To transport these bulky materials to the armies of Lee, Hood and Johnson required every locomotive and freight car that could be mustered on Southern railroads. Hence the northward-bound trains were heavily laden. Those going southward were empty, and were available to carry away the thousands of Union prisoners. At several points in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, stockade prisons were set up, notably that in Southwestern Georgia, named after an adjacent hamlet, "Andersonville." This celebrated place of confinement for Federal prisoners below the rank of commissioned officer was located about sixty-two miles from Macon. It consisted of a stockade made of pine logs twenty-five feet long, set upright in a trench five feet deep, inclosing some sixteen acres, afterwards enlarged to twenty-six acres. This inclosure was oblong in form, with its longest dimension in a general north and south direction, and had two gates in its western side, near the north and south ends respectively. It was commanded by several stands of artillery, comprising sixteen guns, located at a distance on rising ground. From four directions the guns could sweep the prison interior with grapeshot or shells. A line of poles was planted along the lengthwise center of the pen. We were informed that if the men gathered in unusual crowds between the range of the poles and the north and south gates, the cannon would open upon us. A report was circulated among us to the effect that General Sherman had started an expedition to release us; and we were informed that if his troops approached within seven miles of the stockade the prisoners would be mowed down by grapeshot. The fact is that one of his generals proposed a sortie that never was made. "About July 20, 1864, General Stoneman was authorized at his own desire to march (with cavalry) on Macon and Andersonville in an effort to rescue the National prisoners of war in the military prisons there." Outside and against the stockade platforms for guards were placed two or three rods apart, and were so constructed that the sentinel climbed a ladder and stood waist high above the top of the wall and under a board roof, which sheltered him from the sun and rain. Each of the guards faced the vast mass of prisoners and was ordered to closely watch the dead line before and below him half way to his comrade on his right and left.