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Marker: Confederate authorities, fearing a
raid on Andersonville by Shermans marching army, chose Andersonville as a
safe, temporary prison camp. Five thousand Federal prisoners were brought
here on the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad Line via Blackshear in the second
week of December 1864. Colonel Henry Forno commanded the 2nd and 4th
Georgia Reserves and the prison camp. The camp was a five acre square
bounded by a ditch six to eight feet deep, ten to twelve feet wide.
Several hundred prisoners died of smallpox, typhoid fever, diarrhea, and a
few from trees felled for firewood and shelter. Some sick prisoners were
cared for at the Methodist Church and at Fletcher Institute. The dead were
buried in the Methodist Cemetery. Local citizens helped the sick and
provided prisoners with food. With Sherman settled at Savannah the
emergency camp at Thomasville closed. The prisoners were marched sixty
miles to Albany and entrained for Andersonville where they arrived on
December 24, 1864 |