Nazareth Allen, of Bibb County, Georgia, was one of the several Andersonville guards who spoke during the trial of Henry Wirz in fall 1865. Allen testified, "I was on duty at the stockade as a sentry. I had the means of observing the condition of the camp inside the stockade; I could see it from the stoop where I was. Some few had shelters made out of their blankets or such as they had built themselves with pine tops which they had carried in. There was no other shelter that I saw. Some had holes dug in the ground and sticks put up and pine tops hung around them... I remember that one sick man one night made a great lamentation. He was on the ground. It was not muddy. I did not see him receive any attention. He was calling for his mother; he seemed to be out of his mind. He died." Allen also described the experiences of the guards. The stench of Andersonville affected him greatly. He continued, "I have smelt it when I was at our picket camp. By the way we went round the camp was about a mile and a half away... We soldiers preferred doing picket duty to sentry duty. The stench was so bad that it kept me sick pretty nearly all the time I was around the stockade." One of the frequent myths of Andersonville is that the guards died at the same rate as the prisoners. The claim arose in the late-nineteenth century as part of an effort to downplay the suffering of Union prisoners. Precise death rates aren't known but the death rate for guards was between 5%-10%, while the prisoner death rate was 29%. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
<ul><li>Keywords: camp; prisoner; death; duty; stockade; sentry; myth; prisoners; union; confederate; war; death rate</li></ul>
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Unknown author<span style="display: none;">Unknown author</span></div>
Taken on 1 August 1864
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