What Are The Benefits Of The Andersonville Prison During The Civil War

Andersonville was the worst prison during the civil war. The prisoners were forced to live in the worst conditions, with disease killing most of them because there wasn’t medicine that they could take to fight off the illness. There were many dangers facing the prisoners in the prison like raiders and thieves. However, the flag displayed in the prison helped these men in hopeless times, acting as inspiration and giving them hope. Prisons now have been reformed to make them better for the prisoners. Andersonville lead on to many prison reforms around the United States. Andersonville prison was a prison during the Civil War used as a Confederate prison. There is a single bridge connecting the prison to the mainland. “Belle Isle was a secure

This had a big impact on the reason why there were prison reforms. The first problem that arose when the number of prisoners increased was the fact that there were not enough tents for all of the prisoners. Since there were not enough tents many of the prisoners were “crammed into the Sibley well beyond their twelve- person capacity”(Gourley 15). The capacity of the tents were about twelve men and the generals crammed more than the limit into each tent. Each prisoner did not have enough space and this was a reason the death count was so high because people were dying while they sleep, this is why now many prisons provide beds and cells for the prisons to sleep in. The reason that the camp did not have enough tents for all of the prisoners was because “approximately 400 more arrived each day. By the end of June, 26,000 men were penned in an area originally meant for only 10,000 prisoners” (Civil War Trust). Since the soldiers were entering the prison so fast, then prison guards did not have time to expand the prison because every day four hundred people were entering the prison and the population grew to fast for everyone to keep up with. The camp also did not have enough food for all of the prisoners so to overcome this problem the food rations were made to be extremely small. So when the number of prisoners increased everyone, including the Confederacy were not getting enough and “Even the army's horses were suffering” (Gourley 19). So no animals or people were eating enough food because the camp had to many prisoners so there wasn’t enough food to go around between all of the prisoners. Also the prisoner were “regularly chained” (Center for Prison Reforms). Sometimes they were chained in a closet and they were left there for a long period of time without food and water. If a prisoner was mentally ill, they were “held in the general population with no treatments available to them.” (Center for Prison Reforms).