Researchers and archaeology students are getting ready to break new ground this summer at Camp Lawton, a Civil War prison camp that stayed virtually undisturbed for nearly 150 years before it was discovered in southeast Georgia.

The sprawling Confederate camp once held more than 10,000 Union prisoners, but it was abandoned just six weeks after opening in 1864. The camp was largely forgotten until a Georgia Southern University archaeology discovered student discovered remains of Camp Lawton's stockade walls in 2010. Since then, more than 600 artifacts have been recovered at the site.

Now, students and faculty are cleaning rust and corrosion from many of those items. They plan to finish before late June when teams at Camp Lawton will dig deeper than anyone has in the previous three years.

Tags: Civil War, camp lawton, civil war prison camp, artifacts, archaeology