July 31, 2016

Andersonville, Jimmy Carter, and Peaches

About a half hour drive to Andersonville NHS.  This site has several parts.  The visitors center has a museum and memorial to POW’s of all wars, not just the Civil War.  Excellent museum.  Every display and presentation grabs you and makes you think.

POW memorial

Adjacent to the visitor center is the site of the Andersonville POW camp where Union soldiers were held during the Civil War.  The entire site is laid out by posts and corner monuments and portions of the wall are reconstructed.  Today it is just a very large grassy field.  There are Civil War era pictures posted in various spots, taken from where you are standing, that show the horror that it once was.

 

Reconstructed  corner of prison site.  Two posts on right demark ‘Dead Zone’. Left hand post shows line of tall prison fence. Post on right edge of picture shows position of small sparse inner fence. Prisoners who crossed inner fence would be shot by guards positioned in watch towers.

Looks pretty bucolic now.  Small dot right side center is archeologic marker of one of several sites where prisoners dug crude wells in attempt to find water.

 

A few hundred yards from the POW prison site is the cemetery. Nearly 13,000  Civil War soldiers died at Andersonville prison during the 14 months it was in operation.  Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, played a large part in locating and properly identifying the graves of those buried there so that proper markers could be placed.

 

 

Another half hour drive to Plains, GA – home of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. Both were born and grew up in Plains, married there, and always returned there after military service and then again after private and political life.  They live there now.  The compound where they live is private but the rest of the town is available for public visitation including the high school both attended that is now a visitor center and museum, and Jimmy Carters boyhood home.  Many very good informative presentations on both the Carters throughout the town.

Back door of Jimmy Carter boyhood home

 

Current resident

 

Front of boyhood home.  House is open to walk through.

Following Plains, an hour drive north to the Lane Packing Company.  First peaches we have seen in the Peach State after driving through a lot of it.  They have a catwalk above the peach packing operation so visitors can watch the process.  Middle of peach season but it is Sunday so no packing happening.  Good descriptive signs on the catwalk give good idea of flow of peaches through the line.  Would have been fun to watch.  Peach soft serve was very tasty though.