Frommer's Review
This museum was dedicated in April 1998 by a host of senators, including John McCain, R-Arizona, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 5 years; and Georgia Governor Zell Miller. The museum is adjacent to the site of one of the two deadliest Civil War POW encampments, and its 10,000 square feet contain artifacts in tribute to the 800,000 soldiers who have suffered as POWs, from the American Revolution to the Persian Gulf conflict.
Housed within the museum are postcards from soldiers who hoped that their future brides had not assumed they were dead, letters to families who thought they would never see their sons again, pictures, and models of prison cells, including a Vietnamese bamboo cage. The $5.8-million structure was built from private funds raised by POW veterans, with $3.6 million coming from the State of Georgia and the federal government. The first museum of its kind in the United States, it touches on a subject long ignored by the American public, in large part due to veterans' reluctance to relive the horrors of imprisonment. There are stories of prisoners in Japanese camps who lost 55 pounds during their stay, and tales of brothers who were imprisoned together, with only one surviving.
Adjacent to the museum is the notorious Confederate POW camp, Andersonville . When its inmate population was heaviest during the last 14 months of the Civil War, the mortality rate was 29%, partly because of the heat, since Northerners were not acclimated to the Southern weather. The camp's Union counterpart in Elmira, New York (known as Hellmira), had a mortality rate of 24% during its lifetime, conversely because of the cold; many Southerners froze to death. Visitors are allowed to walk the grounds, and an audiocassette or CD tour of the grounds is available for $1.
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