Come for the brutality; stay for the peanuts.
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Andersonville, Macon County, Georgia
Brutal death wasn't limited to the battlefields. Of the 45,000 Union soldiers incarcerated at the notorious Andersonville Prison during its 14-month existence, nearly 13,000 died.
Disease and infections were easy to come by in the overcrowded stockade, with its open sewers, little or no medical care and limited rations. Andersonville National Historic Site recalls not only the misery of those soldiers but, through the powerful design of the National Prisoner of War Museum, the suffering of all U.S. POWs.
The National Cemetery beside the park's entrance has rows of white headstones standing at attention, their order broken by state monuments. Two reconstructed walls of the stockade with posts (and a roadway) mark the 26-acre perimeter of the prison itself. A chilling place to visit, but vital too.
Don't miss: Southwestern Georgia is known for peanuts (Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer and president, hails from nearby Plains) and for barbecue. Pull over for a sample at one of the boiled-peanut roadside shacks, and if you're staying in Columbus, seek out Country's Barbecue.
[
CNN]