[Shimmer1]

Unfortunately, Andersonville doesn’t actually stand out in it’s depravity, Union prisons were just as bad sometimes, but not as publicized.

[Thud]

AFAIK, some Union POW camps were worse than Andersonville. Other commentators here are correct about that. I'm not even sure that Andersonville qualifies as "depraved" - the worst of it was far more neglect, perhaps even unavoidable neglect, than intentional. The earlier post about the staff of some Union POW camps being outright sadistic, while the officers deliberately ignored this, is correct.

The CSA had some excuses for poor conditions in its POW camps. The North had none. And the North treated black refugees fleeing slavery with savage indifference, and overt hostility, bordering on genocide. Those here who decry the deliberate devastation policies in the Shenandoah Valleys and elsewhere wouldn't know real evil if it kissed them. Read:

Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Jim Downs.

http://www.amazon.com/Sick-Freedom-African-American-Suffering-Reconstruction/dp/0199758727/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0