Person:William Ford (71)

William Ford , Residence: Orange, New Hampshire Enlistment Date: 30 October 1863 Distinguished Service: DISTINGUISHED SERVICE Side Served: Union State Served: New Hampshire Unit Numbers: 1209 1209 Service Record: Enlisted as a Private on 30 October 1863 at the age of 34 Drafted in Company K, 7th Infantry Regiment New Hampshire on 30 October 1863. POW on 01 July 1864 at Bermuda Hundred, VA Died as a prisoner Company K, 7th Infantry Regiment New Hampshire on 26 August 1864 in Andersonville, GA

Description of Andersonville Prison: By the winter of 1863-64 the Confederacy was near the last of its resources and manpower. Knowing this, Union General Ulysses S. Grant refused to continue the prisoner-exchange agreement that had been in operation during most of the war. This action cut down on the number of Confederate soldiers Grant's army would have to face in the coming campaign, but it also meant death to a great number of Union prisoners who would otherwise have been exchanged.

The concentration of war prisoners in Richmond, Va., drained the local food supply and was a source of danger should the Yankees attack. To relieve the burden, a new prison site was selected in the heart of Georgia, near the village of Andersonville in Sumter County. The prison was officially named Camp Sumter. When the first prisoners arrived in late February 1864, they found 16.5 acres of open land enclosed by a 15 foot tall stockade. The not yet completed prison provided little in the way of housing, clothing, or medical care. The only fresh water was a stream that flowed through the prison yard, with the downstream end serving as the camp latrine. During the next few months, 400 more prisoners arrived each day, and in June the prison was expanded to 26 acres. By then there were 26,000 men enclosed in an area intended to hold 10,000. By August the prison contained more than 32,000 Union prisoners.

Conditions at Andersonville were worse than at any other war prison, North or South. The Georgia heat, along with disease, filth, exposure, and lack of adequate medical care, took a fearfull toll. In September 1864, General William T. Sherman's Union army captured Atlanta and brought its cavalry within reach of Andersonville. The confederacy relocated surviving prisoners to other camps, and Camp Sumter operated as a smaller facility for the rest of the war. But the summer had taken a terrible toll: of the 45,000 Union soldiers confined at Camp Sumter, 13,000 died. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Andersonville Prison

Union prisoners were encamped at Andersonville Prison, or Camp Sumter, in southwest Georgia. By 1864 Andersonville held the largest prison population of the Civil War, and prisoners suffered from starvation and disease as a result of severe overcrowding. The most notorious camp was run by the Confederates in Andersonville, Ga. More than 45,000 Union soldiers were imprisoned there during little more than a year of the war. Almost 13,000 died from gangrene, dysentery and diarrhea.

Soldier Hugh Moore's testimony of the horror of being in the Andersonville Prison: On the 25th day of July, 1864, in company with 1700 other prisoners of war, I entered Andersonville. I shall never forget that day. The older prisoners, or they who had been held the longest, were worn down with want, sickness, and famine, with shrunken bodies, disheveled hair, eyes deep set in their sockets, fingers long and bony, and emaciated looks. Turn which way you would, you were met with suffering and sorrow, while the air was impregnated with sickening odors of rank corruption and loathsome death.... Our rations in July and a part of August, was a piece of corn bread, about four inches square, and two inches thick: after this it was a pint of meal each day. For cooking vessels we used our tin cup and cast-away fruit cans, such as we could beg or buy from the guards. For shelter, two of us joined and put our blankets together, one on the ground to lie or sit on, the other over us to keep off the scorching rays of the sun by day, and the poisonous dews by night. Under this blanket we sat and talked of what we would get to eat when we arrived home.... Winter was now coming on and my wardrobe was wearing very scant. My shirt was entirely worn out; my old blouse worn thin, hung on my body in tatters. My pants were worn out when I was taken prisoner, but I had worn them ever since. The last button was gone from them and they hung on me by means of small, wooden pegs, similar to shoe pegs, and I was barefooted. We were divided into hundreds and thousands. This letter goes on for several paragraphs including his entire duty. He did live to go home to his family unlike so many others.