I'm John Batchew with Professor Fitzbrondage. His book is A Fate Worse

Than Hell, American prisoners of the Civil War.

If you read the Civil War, you hear around the edges about Andersonville. But what the professor

has done is taken us right inside of it. Reading it now, and you introduce us to a photographer

who was there in August of 1864, Riddle.

And through the professor's books, there are photographs and drawings.

Remember, they didn't use routinely photographs in the middle of 19th century.

That comes much later.

So there were drawings done by professionals of what they saw at the camp, a moment in time. It's repeatedly obvious that Andersonville was never created to keep people alive. They were abandoned in a forest.

They were surrounded by trees, but nobody cut them down to build a shelter. They lived

underground when they could stay out of the rain, smallpox

and amoebic dysentery. Every manner of disease was there. Water was polluted, and there was not

adequate water. And a man named Henry Vertz, who worked for Wynder originally, was assigned as a commandant of the camp.

There wasn't enough food.

There never was enough food.

The guards said we ate what the prisoners ate, but in fact the guards were supplemented.

It looks to me, Professor, and you did not make this case.

I'm an amateur reader here.

It looks to me that it was created to allow as many as possible to die in the night and then bury them in mass graves.

Did they write that down that this was purposeful?

No.

But I certainly understand how you could reach that conclusion. And that was a, many, many, many of the prisoners of war reached the same conclusion.

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