A Tight Stockade

A Tight Stockade. Andersonville First Phase. , These carefully hewn, closely fitted logs reflect the deliberate design of the prison's initial sixteen and one-half acres. At the far northeast corner, haphazardly spaced tree trunks reveal the hasty construction of the camp's ten-acre addition., The Confederates' original plan broke down under a wave of overcrowding. The contrasting stockade walls suggest that things had begun to go terribly wrong by the summer of 1864., (top right) , Based on archeological evidence, this stockade is an accurate reconstruction of the prison's North Gate., (captions) , (right) When the prison site was selected, dense pine and oak forest covered these slopes. Slaves felled the straightest pines, topped them to a uniform length, and hewed them with broadaxes. The logs were set in a ditch 5 feet deep (as show in the archeologist's photo below) and stood 17 feet above the ground., "Each pole of the palisades matched so well as to give no glimpse of the outer world across the space of the dead-line…" , Augustus Hamlin, Medical Inspector, (center) , 10 acre addition June 1864 , 16½ acres January 1864