THOMASVILLE — This week marks the 150 anniversary of a dark blot in Thomasville’s colorful history.

Toward the end of 1864, the Civil War was going badly for the South, especially in Georgia. Gen. William Sherman of the Union Army marched through the state, wreaking havoc and destruction as he went. Starting in Atlanta in November, his soldiers destroyed everything they came to — burning homes and businesses, robbing, looting, killing.

At this time, union prisoners of war were quite valuable to the Confederate army.

“They could be used as bargaining chips with the North,” said Randy Young, a local Civil War historian. “They were traded to the North for Confederate prisoners or for supplies, or even for short truces.”

There were more than 32,000 prisoners of war at the camp at Andersonville. According to Young, the Confederates were concerned that Sherman might make it to Andersonville and liberate those captured soldiers. The decision was made to split up the prisoners and 5,000 were brought to Thomasville at the end of the railroad line. According to ExploreSouthernHistory.com, the prisoners came from a camp in Blackshear.

According to the website, the camp in Thomasville, unlike most Civil War prison camps found either in the South or North, was not constructed out of timber. The camp’s commander, Col. H. Forno, described its construction in a report to Commissary-General of Prisons J.H. Winder on Dec. 7, 1864: “I learn that in the vicinity of the streams timber is scarce, and I directed the engineer to enclose an earth-work of sufficient dimensions, inverted; that is, the ditch, twelve feet wide, on the inside, to serve as a dead-line. The guard on the parapet wall, with the artillery, I think will render it perfectly safe and much more easily guarded.”

The temporary prison camp was a five-acre square surrounded by a six- to eight-feet deep ditch that was 10 to 12 feet wide at the edge of Thomasville near where Balfour Lumber and private homes on Wolf Street stand today. Area slaves dug the ditch and built the earthen parapet, and the prisoners used the natural timber growth inside the compound to build shelters for themselves.

According to Young, cannons were stationed at the corners and guards were always on patrol. The prisoners were in such poor shape, however, that several of the guards, members of the local militia, reportedly quit in disgust. The guards and prisoners were in dismal shape.

“The conditions were awful,” Young said.

Between 500 and 1,000 prisoners died of smallpox, typhoid fever and diarrhea. Some sick prisoners were cared for at the United Methodist Church by local citizens. The dead were buried in the Methodist Cemetery. Legend has it, though, that some of them are buried under Broad Street, which runs in front of the church.

Young said, “The sight of the prison camp and the conditions of the prisoners were heartbreaking for the citizens of Thomasville. In many ways, they were far removed from the horrors of the war before this. Ladies brought food and water to the prisoners. It was helpless, hopeless.”

The prisoners were in Thomasville for two and a half weeks and then moved back to Andersonville, Young said. The camp was never given a name. On Dec. 17, 1864, Gen. Winder was ordered by telegraph to remove the prisoners from Thomasville and close the facility.

Some historians say that Union forces were unaware that the prisoners had been moved and that in February 1865 part of the motivation for a Union expedition into north Florida was to liberate those prisioners.

According to ExploreSouthernHistory.com, “Brig. Gen. John Newton, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, moved a large force of federal troops from Key West and Cedar Key up the Gulf of Mexico. Coming ashore at the St. Marks Lighthouse south of Tallahassee on March 4, 1865, he turned his force inland intending to take St. Marks, Tallahassee and Thomasville. At the later place, he told the reporters accompanying the raid, Southern forces were holding 5,000 prisoners of war and he planned to liberate them.”

The recount of the expedition continued, “The expedition ended in disaster for Newton at the Battle of Natural Bridge, fought on March 6, 1865, on the St. Marks River south of Tallahassee. The Confederate victory not only saved Florida’s capital city from capture, it also preserved Thomasville and its environs from destruction.”

However, many other historians and Civil War buffs disagree, including Young.

“I think the Union was primarily just trying to capture Tallahassee, which was the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to the Union forces.”

Young thinks the two weeks while the prisoners were in Thomasville were so shocking that the citizens just wanted to forget about it and that is why there is not much here now to memorialize the site. But he thinks that maybe it is time to change that.

“If there are men buried there, they need to be recognized. Today, it doesn’t matter if they were an enemy or not. Every time I drive by, I think something should be done, just for closure. It’s time,” said Young.