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Andersonville Civil War Prison
Item 12 of 12
This is a contributing entry for Andersonville Civil War Prison and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.
In the prison camp, soldiers occasionally banded together to defend themselves against other prisoners. Lack of food and water and ground space on which to sleep drove many men to desperate measures even inflicting violence on fellow prisoners. One particularly nasty group of men were called the Raiders. These Raiders, a group of about six men, stole food and belongings from other prisoners and were viewed with hatred by large numbers of men inside the camp. The prisoners eventually organized a policing group amongst themselves identified as “The Regulators” who arrested accused Raiders. Out of the 75 men arrested on suspicion of camp violence, six were condemned to death. These six prisoners were hanged and buried in the cemetery. Their graves are separated from the other Union prisoners as a sign of isolation and derision for their actions while inside the prison camp.

"Execution of the Raiders"

People, Standing, Adaptation, Troop

Raiders' Graves separate from other prisoners

Nature, Grass, Land lot, Headstone

Raiders' Graves

Grass, Groundcover, Cemetery, Concrete

NPS Signage on Raiders

Grass family, Grassland, Signage, Sign

As Camp Sumter Military Prison began to rapidly overrun the capacity of the stockade, violence among prisoners also increased. Sometimes called “camp-robbers” or “marauders”, prisoners who stole or assaulted fellow inmates operated both individually and in groups. These men were later identified as the Raiders and rumors swirled of Raider acts of atrocity even including murder of fellow prisoners.[1] Without law or regulation imposed by the Confederate guards, Raider activity continued to run rampant inside the compound. William Tyler remembered the group, writing:

“About this time there was a band formed, probably the off-scourings of the city of New York…They made up their minds to live, even if the rest all died of starvation. They were armed with clubs, and would take the mush away from the weaker ones…We were unable to stand by and permit such outrages, for to a man who lost one ration there, it meant almost certain death.”[2]

This notorious group demonstrated the need for law and order within the prison. Most accounts of the Raiders describe the group as led by soldiers from New York, such as John Sarsfield of the 144th New York.[3] The Raiders were stronger because they stole rations from other prisoners, making it even easier to overpower new soldiers arriving in the camp. Stealing gave them better weapons which were used to sometimes kill other prisoners.[4] Stories abound in prison memoirs of scuffles, skirmishes and wrestling matches between ordinary prisoners and the Raiders over small goods like blankets or watches. John McElroy described a confrontation in which two hundred prisoners marched against the Raiders to reclaim a watch belonging to a Dan Martin of the Eighth New York Infantry. The prisoners lost this fight and only increased the boldness of the Raiders who inaugurated a “reign of terror” over the camp.[5] Eventually, the other prisoners in the camp retaliated out of fear and frustration, grabbing the attention of commander Captain Wirz and resulting in the hanging of six Raider leaders. The separate burial designates the Raiders as detested and scorned in the memory of Andersonville Prison.

[1] “The Raiders,” Andersonville National Historic Site, National Park Service, 2020. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/the_raiders.htm

[2] William N. Tyler, The Dispatch Carrier and Memoirs of Andersonville Prison (Port Byron, Ill.: Port Byron “Globe” Print, 1892), part 2, 30. Project Gutenberg, accessed December 16, 2020. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40046/40046-h/40046-h.htm#Page_a9 

[3] Ovid Futch, “Andersonville Raiders,” Civil War History 2, no. 4 (December 1956): 49.

[4] Futch, “Andersonville Raiders,” 53.

[5] John McElroy, Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons, edited by Robert McCune (Digital Scanning Incorporated, 1999), 150. ProQuest Ebook Central, accessed December 16, 2020. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uncc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3151955. 

Image Sources(Click to expand)

c. 1898, Andersonville Military Prison Series. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington D.C. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Personal Photograph, Erin Del Giudice Nov. 14, 2020

personal Photograph Erin Del Giudice, Nov. 14, 2020

Personal Photograph, Erin Del Giudice, Nov. 14, 2020