Almost 12,000 people suffered and died at Andersonville prison in a span of around a year. Andersonville was a war prison that was created in April 1864 and was used to hold Union war prisoners during the Civil War. The living situation was horrible, and thousands of people died there. The person responsible for the thousands of deaths that occurred at Andersonville prison was Captain Wirz because many Union soldiers died due to the lack of food and water he provided to the prisoners, the spread of disease with no vaccinations, which was partly caused by contaminated water, and raiders in the prison that he did not stop from killing many people. To begin, Captain Wirz was responsible for the deaths at Andersonville due to the lack of food …show more content…
This quote proves that Captain Wirz let many prisoners die from starvation because he did not care if they had not eaten in a while, and so they were not provided with enough food to keep them alive. He even stated that he did not even want to give the prisoners any rations and would not if he could. Furthermore, the testimony from former prisoner A.G. Blair also claimed, “It was absolutely necessary sometimes either to go over the deadline or thirst. I have seen men on five or six occasions either shot dead or mortally wounded for trying to get water under the deadline” (Lindor D6). This additional piece of evidence makes it clear that there was a great lack of clean water at the prison, and they were so thirsty that many people went over the deadline (a guarded rail