During the Civil War, few places have become more infamous than Andersonville, the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. Built in 1864 to hold roughly 10,000 Union prisoners, it eventually confined more than 40,000 men. Nearly 13,000 died there, primarily from disease, malnutrition, overcrowding and exposure.

Inside the stockade ran a simple rail several yards from the walls known ominously as the “dead line”. Prisoners who crossed it risked being shot by Confederate guards. The phrase is sometimes credited as the origin of our modern word deadline, although historians generally consider that connection more complicated – the prison did use that term, but it’s present-day meaning of a time limit came later.

After the war, Andersonville commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, a Swiss-born Confederate officers, was arrested and tried by a military commission for conspiracy and murder related to the treatment of prisoners. He was convicted and hanged in Washington, DC on November 10, 1865 at the age of 42. His reported last words were that he was being hanged for “following orders”.

Of all the staggering numbers associated with the Civil War, perhaps the most haunting thing about Andersonville is how quickly ordinary imprisonment became a fight simply to stay alive.