Film / Andersonville

Andersonville is a Made-for-TV Movie directed by John Frankenheimer, following a group of Union soldiers captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Josiah Day and his friends are sent to the Hellhole Prison Fort Sumter, plagued by sadistic guards, thieving gangs of fellow prisoners, starvation and disease. As their numbers dwindle, they struggle to escape, or, at least survive.

The film first aired on TNT in two parts in March of 1996. It is not an adaptation of the novel of the same name, sharing only the setting and a few historical characters. It is Very Loosely Based on a True Story, with several plot elements and lines of dialogue being taken from the diary of an Andersonville survivor named John Ransom.

Provides examples of:

• Ambition Is Evil: Wirz requests a promotion to major from Colonel Chandler, supposedly to do more to help the prisoners but at least partially for his own ambition.
• Angry Guard Dog: The prison has quite a few, which badly maul or even kill some characters.
• Badass Boast: Wirz is confident enough in his ability to capture the prisoners that he boasts he'd give two escapees at a time a twelve hour head start and could still get them back.
• BFK: Munn may be a runty guy, but he also carries a huge bowie knife, the most lethal weapon in the camp... making him probably the deadliest Raider to battle.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Wirz, the commandant of the camp, and Collins, leader of "the Raiders", who both torment the other prisoners.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Collins and Munn, the leaders of the Raiders.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Munn is always treating new arrivals cordially, offering to show them around and help them out, but does so to lure them into the Raiders' territory to be beaten and robbed, while displaying murderous frustration at anyone who thwarts him from doing so.
• Child Soldiers: Many of the Confederate tower guards are boys as young as ten. Union drummer boy Patrick also appears.
• Chromosome Casting: There is little to no female representation in the movie, given the lack of female soldiers in The American Civil War, and how almost the entire movie is set at the prison camp.
• Cool Old Guy: Sergeant McSpadden. He's somewhere in his fifties, making him pretty old for being a soldier. But he is tough as they come, disarming Munn and knocking him out with relative ease.
• Creepy Child: The young Confederate guards enjoy luring Union soldiers into crossing the "deadline" supposedly for trading, then shooting them.
• Crusading Lawyer: Hopkins, who defends the Raiders during their trial, claiming that everything they did was a byproduct of the camp's inhumane conditions and thus Wirz's fault.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Raiders win pretty much any fight: the spoils from their reign of terror keep them much better fed and stronger than anyone else in the camp. However, the tables turn when everyone in the camp rushes them.
• Despair Event Horizon: Billy nearly gives up trying to stay alive after failing to escape and needs a pep talk from Josie to keep going.
• Dirty Coward: Somewhat with Munn. While he's not afraid to fight, he will back down if he doesn't have the advantage or his Raider brothers backing him up.
• Do with Him as You Will: After the battle with the Raiders, Captain Wirz has the ability to intervene, but allows the prisoners to try and execute them, watching with curiosity and some amusement.
• Downer Ending: To be expected, given the subject. But when Wirz releases the surviving prisoners from Camp Sumpter in 1865, they aren't free, they're just moving to different prison camps.
• Driven to Suicide: Grundy, the man who tried to sell out the tunnel, has "tunnel traitor" carved into his forehead, becoming a pariah who will be targeted if the tunnel really is sold out. Eventually, he despondently crosses the dead line.
• Evil Cripple: Wirz has a maimed arm, and is in charge of the camp, although he claims that he has had to work hard to get the prisoners what little care they already have and his superiors are the ones behind the suffering.
• Face Death with Despair: Two of the Raiders, including/especially Munn, utterly snap the moment they see the gallows where they're to be hanged. In Munn's case, he tries to flee in panic, but the prisoners grab him and drag him to the gallows, all while he is screaming and begging for his life. When his face is covered and the noose is wrapped around his neck, he can be heard loudly weeping until he is finally executed.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Collins walks to the gallows calmly, encouraging his men to be brave and noting that this moment was probably inevitable.
    • Averted at the last moment with Munn. He holds things together pretty well until he is being led to the gallows, then he flees in a panic and turns into a weeping, blubbering mess.
  • Martin Blackburn maintains a sense of composure and good humor even while dying of scurvy.
• A Father to His Men: Both McSpadden and Gleason are strong, dedicated leaders who work to keep their men safe.
• Faux Affably Evil: Wirz has the façade of a charming, humorous prison captain, yet it does nothing to hide his unquenchable cruelty.
• Fighting for a Homeland: Near the end, an attempt is made to get Union prisoners to enlist in the Confederate army in exchange for their freedom and farming plots.
• Fighting Irish: While one of the more peaceful characters in the movie, Sergeant McSpadden, speaks with a notable Irish accent and proves his strength and stamina against both the Confederates and the Raiders, most count (unsurprisingly, since they're all soldiers).
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Josiah firmly rejects the notion that the Raiders' actions are excused by the conditions of the camp, pointing out how many others have maintained honor and discipline while helping each other. And because he does so during their trial, he turns this into a Rousing Speech which helps ensure their conviction.
• Gentle Giant: Thomas is one of the most compassionate and encouraging men in Josiah's unit, but also the biggest and strongest, and when he decides to retrieve Martin Blackburn's stolen banjo from the Raiders is utterly devastating fighting against them.
• Giant Mook: One of the Raiders is even taller than Thomas.
• Good Is Not Soft: Limber Jim is a dependable ally towards Josiah and the others who is moved by the suffering of others and is responsible for ultimately defeating the Raiders. He also displays pure hatred for the Confederates, the Raiders (who he wants to kill outright) and anyone who tries to betray the existence of tunnels and is willing to go after them with everyone he's got.
• Great Escape: A tunnel is dug out of the camp, which promptly leads to an attempt to make it to a nearby river ahead of the guard dogs once the prisoners make it out the end.
• Hate Sink: Wirz. Beneath his Laughably Evil routine, he's a despicable monster who gleefully bathes in the suffering of Union prisoners. There's a reason he was one of the few Confederate officials to be executed after the war.
• Handicapped Badass: Dick Potter joins in fights against the Raiders, swinging with his crutch. Another of the leaders against the Raiders has a peg leg.
• Hellhole Prison: The staff at Fort Sumter make almost no effort to care for their prisoners onscreen, and the mortality rate is pretty high.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: While their actions and nature are depicted fairly accurately, in real-life the reign of the Raiders over the rest of the camp lasted for barely a month, while in the movie they have been robbing and killing other prisoners for some time when Josiah and his friends arrive and continue to do so until late in the film, weeks if not months later. Munn, who is portrayed as the second in command of the group and its cruelest member, had only been a prisoner for about two weeks in real life before the fall of the Raiders.
• Kangaroo Court: Averted with the Raiders. Their trial isn't an officially sanctioned one, but they are given ample opportunity to defend themselves (as well as a lawyer) and a jury made up of unbiased new arrivals to the camp.
• Let the Past Burn: After the defeat of the Raiders their base was burned, symbolic of the end of their reign of terror.
• Men of Sherwood: Limber Jim's Vigilante Militia against the POW camp's gangs does contain the main characters, but they don't take an active role in it for a while and there are dozens of other prisoners involved. Once Jim's followers finally take up arms against Collins and his raiders, they handily crush them.
• Never My Fault: Wirz claims to have tried to provide for the prisoners, while the Confederate High Command is responsible for the camp's poor factors. It is unclear if this is true.
• No Man Left Behind: During the escape attempt, Martin is captured while trying to help Thomas after he's shot and mauled.
• No Sale: Near the end of the movie, things have gotten so desperate for the Confederates that Wirz tries to persuade the prisoners to enlist in the Confederate Army in exchange for their freedom. They all turn their backs on him and march away.
• Oh, Crap!: Many examples.
  • When the Raiders appear to plunder. Their victims don't have a chance.
  • Wirz when he sees Colonel Chandler is very upset about how he's running the camp.
  • Collins seeing all the other prisoners coming after the Raider camp. He knows there's no way he's going to win this one.
• The Old Convict: Dick Potter, a friend of Josiah and the others, was captured some time before them, has a maimed leg and appears prematurely old as he shows them around the prison and gives tips to survive it. Patrick the drummer boy is also affectionately referred to as the oldest man in Andersonville, due to being an early prisoner.
• The Place: The film is named after the camp which about 95% of the film takes place in.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Colonel Chandler is appalled with the camp's poor living conditions and delivers a scathing speech to Wirz about it. Wirz points out though that other, more powerful Confederate leaders have allowed the camp to be run the way it is and that neither of them actually has power to change it.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Sergeant Gleason is the only man not killed or recaptured after the escape attempt. McSpadden tells Josiah that he heard Gleason being attacked by the dogs in the woods and believes he was killed, but encourages him to remain silent to provide a Motivational Lie that he'll bring back help. Later, however, several new prisoners claim to have heard about the camp from an escaped prisoner and when asked if he was Gleason, think that was his name.
• Run the Gauntlet: The Raider mooks are forced to do this off-screen.
• The Savage South: Indeed, Andersonville would have been anyone's worst nightmare, ESPECIALLY a Northerner during the Civil War.
• Saying Too Much: Tobias accidentally publicly mentions the tunnel to other prisoners twice. The first time, it's just to Josiah and the others, who are recruited to work on it. The second time, it almost gets them betrayed by Grundy.
• Sergeant Rock: Sergeant McSpadden doesn't let a shot to the arm stop him from bravely maintaining authority.
• Stock Punishment: The prisoners captured after the failed escape are confined this way, with one of them strangling to death when his legs give out.
• Tagalong Kid: Patrick becomes a close associate of the core characters, and [McSpadden starts caring for him as he gets weaker.
• Traitor Shot: After a bunch of characters hear about the tunnel, there's a close up of one man's face before he goes to try and tell the guards (he gets stopped just in time).
• Tunnel King: Gleason and his men (particularly Tobias and Blackburn) have been digging a tunnel for a long time (it's implied to be the first one to make it all the way to the end without being discovered) and are noted to be aided by skills they learned as coal miners before the war.
• Vigilante Militia: A large group of prisoners led by a man named Limber Jim forms first to protect their territory against the Raiders, and then to strike out and crush them.
• Villains Want Mercy: One of the Raider leaders expressed incredulity upon realizing he's actually going to be hanged, and Munn tries to run away, and cries all the way to the gallows.
• You Killed My Father: The peg-legged soldier mentions that the Raiders murdered his brother.