Archaeologists Find Civil War Camp in Georgia

(Aug. 29) -- A corroded bronze buckle used to fasten tourniquets. A game token bearing George Washington's profile. A makeshift tobacco pipe.

These are just a few of the Civil War artifacts archaeologists found when they uncovered the site of a Confederate prison camp in southeastern Georgia.

Although historians knew Camp Lawton was located somewhere in or around Magnolia Springs State Park, near Millen, Ga., the site was never identified.Then Kevin Chapman, a graduate student at Georgia Southern University, decided to pinpoint the camp's location for his thesis project.

Chapman's team began work in December. By February, they had excavated evidence of a straight stockade wall. A metal detector helped locate a surprising number of artifacts.

"Most sites have been picked over, but we were very pleasantly surprised at what we found," Chapman told AOL News.

Camp Lawton was built to accommodate the overflow of Union prisoners of war from the infamous Andersonville prison camp in southwest Georgia. It began housing prisoners in October 1864, and its population quickly swelled to more than 10,000 Union soldiers. Six weeks later, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burned it down on his march through Georgia.

"The significance of Camp Lawton is it really presents in microcosm almost every aspect of the Civil War POW experience, both good and bad," John Derden, a history professor at East Georgia College, told The Associated Press.

Camp Lawton was twice the size of Andersonville. Chapman said each side of the stockade was a quarter of a mile. The confederates lived and ran the prison from outside the stockade. The inmates lived in prisoner occupation zones, where "their homes were simple structures, really just holes in the ground covered by a blanket, called a 'shebang,' " Chapman said.

For Chapman, the archaeological find brings the chance to learn the forgotten stories of Civil War POWs.

"This is not going to be the history of generals and armies. It's going to be the history of individual men and their stories of survival in pretty horrible conditions," he told AOL News.

He said his favorite find so far is the improvised tobacco pipe. He pictures an emaciated Union prisoner crouched by a fire, smoking.

"We'll never know his name but, thanks to this artifact, I can tell a little piece of his story," Chapman said. "When you hold it in your hand, you can really reach back through time."

The project was initially suggested by Chris Clark, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. He approached GSU archaeology professor Sue Moore with the idea of using maps and personal accounts to conduct a survey of the land in the state park. Moore in turn proposed the project to Chapman, who also got a permit to work on adjacent land belonging to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Fisheries and Habitat Conservation.

"None of us could've done it without the three-way partnership," Chapman said.

Chapman and his team, who announced their discovery Aug. 18, will continue with the archeological survey in the next couple of weeks. Georgia state archaeologist David Crass and U.S. Fish and Wildlife regional archaeologist Rick Kanaski will have the final say on what may and may not be excavated.

"Archaeology is not a process where we do everything at once," Chapman said. "We intentionally preserve parts to be excavated years later because technologies and methods change. We have to preserve part of the site for the future."

Chapman estimates the project will take at least another 30 to 40 years and will still be going long after he and Moore retire.

"People say, 'How long are you going to keep doing this?' " Moore told AP. "A short answer is years and years, because there is so much we hope to discover there."