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| Buckles found in the prisoner area ( U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Georgia Southern University. Click all photos to enlarge) |
Lance Greene still remembers the smell of resin emanating from
the Georgia pine posts.
A
backhoe looking for evidence of a Civil War prison camp stockade exposed the
remains of a half dozen posts last fall.
“They
were just as solid as if you had gone out and cut a tree,” said Greene, an
assistant professor of anthropology at Georgia Southern University. “Having done
archaeology in the Southeast for decades, it really was one of the most
overwhelming experiences I have had. You could just smell the pine.”
Greene,
49, is leading GSU students who are continuing their excavation of artifacts at Camp Lawton in Millen, Ga., and looking for evidence of Confederate barracks
and other structures.
National
and state archaeologists and officials nearly three years ago announced what
they called the discovery of a trove of artifacts at the prison, which was only
in existence for six weeks.
The
site continues to live up to that billing, Greene told the Picket last week. Between 500 and 600 items belonging to prisoners – many of them clothing-related -- have
been found, and more are expected to come in during the
university’s summer field school.
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| Vertical stains of stockade posts (Ga. DNR/GSU) |
Up
to 10,000 Union men, most from the infamous Andersonville prison camp, were
held at Lawton before they were moved elsewhere. Death estimates range from 685 to 1,330.
Greene
spoke of several exciting developments for the project:
-- A recently opened laboratory at Magnolia Springs State Park, home
to much of the prison site, allows students to begin conservation of items
immediately.
--- The remains of three prisoner huts intrigue archaeologists. “I want to get into these shebangs to
find animal bones and seeds to see what kind of things they were eating,” said
Greene.
-- Researchers are working with a Statesboro animal hospital to X-ray
metal artifacts to learn their status so that they can come up with a
conservation plan.
-- The project is beginning to transition from a discovery phase to
research that will more fully tell the story of Camp Lawton.
-- Work was filmed by the PBS archaeology series “Time Team America.” No date has been set, but the program indicated it will probably be in the first half of 2014.
Camp Lawton was built to hold up to 40,000
prisoners and relieve Andersonville’s overcrowding. It never reached that level
because its inhabitants were moved elsewhere when Union Gen. William T.
Sherman's army approached during the March to the Sea.
Union cavalry in early December 1864 found the empty prison, a freshly dug area
and a board reading “650 buried here.”
Outraged, troops apparently burned much of the stockade and the camp buildings,
and a depot and hotel in nearby Millen, which was a transportation hub.
While some of the camp was farmed over, the
site is considered well-preserved.
Stepping up conservation
efforts
Because
archaeology is considered a destructive science, conserving items exposed to
the air for the first time in 150 years is a challenge.
“The
iron objects are starting to degrade,” said Greene.
A
process called electrolysis, in which an electrical current runs through a
solution holding artifacts, helps break up corrosion and saves the good metal.
“Once we get the rust off and cleaned, we have
to coat them with acrylic or different types of waxes to seal them air tight.”
In another conservation effort,
Gateway Animal Hospital has done X-rays (right) of a dozen or few items.
“Some
of the artifacts that we have discovered are extremely corroded which is making
it difficult to identify what they are. The X-ray will enable us to clearly
identify the shape of the artifact if the metal has not totally corroded away,”
said Matt Newberry, a Georgia Southern graduate student working on the Camp
Lawton project team.
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| X-rays of artifacts (GSU) |
While
a few items are on display at the university, officials hope some will be
displayed at the Georgia state park.
Archaeologists
have found manufactured and fashioned items that helped the prisoners during
their daily existence: Buttons, pins, eating utensils and objects made from
melted down bullets, including a pipe. “(A)
tourniquet buckle is pretty overwhelming, showing the gritty everyday life
people are living," said Greene.
Looking for the
Confederates
Thus
far, teams have found sections of the stockade trench. A major aim during the
upcoming field school is finding remnants of the Confederate camp, including
barracks, the commandant’s quarters, tools and trash.
The
search is being aided by drawings by Union prisoner Robert Knox Sneden, but
those structures have proven elusive. One drawing shoes a chimney on a building
used by a Confederate surgeon.
“We have very little material from Confederate
encampments,” said Greene. “We haven’t definitely honed in.”
Several
hundred guards served at Lawton, which was built by at least as many slaves.
Not much is known about the latter.
“We really
want to do more large excavation areas,” according to Greene. “We have located
some important parts of the site.”
“We want to
compare lives of these two sides, guards versus prisoners.”
How the prisoners lived
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| Stockade post remnant (Georgia DNR/GSU) |
The area
where prisoners lived is on the site of a former federal hatchery, and has been
protected by tall fence and other measures since Lawton was rediscovered a few
years ago.
“We get a lot
of personal items that are pretty telling,” said Greene, noting remains of
picture frames that held precious photos of family members.
Other items
are decorative pieces of metal or portions of necklaces. “It brings it home that
people are far removed from families, in a terrible situation, in a place far
away,” he said.
Grocery coins
from Columbus, Ohio, and other items from Europe are helping to give at least a
basic picture of the prisoners’ backgrounds.
Prisoners, anxious
to be protected from the cooling weather, dug about a foot into the ground.
They then built structures above those foundations.
“You have different
color sand and it is very compact with artifacts from the time period,” said
Greene.
Archaeologists
will be looking for food remains and other items inside them in order to
reconstruct life at the prison. The three hut sites are well preserved.
Work that will continue for decades
Larger-scale
excavations in the future will assist scholarly research.
“It really is
amazing to me …. this has the potential to release a lot more material,
especially metal artifacts, than anywhere I have worked for,” said Greene.
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| Company I pin and a nipple cover for gun (USFWS/GSU) |
While many
military installations drew civilians, such was not the case at the destroyed
Camp Lawton. Its relative isolation and government ownership since the 1930s has
helped keep its significance intact, although officials remain concerned about
relic hunters.
“If we locate
a barracks … we would have to excavate as much as possible during field school
and remove the potential for looting,” said Greene.
The project
allows the public to participate in occasional digs at the Civil War site,
which totals 80 acres.
“We want to
get across this idea that archaeology is more than digging up artifacts,” said
Greene.
He’s
interested in comparing Lawton to other prisoner sites in Georgia and in South
Carolina.
“This site is
unique in the sense that it is so well preserved, archaeologically,” said
Greene. “It has incredible research potential.”
