Remembering the Fallen

By Nan Card, Hayes Presidential Center

"They lie there - shoulder to shoulder, in long trenches, six feet wide, four feet deep, and six feet apart – miles of graves." These words describe Andersonville, the Civil War prison endured by Henry Miller of Clyde, Ohio and his comrades.

After a humiliating defeat at Brice’s Crossroads in the early summer of 1864, Miller and more than two hundred of his regiment were captured, searched, and stripped of valuables and much of their clothing. They were then marched south through Mississippi and Alabama, watching helplessly as some of their comrades – both black and white – were executed along the way. They were destined for the 27-acre compound known as Andersonville. There Miller joined some 33,000 other Union prisoners of war.

Strong warriors were soon reduced to shriveled, hollow-eyed skeletons. In every direction lay emaciated men in various stages of death from starvation, exposure, gangrene, scurvy, pneumonia, typhoid, and dysentery. Many sat or lay silent and unresponsive, staring with glazed eyes and fixed stares. As days passed, hope dwindled. Despair and misery remained. Corporal Miller declared that "no tongue can tell or pen describe" the sights and experiences. Yet he tried….

"Such a sight! There never was a place on this earth where so many human beings were required to make such sacrifices for their country for days and months, until endurance and human flesh could not stand it any longer and God in his merciful kindness welcomed them home...."

Miller wrote of the unbearable agony "when we saw them suffering and could not help them. The tears would fill our eyes and at the same time it would take all our manhood and strength and we would turn our faces away from our sick comrades until we could dry our tears and would then turn and give them our attention again."

One of the first of Miller’s friends to die was 17-year-old Alex Almond: "a nobler, brighter boy was not to be found, patiently and uncomplainingly dying, slowly sacrificing all that was dear….." The following month 3,000 of them died – one every eleven minutes. Of the 34 imprisoned from Miller’s Company A, only five survived.

Almond and nearly 13,000 others lie buried there. On Memorial Day, Americans at Andersonville and around the world will remember the brave Americans – from the Revolutionary War to Operation Iraqi Freedom - who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.