On our same trip to Florence Marina State Park we visited Andersonville National Historic Site. The town of Andersonville included a civil war prison used for just over a year. 45,000 Union soldiers were held there. Many died due to poor living conditions. Now the park includes a prisoner of war museum, the prison site including some reconstruction, and a National Cemetery. 
This is some of the reconstructed stockade area to show how close the prisoners lived. Since the 26 acres included 32,000 prisoners, I imagine that those who had space for a tent were the lucky ones!
A creek bed can be seen running across the center of the picture. This creek was mostly stagnant water. It was used for a latrine, for washing, and for drinking within the stockade. Supposedly, when drinking water was desperately needed, lightening struck at the spot of this building causing a spring of fresh water. This spring became known as Providence Spring.
Finally, the reason for our trip here! My great-great-grandfather, John Thomas Davis, served here in 1864. He was assigned the job of helping to build the newer section of the stockade. I am holding a portion of his Confederate uniform jacket in front of a corner post of the section he would have been building. Maybe he wore this jacket, though I doubt due to the season, while he placed these rocks in this post. I wish I had carried his picture down too.
This is a small portion of the National Cemetery outside the stockade area. Many of the prisoners from the prison in Andersonville are buried here. Other military veterans to present day are also buried here. Some headstones include names on the front and on the back. It appeared that all the military member names faced the same direction and that, maybe, the name on the other side was that of a spouse also buried there. I think Sam regretted allowing me to read names because I wanted to read everything on everyone of the stones and "suppose" stories for each person.
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