their land, their political power (they even GAINED MORE POWER, by counting 4 million slaves as WHOLE PERSONS)....THE SOUTH WON THE WAR.

      --Ron Edwards, US Slave Blog

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  7. The one thing this and just about every other Yankee account of the war fails to mention is that the conditions in the union run POW camps like Elmyra, Point Lookout and Chocago were just as horrid. My gig grandfather returned from Point Lookout in June 1865 a mere 87 pounds. A great deal more than 12,000 Confederates died in those camps. In the Chicago camp their deaths were profited from by the camp commander selling their bodies as cadavers. He then lied to his superiors and said they had been buried. But that's what Yankees do best, LIE. If it was for this so called righteous cause, then why did Sherman take up his pontoon bridge behind him an watch dozens of blacks drowned in the Chattahoochee river???? I'll tell you why. Because he was a war criminal who should have been hung. And so was Lincoln.

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    1. I would hope that you were smart enough to figure the difference of All Yankees lie to the real truth which is The men in powerful positions were the liars and they were on both sides. The same thing happens today with the power hungry Democrats and Republicans lying to get elected. For anyone to call all the people from a few Northern states all liars is childish and not true.

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  8. The photo with the comment
    "Nazis? No, these are victims of the Confederate Concentration Camp in Andersonville, Georgia, U.S.A., 1864. United States soldiers who were white, Christian, English speaking men fighting for the freedom"
    arouses my interest because it is often used concerning German concentration camps.
    Do you know a source?

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  9. Two of my relatives died at Andersonville from dysentery. It was John H. Diggs junior and senior They were from Coal Creek ,Tennessee and they are buried there. They deserve to be remembered.

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  10. Remembering Patrick Atkinson who died in Andersonville Prison.

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  11. Wow pictures of fat reenactors and dead from Nazi camps all shown as if it's from the Civil War. Just lazy work.

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  12. Yes, you'd think such images were from a Nazi concentration game during the Second World War, not from an American concentration camp during the Civil War. I even wonder if the Andersonville POW Camp is all a hoax. Maybe the images of the emaciated victims are really from World War II. After all, the name "Auschwitz" may be synonymous with a concentration camp, but "Andersonville"? Where exactly was this POW camp?

    Anyway, please visit www.facebook.com/jeremy.keller.1238 or www.twitter.com/JeremyKeller9 and check, for example, my BBC link pertaining to Olympus Mons.

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  13. Don't talk about Nazi Germany. Andersoville was much worst.

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  14. I am on the historic commission in Dudley, MA. We recently erected a monument to the men from Dudley that were imprisoned at Andersonville. We are putting together a brochure for the celebration of the new monument. I am wondering if we can include a picture from this blog. Can you tell me where the pictures came from and if we can have permission to include them in a free informational brochure.

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  16. I'm really amazed with the discussion in this article... All I can say is that though wars, all of them, through history, have an economical component, that vision is partial therefore closer to be a lie than the truth and only truth they pretend to be, and therefore -again- ignore a thousand other facts that drives people and countries to war. And those facts, when we talk about civil wars multiples enormously... so please, don't even try to reduce and re-write history (and less in such a left-hand way),

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