Archaeologists comb newly-found Civil War POW camp
Thursday, August 18, 2011
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- A Civil War prison camp in southeast Georgia is still yielding archaeological treasures a year after its discovery was revealed.
The latest artifacts unearthed at Camp Lawton outside Millen were displayed Thursday at a news conference at Georgia Southern University. They include a Union army prisoner's ring bearing his unit's insignia and a payment token stamped with the name of grocery store in Michigan.
Camp Lawton was built by the Confederacy to house about 10,000 prisoners of war. But it was abandoned after being used for only about six weeks in 1864 before Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army arrived and burned the camp.
David Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist, says prisoners were evacuated before they could collect many belongings. But scholars long ignored Camp Lawton because of its brief lifespan.
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