Prisoners In The Film Andersonville

Andersonville
“Andersonville”, is a movie portraying the living conditions and economic hardships for Union prisoners in the Andersonville prison camp during the the American Civil War. The camp was located in a remote part of Georgia for several reasons being that it was easily guarded with fewer men, and if anyone found a way to escape they would not make it far because there was no civilization around it. When the prison camp was first opened in February of 1864 it was about 16.5 acres of land with 15 foot high stockades enclosing the prisoners to prevent any sort of escape. The prison was later expanded to 26.5 acres to hold the increasing amounts of war prisoners being brought in. The prisoners created their own economy while they were
there. It was a mix between a command economy and a market economy for many reasons. It showed examples of a command economy because the guards (which would be the government in this case) regulated how much food and other items everyone received. An example of it being a market economy was that many of the prisoners would trade goods with one another or sell goods such as food, clean water, or clothing. The prisoners of Andersonville, although they were being held captive, formed an economy and faced hardships because of it such as scarcity, violence within the prison camp, and sickening living conditions.
The prisoners faced scarcity in many different ways.
They had scarcity in food, water, shelter, clothing, and anything else necessary for survival. They had next to nothing for their necessities. Prisoners in Andersonville had to make trade-offs on a daily basis. They would have to decide between their wants and their needs. In Andersonville there was no such thing as the paradox of value. The most precious items to them were food, water, and shelter. There was also a scarcity of medical care within the camp. About a third of everyone in Andersonville died due to this. Some of the prisoners tried to be entrepreneurs in a way by opening up little shops or markets to provide service to the consumers (prisoners) and it was a way for them to pass the time because there was so little to
do.
The prisoners not only had to deal with major scarcity, but also violence in the camp mainly because of a group of prisoners that banded together and called themselves the Raiders. They would welcome any new prisoners into the camp and then attack them and sometimes even kill them. The Raiders would then take any valuables the new prisoners had with them such as food, water, clothing, jewelry, etc. This made them much better off than everyone else because they had more food and water which meant they had more strength than the rest of the prisoners and everyone was afraid to rise up against them. The Raiders could kill, steal, and do whatever they wanted with no guard intervention whatsoever. But, eventually, a group named the Regulators rose up against them and caught most of them. There was more violence than just the Raiders though. There was a fencing around the inside of the prison called “the dead line” and if anyone touched or even crossed it they would be shot by one of the guards without question.
Lastly, the living conditions for the prisoners were atrocious.
They were living in their own filth. They had only one spot to shower or bathe, go to the bathroom, or get drinking water, and it was from the stream that ran through the prison. This stream pretty quickly was contaminated due to the filth that the prisoners put in the water. People still went in and drank the water though because there was nowhere else they could go to do that. This caused thousands of prisoners to become sick with several different diseases such as dysentery and scurvy which would end up being one of the major causes of the high mortality rate in Andersonville. The standard of living in this prison was, quite obviously, extremely low. The commander of the Andersonville prison camp, Henry Wirz, claimed that he had put out several requests to the government to get more food and better living conditions at the camp but this request never ended up being fulfilled. Even outside of the stream everything was filthy and overcrowded. The prisoners had no other choice but to act like animals and so they
did.
In conclusion, Andersonville was a terrible place for the prisoners put inside. It was overcrowded, the living conditions were bad, everything was scarce, and to top it all of there was a great amount of violence because of one group of individuals. Despite all of these different factors, the prison still had an economy that leaned more towards a market economy because there was productivity by the people and many of them bought, sold, and traded items with one another, but it was also a command economy in several ways due to all decisions being made by the government.