Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/507

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ANDERSSEN ANDES 475 good water. 5. Badly cooked food. 6. The filthy condition of the prisoners and prison generally. 7. The morbific emanations from the branch or ravine passing through the pris- on, the condition of which cannot be better explained than by naming it a morass of human excrement and mud." Early in May, 1864, a report upon the condition of the prisoners was made by the confederate surgeon E. J. El- dridge, pursuant to instructions of Gen. Howell Cobb, and on July 5 an inspection report was submitted by Col. Chandler of the confederate war department. In these reports the sick- ness and mortality of the prisoners were attrib- uted to the bad condition of the prison and its management. In August, 1865, a special mili- tary commission was convened by the secre- tary of war to try Wirz. The indictment charged him with injuring the health and de- stroying the lives of soldiers confined as pris- oners at Andersonville, by subjecting them to torture and great suffering, by confining them in unhealthy and unwholesome quarters, by exposing them to the inclemency of the winter and the dews and burning sun of the sum- mer, by compelling the use of impure water, and by furnishing insufficient and unwholesome food ; also for establishing the " dead line," and ordering the guard to shoot down any prisoner attempting to cross it ; for keeping and using bloodhounds to hunt down prisoners attempt- ing to escape ; and for torturing prisoners by confining them within the "stocks." Wirz, having been found guilty on these charges, was hanged Nov. 10, 1865. After the close of the war the cemetery at Andersonville was ar- ranged by Col. Moore of the U. S. quarter- master's department, pursuant to orders from the secretary of war. The stakes were re- moved and neat head boards, inscribed in black letters, with the names of the dead were substituted. The bodies in the trenches were found to be from two to three feet below the surface, and in some instances, where the rain had washed away the earth, but a few inches. They had been buried without coffins or the ordinary clothing, and not more than 12 inches in width had been allowed to each body. With the aid of the hospital record, 12,461 graves were identified and marked with tablets giving the number, name, rank, regiment, company, and date of death of each person; and 451 graves bore the inscription "Unknown U. S. Soldier." The cemetery was carefully laid out in walks and adorned with trees. ANDERSSEN, idolph, a German chess player, born in Breslau, July 6, 1818. He was a teach- er of mathematics, acquired in Berlin a high reputation as a chess player, and attended in 1851 the chess tournament in London, where he defeated Staunton and other English celeb- rities. In December, 1858, he was defeated in Paris by Paul Morphy; but in 1862, at the second London chess tournament, he obtained the highest prize. He is the author of many original outlines of games and of writings on the theory of chess, published in the Leipsio Schachzeitung. ANDERSSON, Carl Johan, a Swedish traveller, born in the province of Wermland in 1827, died in the territory of the Ovacuambi, S. W. Africa, July 5, 1867. He was the natural son of Mr. L. Lloyd, an English sportsman residing in Swe- den. In 1849 he went to England, and the next year joined Francis Galton in a journey to the territories of the Damaras and the Ovam- bos, S. W. Africa. He continued his explora- tions alone in 1853-'4, and published after his return to England (1855) "Lake Ngami, or Ex- plorations and Discoveries during Four Years' Wanderings in the "Wilds of Southwestern Africa." Revisiting Africa in 1856, he made a second journey to Lake Ngami (1858) in compa- ny with Mr. Green, an English elephant hunter, and found his way up the Okavango, through the territory of the Ovambo, one of the princi- pal red tribes of Herrevo land, which had never been visited by a European excepting by the German missionary Hugo Hahn. He published in London in 1861 a work on the Okavango river. Returning to Herrevo land by way of Walfish bay and the Zwachaub river, he mar- ried Miss Aitchison of Cape Town, and devoted himself at Otjimbingue, near Ondongo, to agri- culture and commerce. During the war with the Damara and Namaqua tribes he was repeat- edly despoiled by the latter, and finally so seri- ously wounded that he had to be removed to Cape Town. During his illness he studied or- nithology and prepared materials for an illus- trated fauna of S. W. Africa. Barely recovered, he set out again in May, 1866, with a young Swede, on an expedition to the Cunene, with a view of establishing commercial intercourse with the Portuguese settlements N. of that river, and came within sight of the long-sought stream ; but, too feeble to cross it, he had to retrace his steps and died on the home journey. ANDERSSON, Nils Johan, a Swedish botanist, born Feb. 20, 1821. He made a voyage round the world in the Swedish frigate Eugenie in 1851-'3, and published Verldsomsegling (3 vols., Stockholm, 1853-'4). He also wrote on Scan- dinavian botany. Since 1856 he has been pro- fessor at Stockholm, and superintendent of the botanical collection of the academy of sciences. ANDES, the range of mountains which ex- tends along the northern and western coasts of South America, from the southern extremity of the continent to the Caribbean sea. It is the most compact mountain system in the world. Skirting the Pacific shore for nearly 4,500 m., with a mean elevation of 12,000 feet and varying in breadth from 40 to 350 m., it covers with its base a surface of more than half a mil- lion square miles. Nowhere else does nature present such a continuous, well defined, and lofty chain. It is in strong contrast with the broken and straggling systems of Europe and North America. The Himalayas surpass the Andes in extreme altitude, but as they are situated beyond the tropics and destitute of