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...he and I drove to Antietam Battlefield (he's a bit of a Civil War buff). We didn't tour the battlefield - it was raining intermittantly - but we watched the introductory film. There was nothing sympathetic to the South in that - it could have been made by Ken Burns.

I had a similar experience at Andersonville. The film there repeatedly juxtaposed Nazi treatment of prisoners with Confederate treatment of prisoners, as though they were comparable.

The film was purportedly about prisoners of war in general, not just about Andersonville prisoners. However, it did not point out that the North withheld food and supplies from Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons, even though the North had the food and supplies to give them. By any standards, the North's actions in that regard were a war crime.

At Andersonville, the Confederate guards and the prisoners ate similar rations, and a large number of the guards died.

Nothing infuriates me more than the thoroughly dishonest attempt to compare and equate the Confederacy with Nazi Germany. The most famous practitioner is Arthur Schlesinger, also there is Gary Wills (notorious dupe of Michael Bellesiles). An occasional; practitioner on this forum is WhiskeyPapa. But I think I reserve my greatest contempt for what was probably behind the film that you saw at Andersonville. That is to say, the intent to create the association in the mind of the viewer, while all the time claiming that their intent is only to make a film "about prisoners of war in general."

I had a similar experience at Andersonville. The film there repeatedly juxtaposed Nazi treatment of prisoners with Confederate treatment of prisoners, as though they were comparable.

What I am starting to see in the record now is that the rebel government deliberately mistreated US POW's because they wanted a return to the exchange cartels. They wanted that so they could abuse the cartel system and continue to use exchanged soldiers who had given their paroles not to fight any more.

There is no good side to the confederate story.

Walt

At Andersonville, the Confederate guards and the prisoners ate similar rations, and a large number of the guards died.

There was a lot of mortality in all the camps north and south; I'd be glad to see some support that the camp guards at Andersonville had the same rations as the POW's.

But consider this:

"On another part of the line of invasion the Federal Twentieth corps, opposed only by desultory skirmishing of small Confederate bands, had made a path of destruction through Madison and Eatonton. Geary's division destroyed the fine railroad bridge over the Oconee, and the mill and ferryboats near Buckhead. On the 19th he also destroyed about 500 bales of cotton and 50,000 bushels of corn, mostly on the plantation of Col. Lee Jordan. This corps entered Milledgeville on the 20th, and Davis' corps, accompanied by Sherman, arrived next day...Howard at this date reported that he had destroyed the Ocmulgee cotton mills, and had supplied his army from the country, which he found full of provisions and forage. "I regret to say that quite a number of private dwellings which the inhabitants have left have been destroyed by fire, but without official sanction; also many instances of the most inexcusable and wanton acts, such as the breaking open of trunks, taking of silver plate, etc. I have taken measures to prevent it, and I believe they will be effectual. The inhabitants are generally terrified and believe us a thousand times worse than we are." The wanton destruction went on, however, with rarely such efforts to restrain the soldiery from depredations."

Georgia was full of provisions. You seem to be saying that the rebel government was too inept to supply its own soldiers with food.

There was in Georgia plenty of food for both guards and POW's at Andersonville. I am starting to think it was the deliberate policy of the rebel government to mistreat POW's, both black and white.

Walt

The film was purportedly about prisoners of war in general, not just about Andersonville prisoners. However, it did not point out that the North withheld food and supplies from Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons, even though the North had the food and supplies to give them. By any standards, the North's actions in that regard were a war crime.
At Andersonville, the Confederate guards and the prisoners ate similar rations, and a large number of the guards died.

Yeah, right. The south had the food, they just chose not to use it for matters unimportant to them, like feeding POWs.

At Andersonville, the Confederate guards and the prisoners ate similar rations, and a large number of the guards died.

Did any of those confederate guards look like this when they died?