a great adventureobservant, eloquent, and moving.Publishers Weekly

This book is an extraordinary day-to-day documentary of the Civil Wars most infamous Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville. Here 13,000 wretched Union prisoners died within barely fourteen months, from starvation, scurvy, and other diseases that spread through the camp. There was little shelter but makeshift tents; little in the way of blankets, warm clothing, or even shoes; and a scarcity of food and fresh water. Often they were forced to sleep on the muddy ground in very crowded conditions.

While the deplorable conditions bear witness to mans inhumanity to man, they also are witness to one mans undaunted spirit to survive to tell the dreadful tale.

John Ransom, a Union soldier captured by the Confederate Army, ended up in the Andersonville prison. He had been a printer from Michigan, and he returned there after the war. Little else is known about his life except through his diary of his prison experience.

David Thorn spent his childhood in the Channel Islands off the coast of France, was schooled in England, and then immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-three. He is retired from international commerce and currently resides in California.