Andersonville (1996)

Andersonville is a 1996 American television film directed by John Frankenheimer about a group of Union soldiers during the American Civil War who are captured by the Confederates and sent to an infamous Confederate prison camp.

The film is loosely based on the diary of John Ransom, a Union soldier imprisoned there. Although certain points of the plot are fabricated, the general conditions of the camp accurately match Ransom's descriptions, particularly references to the administration of the camp by Captain Henry Wirz. His line on escaping prisoners is very similar to the book, "The Flying Dutchman [Wirz] offers to give two at a time twelve hours the start".

Synopsis

The film begins with a group of Union soldiers being captured and forced to surrender at Cold Harbor, Virginia, in June 1864. They are transported to prisoner-of-war Camp Sumter, near Andersonville, Georgia. When they enter, they discover a former comrade, named Dick Potter, who explains the grim realities of daily existence in the camp – primarily the lack of shelter, clean water, and regular food supplies. He also states the danger of a rogue group of Union soldiers, called the "Raiders", who hoard the camp's meager rations, and lure unsuspecting "fresh fish" – newly captured soldiers – into their area of the camp, to attack and rob them.

Actors