Amateur archaeologists looking for history at Andersonville

A group of amateur archaeologists from Middle Georgia are searching for a little known second stockade of the notorious Civil War prison camp in Andersonville.

On Friday, members of the Ocmulgee Archeological Society used ground-penetrating radar to try to pinpoint the location of Castle Reed, a separate, smaller stockade for Union officers that was located off the preserved historic site of the main stockade. They identified ground anomalies that may indicate an outer wall of Castle Reed.

Alan Marsh of Lizella is a member of the society and a former chief of resource management at the Andersonville National Historic Site. He said the radar results are being analyzed to confirm whether the anomalies are the outer wall of the stockade.

The anomalies were found on Minor Farms property on East Church Street in Andersonville, about 100 yards from the current historical marker at the city of Andersonville water plant that identifies Camp Reed. The owners of Minor Farms cooperated with the search, and if the analysis confirms the location, more archaeological work will be done on the site, Marsh said. The U.S. Park Service also cooperated with the search.

“It’s another piece of the Andersonville puzzle that would be put in place,” Marsh said.

On Saturday, 16 members of the society used metal detectors to search another area about a half-mile away, where the Confederate soldiers who guarded the prison camped.

John Trussell, a member of the society who lives in Houston County, said they hoped to find coins, buttons, rifle balls or other items that could be directly linked to the troops, but they mostly came up empty.

They did find some interesting items, though, including the hand crank of a Model T Ford and a spoon that dated to the early 1900s. They also found what may be a belt buckle, the origin and era of which are still being investigated. Trussell said it’s possible the buckle could be linked to the Civil War era.

He said the site has been seriously degraded over the years through farming and probably other people searching, so he didn’t have his hopes up. But they plan to return within a few days and try again in another area.

Andersonville prison, officially called Camp Sumter, held Union prisoners inside a stockade with no shelter. It opened in February 1864 and of about 45,000 men who were held there, nearly 13,000 died.

Longstanding military tradition, however, is that officers who are prisoners of war get better accommodations. About 65 officers were held in Castle Reed for about three months after the main stockade opened. Castle Reed had shelter, and Marsh said he is not aware of any officers dying there. The officers were eventually relocated to Camp Oglethorpe, an officer prison camp in Macon.

Some Union officers were put in the main stockade, however. Marsh said those were officers who commanded black troops and were deemed unworthy of officer treatment. He said the most likely reason Castle Reed closed is that as the main stockade filled up, the Confederates could no longer maintain two stockades.

In 2014, members of the Ocmulgee Archeological Society successfully used metal detectors to find remnants of one of the prison camp hospitals. Those remnants included a scalpel confirmed to have been from that era. The items are on display at the Andersonville museum.

This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Amateur archaeologists looking for history at Andersonville."