Play - Providence Spring 

Providence Spring – Tim Stafford
Mike Evans, Paula Breedlove
Mark Brinkman Songs – BMI /Paulajon Music – ASCAP

“God smote the hillside and gave them drink” – Inscription at Providence Spring

In November 1863, Confederate Captain Sidney Winder chose the village of Andersonville in Sumter County, Georgia as the location for a new prison for captured Union soldiers. The prison was completed in February of 1864, and by August there were over 33,000 Union soldiers enclosed in an area meant for 10,000 men. The stream that supplied the camp with water soon became polluted by human waste, and deaths from disease and gangrene rose, with up to 90 soldiers dying each day. In desperation, a group of soldiers began to pray for water. Soon, a storm broke out, and thunder roared, and where lightning struck the prison ground, a fountain of pure spring water erupted. Whether it was the prayer or construction of the prison that caused the underground water to well up, no one knows, but that clean water saved the lives of thousands of Union soldiers, and continues to flow to this day.

Song Lyrics

Life was hell on earth in a deadly Georgia prison
Where the stench of death could break the strongest soldiers will
For those union men the reaper showed no mercy
For few survived the agony of Andersonville

For thirty thousand men it was standing room only
With no shelter from the burning sun or pouring rain
One wretched stockade creek, the only source of water
Left union soldiers dying in misery and pain

Till Providence Spring flowed like magic through that prison
They drank their fill while listening to the rumbling waters sing
In the face of deep despair hope was finally there
In those pure healing waters of Providence Spring

One day a storm cloud moved across the walls of that prison
One loud clap of thunder roared and lightning struck the ground
From that spot there flowed a pure and sparkling fountain
That quenched the thirst of many till freedom came around

CHORUS: (Repeat)