Historians estimate that more than 56,000 Americans died in prison camps during the Civil War. That's a casualty figure that is far greater than any single battle. The South's most famous prison was at Andersonville in Georgia. Conditions there were horrible; the food was scarce and often rancid. Nearly 29 percent of all prisoners detained at Andersonville died before the end of the war. Singer Dave Alvin wrote a song about it after he discovered that one of his relatives died there. WUNC's Eric Hodge spoke with Alvin for our series North Carolina Voices: The Civil War.
This NC Voices series examined how the Civil War affects people in North Carolina 150 years after the start of the war. We looked at the legacy of the war and how we remember it and how it shapes our identity as Southerners.North Carolina Voices: Civil WarThe series included a series of reports during Morning Edition and a series of discussions on The State of Things. The series aired the weeks of June 13th and June 20th, 2011.Additionally, as part of the series: short “family stories" to placed throughout the program schedule those weeks. Those included personal stories of the war handed down through families or historians answering listener questions.
