Descriptive Essay On Andersonville

The night before, Confederate soldiers command Union soldiers to board a train at dusk. The next morning five hundred Union prisoners get on a train with absolutely no room. They stand for five days, which is exhausting, but is doable for the soldiers who think they are going home. There is excitement because they think there will be an exchange of soldiers between the North and the South. I cannot imagine the feeling when this reality is taken away from them. The stop and go journey is long, which begins to lead to confusion to where they are going. The soldiers have already endured war and capture. This is an unfortunate situation to the prisoners who are dreaming of freedom. I am sure that the soldiers are thinking of their families back home; however, this is the beginning of their life at one of the worst prison camps.
Andersonville is located in lower Georgia thousands of miles from civilization. Georgia is the largest state in the South, next to Texas. The camp is a large pen in the middle of a swampy area surrounded by thirty thousand miles of thick, dense forest. I am picturing it and how the soldiers are feeling during this time. The walls that surround the camp consist of pines twenty-five miles high that …show more content…
Although the conditions are not terrible when they first arrive, conditions gradually deteriorates as more and more soldiers are brought to the camp. The Confederate soldiers create the notorious “Dead line.” This area consists of three acres that the prisoners are not able to go. This leaves the prisoners with thirteen areas of acres for themselves. Furthermore, McElroy describes the significant different between the soldiers from Alabama and the soldiers from Georgia. He describes the Alabama soldiers as being superior to the Georgia soldiers in every way. I wonder why there is a definitive difference between the two. The soldiers from Alabama are honorable, manly,