John Ransom

Captured by the Confederates in the summer of 1863, quartermaster John Ransom of the 23rd Michigan was shipped to Andersonville, Georgia, site of the Confederacy's most notorious and deadly prisoner-of-war camp. Originally designed to hold 10,000 prisoners, Andersonville's prison population swelled to more than 32,000 by August 1864. It is estimated that nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died there.

John Ransom's Andersonville diary became one of the best-known eyewitness accounts of Civil War prison life. In a simple and direct manner, Ransom tells of hunger, disease, crime, savagery, and death; while hundreds around him are suffering and dying like animals, he manages to keep his sympathy with and understanding of human nature.

July 3.—Three hundred and fifty new men from West Virginia were turned into this summer resort this morning. They brought good news as to successful termination of the war, and they also...