One step forward-two steps back

This blog is going to be a little back and forth.  We left off in our beginning travels in Odessa and Marfa, TX.  Once the snow melted in Ft. Stockton, we headed north through Pecos to Carlsbad, NM.  Our campground was north of the city, high atop a plateau. Windy and cold all in the same place.  Our first trip was to Carlsbad Caverns where we found out that the elevator was broken which meant after walking down the 75 flights of switchback stairs, you had the pleasure of walking back up those same 75 flights of steps. Jo made it 10 flights and I made it 37 before I came to the conclusion that I could make it to bottom but wouldn't make it back up without a stretcher and oxygen. As it was, the walk back took my breath away and we were pleased when we saw the sky again.  Unfortunately, a cold front had blown in, the temperature dropped and the snow started.  It was one of the longest quarter mile walks we took back to the visitor center.  On the way back to the campsite, we saw a tractor trailer actually blown off the road and lying on its side.  We were glad to get back to the rv.

So, our stay in Carlsbad was off to an auspicious start.

Back to the present....

Our second day in Americus and I headed to Andersonville National Historic Site. Andersonville actually has three features, The Prisoner of War Museum, the Prison and the National Cemetery.  I remember reading MacKinlay Kantor's book, Andersonville, when I was in junior high school.  At the time, I was unbelievably moved by the book that Bruce Canton called, "the best Civil War novel I have ever read." I had to visit and am glad I did. The visitor center contains the Prisoner of War Museum and it was awe inspiring. The museum obviously spends plenty of time on the Civil War but covers everything from the revolutionary war through World War I and II with the Bataan Death March, Korea, Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton and up to the present Desert Storm and Shield. Since the American Revolution, our soldiers have marched off to war, defending our country, families and liberties. Some have been captured and and held as POW's, subjected to torture, starvation, inadequate medical care and unspeakable conditions. Those that return home are forever changed. This museum is one of those places where voices are muted and faces are serious. A place our so called, draft dogging, president wouldn't and couldn't comprehend. 

 Although no prison during the Civil War was good, Andersonville is acknowledged as the worst. 43,000 Union soldiers passed through Andersonville and almost 13,000 are buried there. The prison was built to hold 10,000 and ended up with four times the number. No shelter, very little food, water that was disease infected. A prisoner of war was much more likely to die than a soldier in combat. The Confederacy just didn't have the funds available for the prisons while still trying to win a war. Guards too were underfed and without supplies. But the prison conditions could only be described as concentration camps without the gas chambers. The prison is gone with only a sample of the stockade, the shelters the men used, and the "deadline", a small fence 19' inside the stockade where any man who crossed was shot.  It is hard to comprehend it all as you gaze across beautiful, bucolic fields of green.

The final stop was the cemetery. 

 

 An amazing story exists about how the graves were identified. A prisoner, Dorence Atwater, a 19 year old New York Cavalryman was captured in 1863. He worked in the prison hospital where he was tasked with recording the names and grave locations of the deceased. He secretly copied this list and smuggled it out when he was released. He met with Clara Barton (a battlefield nurse who would later found the Red Cross) and together they went back to Andersonville and were able to identify 95% of the deceased.  Their work brought closure to thousands of families. The cemetery is still active and as a veteran, I could be buried there but my plans are to go up in smoke.