Volunteer preserves stories of Andersonville’s fallen

SUMTER COUNTY, Ga. (GPB News) — In the rolling landscape of Andersonville National Cemetery, rows upon rows of white headstones stretch across the grounds, each marking a life lost and a story often forgotten.

For 16 years, volunteer Kevin Frye has worked to make sure those names are remembered.

Frye photographed and cataloged more than 14,000 graves at the cemetery, including approximately 13,000 Union soldiers who died at Andersonville Prison during the American Civil War. He also helps families trace the stories of loved ones buried there through an active Facebook community dedicated to the historic site.

“It’s just obsession,” Frye said. “You know, we’re only here for a short time. And for so many of us, a headstone is all that’s left behind.”

Frye said two quotes continue to guide his work.

“One of them is: ‘A man dies once his name is no longer spoken.’ And then the one is on the back of the Wisconsin monument here: ‘To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,’” he said. “Looking around here, you’ve got 20,000 headstones, and it’s a sea of stones, but each one has a story.”

Among the stories that affect him most are the graves of brothers buried side by side in the cemetery’s trench grave sections.

“There’s one set of three brothers,” Frye said. “Certain ones like that connect with me. I have two brothers. I lost one two years ago.”

As he walks through the cemetery, Frye said he often imagines what the prisoners endured.

“I often try to put myself into their situation and visualize what they went through,” he said. “I can’t imagine being here with both of my brothers and just standing by with nothing that I could do to help save them.”

The trench graves remain one of the most haunting areas of the cemetery. Frye explained that the headstones are not symbolic markers but stand directly over burial trenches where prisoners were laid shoulder-to-shoulder after dying in captivity.

“All the way to the front, this is just 5,500 of those that died here,” Frye said while standing among the rows of stones. “And throughout the rest of the cemetery, there’s five other sections, which contain about 7,000 graves.”

One story, however, continues to stay with him more than any other.

Frye shared the story of the three brothers from Maine — David, Loren and Lewis Tuttle. Loren was wounded during the Siege of Petersburg and sent home, while his brothers David and Lewis were captured and brought to Andersonville in the summer of 1864. Lewis died in November 1864, and David died three weeks later in December.

Near Lewis Tuttle’s grave sits one of the cemetery’s enduring mysteries: a stone dove permanently affixed atop the headstone.

“There’s a stone dove on top of Lewis Tuttle’s grave. Grave number 12196,” Frye said. “A lot of people who have read about Andersonville and did research always ask about this one. Why is the dove there? We don’t know.”

According to Frye, National Park Service officials once compared the stone from the dove to the nearby Maine monument and discovered both came from the same quarry in Saco, Maine, where the Tuttle brothers were from.

Even descendants of the brothers have been unable to explain its origin.

“They don’t know why it’s there,” Frye said. “They don’t know who put it there or exactly what it represents.”

For Frye, preserving those stories is about more than history. It is about ensuring those buried at Andersonville are never forgotten.

“So many within these walls died for our country,” he said. “I find so often that there’s graves here that have never been visited by family. I just want to make sure there’s some sort of a record. It speaks to me just to keep the memory of those alive.”

This article is based on Peter Biello’s podcast interview with Kevin Frye on GPB’s “All Things Considered”