"Plastic Confederate Andersonville Prison Camp Playset" Topic

Wow… ever thought to yourself: "Wouldn't it be FUN to play a game with suffering soldiers in prisons?" Errr… nope. If you feel so inclined now is your chance! Buy this 'playset', invite a few friends over, get some beers cold and watch the excitement unfold!

link

It doesn't get any stranger than this.

Don

actionfront.blogspot.com

"Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?"

Great components for other situations, though …

Yes, strange, but some useful pieces anyway.

Useful or not, I wouldn't buy it.

Their Buchenwald set didn't sell as well.

link
I have a coverless original copy of this book

What are were they thinking. This so inappropriate, so repulsive! What next, a Auschwitz play-set complete with ovens. They should take this "toy" and remove from your offerings. Shame! This is for kids! Unbelievable! You can't defend this.

Well, it is distasteful, yes, though hardly in the same league as Auschwitz. POW camps, however inhumanely or just clumsily run (and the death rate at Camp Douglas was nearly as high, with vastly more resources available) are simply not the same as extermination camps. Intentions do matter, from a moral perspective.

ReallY??? Google up pictures of Andersonville and Dachau. The survivors look the same. Intentions seem the same. Guess the Japanese POW camps weren't terrible either…go ahead, stifle me. I can remember reading a book about Andersonville years ago…sounded pretty much like a death camp to me. Evil camp commanders are evil no matter which way you spin it. Might as well Blue Fez this one too.

For those who don't know Camp Douglas:

By the end of 1864, the Official Records showed that 2,235 prisoners had died at Camp Douglas but Levy states this may be 967 short of the true figure.[215] Another 867 died in 1865, making it the worst short period for mortality of prisoners at the camp.[216] The official death toll at Camp Douglas has been put at 4,454.[217] Others have estimated that from 1862 through 1865, more than 6,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease, starvation, and the bitter cold winters (although as many as 1,500 more were reported as "unaccounted" for), based in part on an 1880's memorial in Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery which states that 6,000 Confederate dead (4,275 known dead) are buried there in a mass grave. On the other hand, it was discovered that unscrupulous contractors buried some crude empty coffins in the relocated graves to increase their profits.[218]

In the aftermath of the war, Camp Douglas eventually came to be described as the North's "Andersonville" for its poor conditions and death rate of between seventeen and twenty-three per cent,[219] even though the death rate was lower than at Andersonville and its conditions were better.[220] An exact accounting of the number of prisoner deaths at Camp Douglas is now impossible, but despite arguments for a higher number, the best estimates, which place the number of deaths at about 4,454 and the percentage of prisoners who died at the camp at about 17 percent, appear to be reasonably accurate.[221]

"Intentions seem the same."

Uh, the intention of the Nazis was extermination. The intention of the CSA was holding prisoners after the exchange system had been ended (by Grant).

Seems to me that careful distinctions and clear thinking are ESPECIALLY important when one is evaluating Bad Things -- which Andersonville certainly was.

Guess the Japanese POW camps weren't terrible either

Do you just make up what you think I said?

So the point would be? Read about this one too and that is every bit as horrific as Andersonville. EVIL is EVIL is EVIL…cutting it into degrees is pretty ridiculous. The tortured and dead are all equal lets not condone any of this kind of "playset". "Toys" of any type of this are thoroughly indefensible.

No Doc….just extrapolating…if the Andersonville has some "useful pieces" does that make that acceptable??? Sorry I just mean to say that any of this is in such poor taste that the you have to wonder not only about the manufacturer and what else they think is OK to put and some of the folks that would buy this.

Evil is evil is evil.

In a sense I agree; a thing is what it is, whatever one calls it. Murdering one person is as much murder as genocide directed against an entire nation -- but they are not the SAME, they differ in some pretty significant ways.

The point would be that sometimes all options -- including doing nothing -- are bad, and wisdom consists in trying to find the least bad. To act is to risk doing evil -- even with good intentions. Was, e.g., Hiroshima bad? Yes, of course. Was there a better option? perhaps not.

As I said, I think the playset is distasteful and I have a hard time imagining why anyone would produce it, or buy it.

But clear thinking is impossible without careful distinctions.

I agree that careful distinctions are important in clear thinking when considering making important decisions, in work or when you are in a PhD program getting nitpicked on details. I guess my objection is totally with the topic of the post…that this is really a terrible "playset" and really a general characterization when speaking of this "toy" is really all the thought you need. See you at FallIn!

that this is really a terrible "playset"

Yes, I agree totally.

I found it extra weird and wrong that in the picture of the miniatures they showed examples of Reb soldiers in very wrong poses. They are shooting prisoners from the towers or cat-walk. I suppose they want to provide you with hours of 'fun' shooting the Union prisoners crossing the "deadline". Yikes. They couldn't just have Reb guards standing and watching?! Well…. not that it would have made the 'playset' more palatable either way but still…

*sigh*

Don

That set has been out for a few years, now.yeah, a bit non PC :/ It even has a figure of the last camp commander that was executed (possibly unjustly) after the war. I've seen it pushed as roman works, also ?

(possibly unjustly)

The whole war was a tragedy and situations such as Andersonville more intense tragedies within the larger one. Assigning individual blame in these cases is problematic, as the example of Grant shows. His order ending POW exchanges was logical in terms of winning the war, but of course it led directly to the suffering at Andersonville. Hard to do the moral calculus in such situations.

I can see how this set could have its uses in an educational sense. The darker side of the Civil War should never be forgotten, and what happened at Andersonville is a stark example of that side.

Regardless of Camp Douglas, Grant's orders, or any other issue, Andersonville has become a byword for the brutal mistreatment of POWs. The fact that Americans were mistreating fellow Americans adds to the tragedy for those in the US today. Not being an American, maybe I can step back from this a little, and observe with less emotion than many.

I cannot appreciate this as a 'playset' with the emphasis on 'play'. However, from what I know of the terminology of adult 54mm Plastic collectors, any set of soldiers that comes complete with scenic items is commonly termed a 'playset', so the choice of description may have more to do with convention, rather than an attempt to sell this as a child's plaything.

In truth, some of the figures would be useful – the Union soldiers could, in many cases, be liberated into more agreeable settings, such as barracks or regimental encampments.

They COULD HAVE just called it "ACW Prison Camp". The fact that they named it is what's tasteless, and sensationalizing it to sell.

I mean how can that be fun ? What do you do, run a prison break scenario ? I remember Fort Apache growing up… I mean the indians had a chance… but who wants to make a play set out of Wounded Knee ? I just don't get it.

No redeeming social value what so ever.

A really bad, miserable idea.

Over the years, I have come to a better understanding and respect of the Confederate point of view concerning the War between the States, even though I embraced a more Yankee outlook earlier in my life. (I must present this disclaimer before writing more.)

Having said that, I can't imagine that someone would buy this set for a child, or even for their own enjoyment. The whole "shooting fish in a barrel" aspect is appalling.

Someone will eventually say that toy playsets, wargaming in general, etc., are sick and evil. Maybe so. But if nothing else, those kind of simulations represent a contest, where one side isn't completely doomed to failure, or is at the complete mercy of the other side.

I guess I've said enough.

My ancestor was captured at Ft. Donaldson in Feb 1862 and sent to Camp Butler,Il and died in May 1862 – grave number 471. Many more died in that Union prison than at the battle of Ft. Donaldson. I think both sides the mortality rate was high.

This reminds me of the Dan Akroid character on Satudaynight Live that sold the bags of broken glass to kids for christmas.

Irwin Mainway, haven't thought about him in years. Classic.

Have to say I've seen some things in my time but this one really, really sucks!

Incredible! Its hard to imagine the commissioning process on this one.

Terrible. Even if the commandant was an innocent dupe his men still were cruel beyond belief. What was this company thinking making a playset like this?

People have been and will be buying this set, and what is worse is that sooner or later it will be discontinued and become a rare "collectable".

Certianly much worse than the SS hero worship that seems to pervade WWII wargaming.

I think the SS hero worship is based on the advantage they get in pretty much all the WWII rules! :o)

Yes, the components certainly could be used for other gaming purposes. Or a Raid to save the POWs scenario. And it probably was only named Andersonville for marketing puposes. But regardless … it is a reminder .. war is not a game …