Andersonville's Civil War weekend will include archaeologist's talks on how POWs coped with the trauma, resisted their captors

Former POW Thomas O'Dea's depiction of sickness at Andersonville (NPS)

A conflict archaeologist will speak this weekend at Andersonville National Historic Site in Georgia about emotional trauma endured by Civil War prisoners of war and how they reacted.

The site 10 miles northeast of Americus is having its annual Civil War weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Activities include cannon and musket demonstrations and activities geared toward young visitors.

Andersonville is the emblem of POW suffering at Union and Confederate camps during the Civil War. Of 45,000 men held there, 13,000 Union service members succumbed to horrible conditions.

Ryan McNutt (right), assistant professor of anthropology at Georgia Southern University, will be lecturing on resistance, masculinity and mental health in POW populations at both Andersonville (Camp Sumter) and Camp Lawton, another Confederate site in Georgia. McNutt directs the GSU archaeological project at the latter site.

For more than a decade, GSU students have conducted excavations and conducted research at a state park and former federal hatchery near Millen, Ga. About 10,000 Union prisoners were held at Lawton for about six weeks in 1864. They had been moved there from Camp Sumter.

Disease, hunger and unusually cold and moist conditions that year exacted a toll at Camp Lawton, with 700 or more prisoners dying before they were shipped off in the middle of the night to other Confederate prisons.

Susie Sernaker of Andersonville NHS told the Picket that McNutt’s lectures, at 1 p.m. both days in the park theater, will help spread public knowledge about the travails of those held at Lawton.

McNutt and his students have focused on the location of Confederate and Union structures at  and the difficulties prisoners and guards faced -- and their interactions.

The professor’s research interests include utilizing technology such as LIDAR and GIS to answer questions about battlefield and conflict sites, power and dominance in the landscape and the impact of violence on non-combatants. 

A study conducted a few years ago found that postwar-born sons of many Union POWS had shorter lives than sons of soldiers who weren’t held captive. Basically, the study found that fathers’ prison hardships, including food shortages, altered the function of his genes in ways that could be passed on to sons.

Excavation at Camp Lawton site in March 2023 (Picket photo)

The free programming this weekend at Andersonville lasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

“Kids can drill like Civil War soldiers, build miniature shelters, and discover more about the Civil War period at Andersonville by participating in our Junior Ranger program,” the park said in a news release. “Living historians will be portraying Father Whelan, the women of Andersonville, Confederate guards, and Union prisoners, all to help the history of Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville Prison, come to life.”

Cannon firing demonstrations will take place at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Saturday and at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.  on Sunday. Musket firing demonstrations will be at noon and 3 p.m. on Saturday and 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. 

For more information on the event or to find out how you can become a living history volunteer at the park, call 229-924-0343. 

Rolling the dice: Discovery of piece of gaming object at Georgia's Camp Lawton an example of the 'shadow economy' at POW sites

Views of the remains of the die, which may have had numerous sides (Camp Lawton Project)

Somewhere at an archaeological site in Georgia are the remains of a sutler’s cabin, where captured Federal soldiers could buy a whole range of goods, temporarily lifting them from misery that took the lives of 800 comrades.

The Camp Lawton sutler’s cabin and the grounds around it offered more than food and clothing. It was part of the prison’s shadow economy for six weeks in autumn 1864. Soldiers -- either with U.S. greenbacks they still held, or equipment and personal items – could obtain alcohol from guards, tobacco and play games of chance.

Ryan McNutt, who leads the Camp Lawton project at Georgia Southern University, and a couple dozen students have spent the spring looking for evidence of the cabin. Thus far, there have been no definitive finds. Maps produced in the 19th century gave different positions for the structure.

Patrick Sword and Audrey McGill at dig site (Picket photos)

On one bright note, part of a carved die was found a few weeks ago during digging, evidence of apparent gambling in the trade-and-sell part of the stockade.

Patrick Sword, a graduate student from the Atlanta area, is studying the shadow economy at Lawton. I met him and other students in late March during a brief visit to the site on the fenced grounds of an old federal fishery adjoining Magnolia Springs State Park.

The stockade was laid out in a grid fashion (left, click to enlarge) and much of the commercial activity took part on Market Street, Sword said. He is hoping to find more evidence of the shadow economy, but the team in recent weeks has found mostly modern stuff, including trash dumped by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who helped construct the state park in the late 1930s.

McNutt says the die is made of lead, probably fashioned from a small caliber round, likely a pistol or a .54-caliber ball. He says the artifact is probably one-half or one-fourth of the original die.

“Six-sided die are the most common, but there are also 10-sided, 32-sided, and 20-sided. If it's from a six-sided die, it is a half, split down the center to leave a quasi-pyramid shape,” McNutt wrote in an email after my visit.

In its six weeks' existence, the 42-acre Confederate stockade held about 10,000 men before it was closed when Union forces approached. Over the past dozen years, teams from Georgia Southern have found evidence of the stockade wall, Rebel officers’ quarters, brick ovens and sleeping areas for the POWs. Thus far, they have been unable to find the hospital or burial area.

Camp Lawton was one of several prisons in south Georgia that briefly held Federal prisoners sent from the larger Andersonville camp. They were moved back and forth because Confederate officials feared they would be freed by Sherman’s March to the Sea.

McNutt and his students in their spring dig have found a lot of postwar material, but also have come across cut nails, buckles, a bullet and files from the Civil War period. On the day of my visit they were working near a stream that divided the camp, and served as a drinking source and latrine a bit downstream.

“We get good historic Civil War stuff and then a modern fishing weight,” the associate professor tells me.

McNutt (right, on site) believes much of the area they were working on is where Union prisoners who served as an internal police force operated.

Not many prisoner items have been found here, unlike in the hill above. “No one is allowed to camp right near the stream.”

The professor is interested in the relationship between guards and prisoners. They were known to have traded at here and other sites, and morale among the former was low at Camp Lawton, not surprising given the Confederacy’s decline. Guards sometimes foraged away from the property.

Prisoner of war camps are “excellent places to hide contraband, personal items you are not supposed to have," McNutt told me several years ago when he became project director. 

The National Park Service, which maintains the much larger site at Andersonville, has an online page detailing life and diversions for Federal prisoners held there. It, too, had a sutler’s cabin, but it had other shops selling items to the captives as well.

Food, of course, was always on their minds.

Sutler's cabin in rear at Andersonville in 1864 (Library of Congress)

Here is an NPS description of Andersonville:

“Many of the Andersonville prisoners who arrived in the stockade in April and May were well supplied with money. The Federal armies were reclothed and paid off in the spring of 1864 for the spring campaigns. Many of the new recruits and reenlisted veterans had bounty money with them when captured. Greenbacks could be pressed into the sole of a shoe, or placed inside a brass button. Money was concealed about the person in various ways. Some swallowed their rings and others put their money into bowls of large Dutch pipes with a little tobacco sprinkled on top. When searched, they would pretend to be busy lighting their pipes and thus escape suspicion.

“Gambling was carried on quite extensively; faro, dice, and $10.00 stakes were commonly played for. Trade was carried on with the guards on the outside of the wall by talking through the cracks and throwing articles over the fence. Another trade was carried on as well, as noted by prisoner John Northrup, Co. D, 7th Connecticut Infantry: "There is one commodity never had in any market. It is ahead of any Dutch brewery extract; it is meal beer made by letting corn meal sour in water. The vendor cries, 'here is your nice meal beer, right sour, well-seasoned with sassafras.'"

POWS trade new rations for something more palatable (NPS)

McNutt believes there may be beer and rum bottle remains at the Camp Lawton site.

Trade, bartering and gambling were common at virtually all Civil War prisoners, both North and South, though there appeared to be some restrictions later in the war.

At Point Lookout in Maryland, where Confederates were held, a prisoner made compelling illustrations of camp scenes. All depicted guards were African-American soldiers.

“The drawings highlight the concerns and experiences of prisoners of war; most scenes show prisoners playing cards, buying food, or engaging in barter with food vendors,” the historical society says in a description of its collection.

Exchanging buttons for pepper at Andersonville (Library of Congress)

Confederate officer Henry Clay Dickinson wrote about gambling he witnesses while a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware, Delaware, in 1864, according to a Civil War Monitor article on gambling.

“The gambling saloons were a curious feature in prison, and were not only numerous but well patronized. Captain Coffee, of Mississippi, was the prince of faro dealers, being always gentlemanly in his manners and always attracting the greatest crowd. He never played cards until he was captured, except for amusement, and I am told that a Yankee guard was his first victim. The bettor wagered either in Confederate or Yankee money. He always had a large and anxious looking crowd around his booth. Some quartermasters having been captured, the amount of Confederate money in prison was very large, and changed hands frequently.

“I heard that Coffee once sent to Dixie from Point Lookout ten thousand dollars. How much United States money he (Coffee) made I cannot say, though at one time, when the Yanks were about searching quarters and persons, he hid in the grass one hundred and eleven dollars in gold, a gold watch, and several hundred dollars in notes, which, of course, some Yank, who knew he was flush, had seen him hide and took care to not let him find it again.”

Rusted metal likely from the 20th century (Picket photo)

At Camp Lawton stockade site in Georgia, archaeology students searching for sutler's cabin find POW buckles, nails and more

Nails may have had multiple uses, a Federal trouser buckle (Camp Lawton Archaeological Project)

Archaeology students trying to learn more about a Confederate prison that operated for less than two months in southern Georgia are exploring where Federal soldiers were held captive, and they’ve thus far turned up buckles, nails, a Rebel musket ball and intriguing turtle remains.

Georgia Southern University Associate Professor Ryan McNutt said this season’s dig on the site of Camp Lawton began in January and will go through April or early May. This is the first time the project has been on the Federal side of the stockade since 2014.

Hundreds of POWs died at Lawton during its brief existence in fall 1864. Prisoners were shuttled among several Southern prisons, most notably Andersonville as Union forces advanced on Savannah. The camp was built near Millen; a portion lies within Magnolia Springs State Park and the rest is on the grounds of a former federal fish hatchery.

Since the announcement in 2010 of the discovery of the Lawton site, GSU has studied several areas to get a better understanding of prisoner and guard life. McNutt responded this month to a series of questions from the Civil War Picket. His responses have been edited.

Q. One (Facebook) post said a prime focus is the sutler's cabin. Was it within the prison area (where Federal soldiers roamed)? What does the record say about the cabin, its purpose and operation? Why would you like to find evidence of the cabin?

Sutler cabin (top) at Camp Sumter/Andersonville (Library of Congress)

A. The sutler cabin seems to have been across the stream from the gate, and directly in line with it on the main west-east running road (in modern cardinal directions, not Robert Knox Sneden's). The record is frustratingly quite vague.

We know there was one, as there was at Andersonville (photo above, log structure with slanted roof), as POWs discuss it.

Sneden (see Union POW’s drawing below of Camp Lawton) seems to place it in the same general location, though in at least several instances he places it on opposite sides of the road leading to the bridge. 

Detail of Sneden's drawing shows sutler cabin, police area in center (Library of Congress)

The sutler at Andersonville seems to have been a James Selman Jr., followed by a James Duncan, who may have been a Confederate guard and was possibly replaced again by a James Selman. One of these individuals likely ran the sutler's (cabin) at Camp Lawton. They were authorized by the prison commandants to sell to the prisoners authorized items. From their stories, prisoners with money that they were able to hang on to, or make, could buy eggs, flour, bacon, cornbread, beans, baking soda, and blackberries; soap, shaving equipment, clothing, tobacco, tobacco pipes, cigars, reading material, and so on -- for eyewatering prices that were much higher than regular marker prices. Examples: Fifty cents an egg, six dollars for a pound of bacon, and 25 cents a spoon for baking soda.

We're looking for evidence of the cabin as part of a graduate student's thesis work, which is focused on shadow and underground economies inside prison camps. As one of the only sources of goods coming into the prison, it's like the sutler's cabin was the center point of much of the legal and illegal trade between prisoners, guards and prisoners and the sutler. 

We're hoping to find evidence of this in the material culture around the cabin, to get an idea of how heavily trafficked and used it may have been. Sneden certainly seems to imply the area around the cabin was always crowded. 

Students sift through soil (Camp Lawton Archaeological Project)

Q. What else are the students concentrating on this spring?

A. Essentially, just the area around the bank on the west side of the stream. Interestingly, while Sneden shows it lightly occupied, he does show an area of shebangs labeled 'Police' with no explanation, as well as potentially a chapel, though this might be reading too much into Sneden's maps and images.

We're also getting a better idea of how densely the camp was occupied, where we have evidence of POW activity, and in a very real way, the extent of past impacts on the site during its transition from timberland to state and then federal fish hatchery, and CCC work.

We used Lidar data to pinpoint potential anomalies that might be the sutler's cabin, and the students are learning how to locate those on the ground, test them and get an understanding that even with the most accurate technology you can get, archaeologists still have to dig to confirm our guess of flat areas and odd shapes that show up in Lidar.

Q. Can you briefly summarize what has been learned thus far in this field school? And what more you want to work on for the remainder of this session.

Q. So far we've got clear indications of a lightly occupied area of the stockade, and our current grid is likely just off of where the sutler’s cabin should be, but we have another area just west that might have more promise. We're working from our known to our unknown, from areas that were lightly tested in the past to areas that the project has never looked at before. We're almost finished with our current grid, which has clearly showed some POW occupation. Turtle bones and shells (left) possibly came from a hearth, and we have a few other spots that might be POW shelters. We'll explore these with test units, and we'll establish another area over our area of interest that might be closer to the sutler's cabin and the main road.

But we also clearly have empty spots, with no artifacts at all that seem to indicate the presence of roads and paths shown on the plan created by the Confederates as the camp was being built, and Sneden's water colors. 

Q. Social media photos by the project show numerous buckles -- trousers, knapsack or elsewhere. Are these believed to be from Union POWs? What about the iron nails --- suspected use for them?

A. So far, we have one whole and one partial trouser buckle, as well as three that are likely haversack or knapsack buckles. We also have some different files -- metal and wood working, that seem to have been fairly degraded when they were dropped. As well as one piece of ceramic and some fragments of glass bottles. One of which was likely a pickle or sauce bottle. These were all probably dropped by POWs. The trouser buckles are standard issue on several Federal trouser types, and the buckles match Federal issued equipment. While this isn't to say they are absolutely from POWs, the Confederates present at the camp do not seem to ever have been issued anything close to uniform items.

Some of the iron nails (right) are interesting, in that they fall into two groups. A couple (of them) are big enough to be structural and used to pin the corners of wooden structures together. Most, however, are of the size to come from express boxes (like those used on US Sanitary Commission aid boxes), and may represent the distribution of this material to the POWs, who are then repurposing the boxes.

The nails may have just been dropped -- most of them seem to have been pulled and bent, and aren't modified in any clear way. But we haven't done a full analysis yet.

We've also found a host of unknown items, and some personal effects such as what is possibly part of a match safe, and maybe even a cigar case. 

 [An] unexpected moment was one of our artifacts that is also the most puzzling. An iron strap with copper rivets, and a hinge on one side, and a threaded rod on the other, it still has preserved leather around several of the rivets. And it looks as though whatever it is, it may be period.

(The GSU team also found what appears to be a spent Confederate bullet. The Picket will have a separate article about this soon.)

Cast copper alloy buckle with iron tongue (Camp Lawton Project)

Q. Anything else readers might want to know?

A. I'd be interested in being contacted by anyone who might have an ancestor inside the stockade who left any memories, or anyone with photos of Magnolia Springs State Park and the stream going back to the CCC activity. Individuals are also always welcome to email me (rmcnutt@georgiasouthern.edu) with any questions, and I'll get back as soon as I can. They're also welcome to stop by the site, even if we're not running a public day. (The GSU team usually is on site Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during this field school.)

COMING SOON: Recovered Confederate bullets at Camp Lawton raise questions about how often and why guards fired upon prisoners there, at Andersonville and other sites. 

Previous coverage:

-- Students find likely evidence of brief cavalry skirmish

-- Stirrup is a surprise find during Camp Lawton dig

-- Percussion caps and friction primers

-- The trauma endured by Civil War POWS was passed on to their sons

Archaeology students find likely evidence of a brief cavalry skirmish in southern Georgia during Sherman's March to the Sea

A Spencer repeating rifle casing and a toe tap with nails found during recent
excavation near Millen, Ga. (Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeological Project)

Archaeology students at a Georgia university have found artifacts that might derive from a skirmish between Union and Confederate cavalry during Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea.

Ryan McNutt, assistant professor of historical archaeology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, said recent field work yielded fired casings from a Spencer repeating rifle and from a likely Allen & Wheelock .32 Rim fire side hammer revolver, a fired percussion cap, toe caps from footwear and a bridle rosette that matches types used by Union cavalry.

McNutt heads up the school’s Camp Lawton Archaeological Project, which for several years has been researching the remains of a Confederate prison camp that was in operation for several weeks in fall 1864.

In 2020, the university was awarded a $116,247 grant from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program to document and evaluate the archaeological integrity of two skirmish sites near the end of Sherman's campaign in Georgia: Buck Head Creek and Lawton (Lumpkin's) Station.

“Both of these conflicts occurred as the Confederacy attempted to tactically slow, or at least constrain, Sherman’s inexorable approach to southeast Georgia,” McNutt wrote in an email to the Picket.

Round believed to be from .32-caliber rimfire revolver (Camp Lawton Project)

The artifacts were found in the past month near the site of Lawton Station, a Dec. 4 clash that followed fighting at Buck Head Creek. Lawton Station had served the prison camp, which closed a few weeks before these skirmishes.

The Battle of Buck Head Creek on November 28, 1864, involved U.S. Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s and Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry forces. It took place across what are now Jenkins and Burke counties, a fighting Union withdrawal north from the area around the still-standing Buck Head Creek Church, through Reynold’s Plantation across the course of a day and over approximately three miles of period roads, McNutt said.

Kilpatrick was in the area to destroy railroad between August and Millen and burn a trestle. Another objective was to release the Camp Lawton prisoners, but Union forces discovered they had been moved to other sites. Federal forces were able to destroy a mile of track.

Gens. Judson Kilpatrick and Joseph Wheeler

On the 28^th, Wheeler “almost captured Kilpatrick, and pursued him and his men to Buck Head Creek. As Kilpatrick's main force crossed the creek, one regiment, supported by artillery, fought a rearguard action severely punishing Wheeler and then burned the bridge behind them,” says a National Park Service summary of the fighting. “Wheeler soon crossed and followed, but a Union brigade behind barricades at Reynolds's Plantation halted the Rebels' drive, eventually forcing them to retire.”

The main body of Sherman’s army, notably the 14^th and 20^th corps, approached Millen days later and engaged with Rebel cavalry.

According to McNutt, Capt. S.P. Dobbs and the 9^th Alabama Cavalry burned a bridge at Buck Head Creek Church and fell back to Lawton Station, “where they sheltered under fire for a period before withdrawing into Screven County toward Beaver Dam Creek.” (Lawton Station/Depot is where Federal prisoners were brought to the POW camp a couple months before.)

Front and back of bridle rosette (Camp Lawton Project)

The professor believes some of the Lawton Station fighting occurred with the boundaries of Magnolia Springs State Park, meaning it is protected. Much of the prison site, particularly the section where the guards lived, is inside the park. The Union prisoners lived in an area that is now federal property.

Georgia Southern students used Lidar, a remote sensing method, at the Lawton Station area and will do so again when they get to Buck Head Creek this summer. The aim of the project is to document any surviving above-ground indications of Lawton Station, field fortifications from Buck Head Creek, and historic roads, structures, houses, bridges that would have been used by both Confederate and Union forces throughout both battlefields.

McNutt believes the Lidar found what is believed to be the site of Lawton Station.

Students used metal detectors on an old road that went from the station, past Confederate barracks and the stockade to a larger road that goes north toward Augusta. This is where the artifacts were found.

“This would have been the retreat route of Captain Dobb's Confederate regiment, and the (pursuit) route of the Union cavalry,” McNutt wrote.

POW Robert Knox Sneden's map of prison (Library of Congress)

Beyond the artifacts mentioned above, the project found at Lawton Station “material culture remnants that are more ambiguous, but might be Union in origin.” That includes bits of saddlery and horse tack elements, “implying a greater presence of horse-mounted troops than were stationed at Lawton by the Confederates when it was operating as a prison camp,” McNutt said.

“These are all tantalizing bits of material culture that suggest we're looking at an edge of the skirmish, or at least an area where Union forces were firing at something or someone further along the road. As we progress through the spring field school, we'll fill this picture in more as we finish our search grid, and move up the road to investigate with another systematic metal detector survey the site of Lawton Station itself.”

McNutt concedes there is commingling of artifacts from the operation of the prison camp and the December skirmish. The survey has taken place on the edge of Rebel barracks and what may be an open parade ground.

“But the Spencer and .32-cal rimfire round are really only going to come from Union cavalry, given the Confederacy's inability to manufacture cased ammunition, especially with the copper shortage. I'm pretty confident in saying at a minimum, the Spencer and the .32 round are specific to some kind of engagement, and the bridle rosette is likely to come from that as well.”

“We have a few other ferrous items that I need to investigate in more detail, but a few are potential gun furniture, and there is a possible carbine sling bolt. So in short, there is some comingling, but these items range from being certainly not Confederate in origin, to being ambiguous, and possibly Confederate or Union.”

The professor said Kilpatrick sent troopers to Lawton in late November, but a major did not report any fighting. “I suspect given as deep as they were in Wheeler's turf, with extended (and uncertain) supply lines, conservation of ammunition would have been enforced, so they're unlikely to have just rode into the barracks area guns blazing.

“The more likely possibility is that these are items from that December cavalry skirmish -- but we need more information to be sure, and hopefully we'll know more as we finish up our search area.”

(At left is an adjustable buckle found by metal detector.)

In the meantime, the Camp Lawton Archaeological Project is contacting landowners in the area of Buck Head Creek to obtain permission to do field work there in the summer.

This field work will continue into 2022. McNutt says landowners, anyone interested in volunteering and those who might have collections of artifacts and would like him to take a look should contact him at rmcnutt@georgiasouthern.edu. 

More Camp Lawton prison site artifacts: Railroad spike, sash clasps, bricks, whiteware sherd and a copper rivet

Clasp for sash worn by a Confederate (Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, GSU)

A spring-fed stream and a towering stockade wall separated Federal prisoners and the young men in gray who guarded them at Georgia’s Camp Lawton for a few short weeks in autumn 1864.

A lingering question for archaeologists who have been working on the site for nearly a decade is what else separated them -- especially when it came to food, supplies, shelter and general living conditions.

The 10,000 Union captives lived mostly on a hillside while their captors were scattered in different areas of the stockade exterior and artillery fortifications. The Federals built shebangs and other structures to provide shelter while the Confederates, mostly members of Georgia reserve regiments, apparently depended on tents and perhaps a barracks for officers.

Based on some archaeological finds in the past couple years, evidence suggests it “seems like the guards are a little better supplied than initially suggested,” said Dr. Ryan McNutt, director of the Camp Lawton Archaeology Project at Georgia Southern University in nearby Statesboro.

The Picket spoke recently with McNutt about artifacts that are linked to the Confederate troops who occupied camps in what is now Magnolia Springs State Park. The following items were found this year. You can read here about a stirrup found last week.


DIE-STAMPED SASH BUCKLES/CLASP

Clasp for sash worn by Confederate (Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, GSU)

Sashes apparently were used as marks of rank for Confederate militia and quasi-military officials. Different colors may have been used by company officers or noncommissioned officers.

They were commonly found in Savannah, at jails and courthouses, said McNutt.

One of the buckles found at Camp Lawton (top image) has a crown motif; it may have come from Europe into Savannah via blockade runners, he said.

It’s known that elements of the 1^st through 5^th regiments of the Georgia Reserves were stationed at the site.

LINE OF BRICKS

Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University

McNutt is not yet sure how these were used. While it could be the remains of a chimney, they also could have been used as a foundation for a wall tent, with planks placed above. Bricks previously have been found in the prisoner area, the remains of ovens and tent foundations.

RAILROAD SPIKE

(Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University)

This likely came from the depot at Lawton, the terminus of a railroad line that carried Federal prisoners from the small town of Millen. It could find all kind of uses in a camp, including tents and other structures.

CERAMIC // WHITEWARE SHERD

Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University

From a Camp Lawton Facebook post in May: “Our whiteware sherd from yesterday has two possible sources. One is Clementson Bros, a North Staffordshire manufacture that produced a variety of plain and transfer print wares for the North American domestic market, and starts trading under the Clementson Bros name in 1867. However, the edge of the decoration appears to be a quasi royal arms, with a recumbent lion. You can just make out the paw. This doesn’t match any of their marks. It may be from Clementson & Young, which were imported into New Orleans for the southern market during the mid-19th century.”

COPPER ALLOY RIVET FROM A SOLDIER’S ACCOUTREMENTS

Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University

The Georgia Southern team the past couple years has concentrated on finding evidence of the Confederate camp and stockade features.

McNutt said they may return to the prisoner occupation area next, to look at how the camp was set up, what artifacts say about ethnic divisions among the POWs and to search for the sutler’s cabin.

'Out of the blue': A stirrup likely belonging to Confederate horse is a surprise find during excavations at Camp Lawton site in Georgia

The recovered stirrup (Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University)

It’s been a fruitful summer field school for Georgia Southern University archaeology students conducting excavations on the site of Camp Lawton, a Civil War prisoner of war site that operated for a brief time in 1864.

They have found evidence of Confederate guard tent structures and other items that speak to the lives of those reservist soldiers, who had to make due with limited supplies and furnishings.

But it was an out-of-the-blue discovery Thursday that yielded perhaps the most compelling artifact of the season.

Project director Dr. Ryan McNutt was checking ground depressions – made more evident by recent heavy rains -- to verify areas that may have been marked by previous archaeological explorations.

“I was just basically pulling away pine needles, rotted vegetation and checking the area with a metal detector, looking for those spikes. When the metal detector hit (one) area, it overloaded the detector.” He thought he likely had come across a piece of garbage.

McNutt found, just under the topsoil, a stirrup that he believes was thrown into a trash pit during the operation of the prison. “I think it is pretty impressive. (Mine) was probably the first hand that has touched it since it was discarded there.”

He believes the stirrup and related horse tack found in the pit are almost certainly Confederate. “It is pretty much concrete evidence of Civil War activity,” McNutt said. “It matches those found at Confederate sites elsewhere.”

It’s quite possible the artifact was made before the war and belonged to an officer at the camp, perhaps a member of a Georgia reservist regiment or a Florida light artillery company.

McNutt said a pretty good chunk of metal remains in the rusted stirrup, which he estimates weighs about a half pound. He did not find any evidence of surviving leather and does not know why it may have been discarded.

The Georgia Southern team will check the maker’s mark and manufacturing style of the recovered artifact. They also will give it electrolysis treatment to protect the iron.

Views of summer work. (Camp Lawton Archaeology Project, Georgia Southern University)

Lance Greene, McNutt’s predecessor as Lawton project manager, said material students have been finding support the interpretation that the stirrup belonged to a Rebel soldier.

“I think that Dr. McNutt is beginning to get a sense of the location of some of the areas used by Confederates, which is especially difficult because a lot of that area has been intensively used since just after the Civil War,” said Greene, an associate professor at Wright State University in Ohio.  

Greene said another stirrup was recovered at the park long ago. “As I recall, it was a surface find, or at least did not have a good provenience.”

Archaeologists are accustomed to finding items from multiple time periods when working a site, and that’s occurred at the Lawton site, which was located on what is now Magnolia Springs State Park and an adjoining federal fish hatchery. But McNutt told the Picket on Friday that most of the items found this year come from the mid-19^th century.

The Confederate camp broke into the news in 2010 when federal, state and campus officials announced that its location had been confirmed and the site already was yielding a trove of artifacts. Lawton was only open for about six weeks in autumn 1864. It held about 10,000 POWs moved from Andersonville and other sites as Union troops moved into central and south Georgia after taking Atlanta.

COMING SOON: Photos of more recent discoveries at Camp Lawton

Camp Lawton: Public welcome Friday to pitch in on excavation, learn prison's history

POW Robert Knox Sneden's map of Lawton shows the fort in the upper left, but the map is reversed. (Library of Congress)

Have a hankering to use a metal detector or take part in an archaeological excavation?

Friday’s “Public Day” at Magnolia Springs State Park near Millen, Ga., will allow visitors to get their hands dirty at the site of a large Civil War prison.

Ryan McNutt, who oversees Georgia Southern University’s Camp Lawton project, said students will be working just east of Fort Lawton, the Confederate earthworks that defended against attack on the camp and as a warning to prisoners.

“The public is welcome to participate however they want,” said McNutt. “They can try their hand at metal detecting survey, and excavating the hits, or assisting with excavating our open 1x2 meter test unit, which has some interesting features in it.”

Visitors also can see 3D printed artifacts or talk with Nina Raeth, whose ancestor was a Federal POW at Lawton, which operated for six weeks in late 1864. Many of the POWs were transferred to the site from Camp Sumter, also known as Andersonville.

GSU students have been working on two large grids east of the fort to see whether there is any sign of Confederate activity or occupation.

One of two brass harmonica reeds found at Lawton (GSU)

“The Confederate side of the story is largely unknown from an archaeological standpoint, and the area we're surveying to the east of the fort would be an ideal location for rifle pits, potential camp sites and so on,” said McNutt.

The 10,000 Federal prisoners were to the west and across a creek, on a hillside that later became a federal fish hatchery. That side of Camp Lawton is on property managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The project has located Civil War period cut nails, a buckle from a horse harness and other items near Fort Lawton.

“We've also found good evidence of the land around the fort being used for hunting during the 1890s to 1900s, with numerous shotgun shell bases turning up, all with head stamps that date solidly to the period between 1890-1902,” McNutt told the Picket.

“None of the artifacts we've recovered are really military in nature, aside from a possible cone cleaner. But it is adding to the story of Camp Lawton, both during its occupation, and what it was used for afterwards.”

Previous excavations on the prisoner side of the camp have yielded hundreds of Civil War artifacts that help illustrate daily life. Officials have a good idea of where the stockade walls were erected, having found some post remains.

Friday’s public day is from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Magnolia Springs State Park. Entrance to the park is $5 for parking or free with a park pass. Sponsors are Georgia Southern University, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Look for tents after the attendant’s hut and a volunteer will take you to the work area.