Posted: December 18, 2011 - 12:02am | Updated: December 18, 2011 - 7:44am
By Richard Burkhart
In July 1864, the Savannah Daily Morning News reported that nearly 1,200 “Yankee Officers” were to be transferred to Savannah from Camp Oglethorpe in Macon.
That city was being flooded with a high number of Confederate sick and wounded from the fighting around Atlanta and needed to move the prisoners to lighten its burden. Within two weeks of Atlanta’s capture, trains carrying hundreds of enlisted Union prisoners from Andersonville, with hopes of being exchanged for Southern prisoners, were also headed into Savannah.
To accommodate this influx, two prison camps were erected on each side of Forsyth Park.
The camp for the nearly 6,000 enlisted soldiers was on the site of the city jail, while the officers were kept on the grounds of the poorhouse and hospital.
The camps were not open long, however.
By the middle of November, Gen. William T. Sherman had left Atlanta and begun his “March to the Sea.”
And, with prisoner exchanges coming to a halt, the Union soldiers were transferred from Savannah, and all signs of the prison camps were removed.
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Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News In 1864, Union officers were held as prisoners of war on the grounds of the Poor House and Hospital, possibly making camp under this very tree. |
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