Confederate Prison in Georgia Yields Hundreds of Artifacts-- Part 1

From the June 4, 2013, Goldsboro (NC) News-Argus "Ga. Civil War Camp turns up hundreds of artifacts," AP.

It's been just three years since Cap Lawton, near Millen, Georgia, was discovered and already more than 600 artifacts have been discovered at the former Confederate prison.  Some are suspender buttons, a bronze buckle used to fashion tourniquets during amputations, all the way to railroad spikes.

The camp was opened in October 1864, about 50 miles south of Augusta, to replace the overcrowded Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville.  Camp Lawton covered over 42 acres with one quarter mile walls on all sides and held more than 10,000 Union prisoners.

Not much is known of the place as it operated just some  six weeks before Confederates abandoned it to avoid the advancing troops of Union General William T. Sherman's Army.

The general location of the camp has always been known, but it wasn't until 2010, when a Georgia Southern graduate student found remnants of the stockade wall.

Old Secesh