Andersonville must have made an impression on the 10 year-old boy who walked among the headstones in 1960 searching for interesting names, dates, and places. He (that would be me, he) returned to the small town in southwest Georgia last week to find one specific grave marker. The staff at the park was extremely helpful with an electronic search of the POW database and finding William's grave marker was accomplished in minutes.
It is appropriate on this Memorial Day the we remember the sacrifices of family members who served in our armed forces...and even more appropriate for me as I continue research on a grandfather who commanded a WWI MASH unit, an uncle who served in Nicaragua (only to be murdered later), a father whose military record includes mysterious references to WWII activity in Italy, and two distant cousins whose names are engraved on the Viet Nam Memorial. May they, and their comrades in arms, rest in the peace they fought to preserve.
There is something much bigger in Andersonville that I'd classify as a hidden gem in our nation's history:
I am still torn as to a complete understanding of why the National Prisoner of War Museum is located in such an isolated plot...but understand equally as well as how appropriate the place may be due to the infamy of the Civil War POW stockade where nearly 14,000 Union soldiers died.
The debate over the war trial of Henry Wirz, commander of the Andersonville camp (the only confederate officer to be tried and executed), has recently received additional daylight in a contemporary context. With even a little reading, I find myself able to both condemn Wirz and defend Wirz...'good stuff for classroom research and discussion.
The National POW museum is still relatively new (remodeled and re-opened in 2007) and equals quality memorials and collections that one might expect to find in Washington, D.C. Wandering through interactive exhibits, reading letters of POW's from several conflicts, and generally trying to grasp man's inhumanity to man illustrated in video, sound, and exhibit is sobering. It is worth the trip...I'd recommend adding Warm Springs and Plains to an itinerary of the historic area.