Andersonville is a novel by MacKinlay Kantor concerning the Confederate prisoner of war camp during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The novel was originally published in 1955 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.

Publication

Plot

The novel interweaves the stories of real and fictional characters. It is told from the point of view of Henry Wirz, the camp commandant. It also features William Collins, a Union soldier and one of the leaders of the "Raiders". The "Raiders" are a gang of thugs, mainly bounty jumpers who steal from their fellow prisoners and lead comfortable lives while other prisoners die of starvation and disease. Other characters include numerous ordinary prisoners of war, the camp doctor, a nearby plantation owner, guards and Confederate civilians in the area near the prison.

While clearly based on prisoner memoirs, most notably Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons by John McElroy, it is less nakedly biased against the Confederates than its sources. For instance, Henry Wirz, who received an injury earlier in the war and never recovered properly, is portrayed not as an inhuman fiend but as a sick man struggling with a job beyond his capacities.

Real people who are mentioned include:

• Henry Wirz (Confederate, camp commandant)

• John McElroy (Union prisoner, future memoir writer)

• William Collins (Union prisoner, "Raider" leader executed by fellow prisoners)

• Boston Corbett (Union prisoner, future killer of John Wilkes Booth)

• John Winder (Confederate general in charge of prisoners-of-war)

1955 novels