Andersonville

Andersonville is a film directed by John Frankenheimer about a group of Union soldiers during the American Civil War who are captured by the Confederates and sent to an infamous Confederate prison camp. The film is loosely based on the diary of John Ransom, a Union soldier imprisoned there. Although certain points of the plot are fabricated, the general conditions of the camp match Ransom's descriptions very accurately, particularly those parts in reference to the administration of the camp by Captain Wirz. His line on escaping prisoners is very similar to the book, "The Flying Dutchman [Wirz] offers to give two at a time twelve hours the start". The film begins with a group of Union soldiers being captured and forced to surrender. They...