At some point during production, several reels of film were lost on the way from a shooting location in Georgia to printing in California. Director John Frankenheimer had to reshoot the lost footage, which was about 40% of the trial sequence, in a new location in North Carolina, rebuilding parts of the original set to the last detail in order to match the coinciding Georgia scenes.
In the final scene, when the camera pulls back from the gravesite to reveal the present day cemetery, notice how all of the gravestones are so unusually close together. The reason the markers are only inches apart is because, early on, camp officials decided to abandon the practice of traditional burials and instead have work details dig long trenches. In those trenches they lay the emaciated soldier's bodies, "shoulder to shoulder", before covering them over. Their identities marked only with numbers scribbled on wooden sticks. Fortunately, after the war they were able to match the numbered sticks up with the men's names so that they could finally be given a proper headstone and the thanks of a grateful nation.
Ted Turner originally wanted Ron Maxwell to direct the miniseries following the success of Maxwell and Turner's film "Gettysburg". Maxwell politely declined citing that (at the time) he was no longer interested in doing Civil War films. Turner then went to John Frankenheimer.
Stanley Kramer planned an " Andersonville" movie around 1965-1966 with his " Ship of Fools" star Oscar Werner in the lead.
In the mid 60's, Fred Zinnemann and his " From Here to Eternity " scriptwriter Daniel Taradash worked on a similar project, but because of its bleak subject matter it was deemed too expensive. Lee Marvin would have led the cast.