While thousands of soldiers died on bloody battlefields, thousands more from each side languished in prison camps that were not adequately prepared for the number of prisoners that streamed in as the fighting dragged on. The treatment of prisoners of war became a major issue during the war as both sides struggled to accommodate massive numbers of prisoners and agree to an effective prisoner exchange system. An analysis of scholarship addressing the organization and conditions of camps in both the North and the South, including the infamous Andersonville, and the treatment of blacks in the prison system will create a comprehensive overview of the Civil War prison system. This overview will consider different interpretations of the available primary sources in the evolving conceptions of Civil War memory, specifically regarding the understanding of prison conditions and the relative harshness of prisoner treatment in the Union and Confederacy. Contemporary secondary sources have broadened the scope of mid-20th century literature, giving both conditions and organization of Northern and Southern prison systems equal weight, while also addressing issues of responsibility.
Union Prison Camps
Rumors regarding the treatment of Confederate prisoners of war, both in their capture and imprisonment, produced a thread of anti-Northern sentiment during and after the conclusion of the Civil War. Though the most notorious Civil War prison camps were in the Confederacy, certain Union camps, such as Elmira or Alton, developed harsh reputations. In his work, Andersonvilles of the North: The Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment of Civil War Confederate Prisoners, James Gillispie addressed the popular understanding of the comparison between Union and Confederate camps. Gillispie argued that though Southern officials and scholars have attempted to depict the harsh nature of Northern camps as resulting from a deliberate attempt to inflict pain upon prisoners, the reality is far less sinister. Though the Union had superior supplies and resources, the long journey to prison camps, influx of entire regiments, and rigors of war meant that Confederate prisoners of war suffered from, mostly, unavoidable consequences of the bloodiest conflict in American history.
When discussing Northern plans for the treatment of Confederate prisoners, Gillispie argued “There was certainly nothing said among key officials at the beginning of the war to suggest that Union authorities had anything but the best of intentions for Southern prisoners’ welfare” (Gillispie, 75). Though the author recognized the legitimacy of “retaliation plan” arguments, meaning that the North and South both initiated lesser treatment of prisoners in order to gain revenge for the other side’s atrocities, there exists no evidence to suggest the Union restricted food rations to starve Confederate prisoners (Gillispie, 98). Furthermore, other claims of intentionally poor housing and clothing seem unfounded as well, with Gillispie quoting several Confederate prisoners’ diaries, in which they compliment the clothing and heated, wooden barracks, even at the infamous Elmira (also known colloquially as “Hellmira”) prison camp in New York (100-104). When discussing the treatment of Union prisoners of war, Gillispie concludes “more objective wartime evidence from Northern and Southern sources indicates that Union policies towards Confederate prisoners cannot be defined as vindictive or inhumane” (104). The author concludes that the death of Confederate troops in Union hands, apart from incidents of execution on the basis of fighting, dishonor, or the breakdown of order, is mostly attributable to the poor condition of Confederate troops on arrival. The author, however, gives a close analysis of only a handful of prisons from the period, so there is potential that his conclusion could have been altered by the inclusion of more examples. Also, although there exists a great deal of evidence regarding two of the shooting incidents, as well as a handful of potentially fatal altercations, an investigation of more personal sources (e.g. sentry journals) might have provided a more unambiguous glimpse into the mentality of individual soldiers.
C. Wallace Cross’ article, “The Incarceration of a Regiment” analyzed the imprisonment of the 49th Tennessee Infantry at Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. As with James Gillispie, Cross depicted the rigors associated with holding prisoners of war on a large scale as the main cause for poor living conditions in Northern camps. He said, “Neither North nor South understood how to cope with large numbers of prisoners since there were no precedents to draw on” thus forcing both the Union and Confederacy to learn on the move as they transported troops (Cross, 86). The 49th Tennessee Infantry provides one of the most compelling examples of this trouble, as the Union, under the orders of General Grant, captured the entire regiment and brought them on boxcars to Ohio, with officers and other men being sent to different prisons in Illinois and the Northeast. Cross focused on the difference in treatment depending on a soldier’s grade, with “field grade officers” being shipped to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, where they “received fine quarters furnished with iron cots, comfortable mattresses, and anthracite coal stoves” (87). When officers were transported for a prisoner exchange in Vicksburg, Mississippi living conditions worsened greatly, again as a result of logistics and situational problems (92). As Confederate prisoners were transported by boat down the river, they had to drink river water and live in cramped quarters, thus exposing officers to the harsh conditions that have come to be considered normal for Confederate prisoners. In Cross’ piece, there exists a clear understanding that the status of a prison, as an infantryman, officer etc., impacted their treatment and living quarters as a Union prisoner. However, he still fails to address the fact that the lower officers were treated poorly, which could be equated to maltreatment.
Richard G. Zevitz questioned the thesis that the Union did not intend to impose harsh conditions upon Confederate soldiers during captivity. The author focused on Camp Randall in Wisconsin, looking for evidence of inhuman treatment as a result of conscious effort. Zevitz argued that though Northern officials knew of the incompetence of the 19th Wisconsin Volunteers (who ran Camp Randall) in dealing with disease and camp conditions, they only reacted to a high mortality rate when a sentry killed a prisoner (Zevitz, 96). Though a Union sentry shot and killed a Confederate prisoner for the simple use of foul language, no charges were filed, implying a lack of concern for the life of Confederate soldiers (97). After less than two months as a prison, Camp Randall was emptied as a result of the high death rate and shootings, showing, in the author’s opinion, one of the clearest examples of a failure on behalf of the Union to care for prisoners of war (98). Zevitz argues that General Grant’s refusal to allow for parole and exchange as a war tactic was a retaliatory tactic for the supposedly harsh treatment of Confederate prisoners, as well as a tactic to choke the South (99). For Zevitz, though the Union might not have starved prisoners or restricted their supplies, the poor response to the shooting death of prisoners is an example of the Union’s purposefully limited level of care for Confederate prisoners of war. This article refutes Gillispie’s argument in Andersonvilles of the North, providing a strong counterargument to the view that Northern prisons did not undervalue the lives of Confederate soldiers. Zevitz’s argument rests in an understanding above a statistical analysis of deaths and supplies, instead looking at incidents (e.g. shooting deaths) which exemplify poor treatment. However, the author does not take into account the potential for these incidents to reflect the emotions and mentality of individual guards, and not necessarily the collective mentality of Northern soldiers and prison guards.
Confederate Prison Camps
The newly established Confederacy faced significant logistical and political challenges that made it difficult to treat prisoners of war properly and maintain decent conditions in its prison camps. When researching the Confederate military’s prison system during the Civil War, scholars have focused on different aspects of the system in order to explain the disorganization and deplorable living conditions that characterized many Confederate prison camps. There is a wide range of scholarship in this field concerning the Confederate military prison system’s organization, the conditions in smaller and lesser-known Confederate prisoner of war camps, and the memory of Confederate camps through the perspectives of Union soldiers after the war ended.
Charles W. Sanders provides a comprehensive history of the military prison system in both the Union and the Confederacy in his book While in the Hands of the Enemy (2001). He states that one seventh of all soldiers who served on both sides became prisoners of war, and that there were significant mortality rates of prisoners in both Union and Confederate camps (Sanders 1). This issue of the treatment of prisoners became a controversy both during and after the war as Union and Confederate supporters accused each other of mismanaging camps and causing soldiers to unnecessarily suffer. While acknowledging that many historians have attributed these high mortality rates and poor camp conditions to factors beyond the control of Union and Confederate leaders, Sanders argues that these leaders should be held more accountable. He agrees that “organizational incompetence, inexperience, and chronic shortages of essential resources certainly contributed to the horrors in the camps,” but directs more blame toward leaders for not doing enough to alleviate prisoners’ suffering (Sanders 2). For example, he devotes an entire chapter to the lessons regarding prisoner management and exchanges that Union and Confederate prison planners should have learned from the United States’ earlier wars. These lessons were ignored at great cost to prisoners held during the Civil War. To further support his argument, Sanders studies the official and personal correspondence of those who ran prisons and formulated prisoner of war policies, and finds that both sides are equally culpable in the mistreatment of prisoners.
Sanders’ work also provides a comprehensive history on the development of the Confederacy’s prisoner of war systems from the beginning of the war until its end. He highlights the Confederacy’s complete lack of preparation during the opening months of the war, especially in the aftermath of its victory at Manassas. Unlike the Union, the Confederacy chose not to appoint a single officer to supervise prison operations for the military early in the war (Sanders 3). Combined with President Lincoln’s refusal to exchange any prisoners, the Confederacy was forced to cram large numbers of prisoners into makeshift prisons surrounding the new capital of Richmond. Sanders says that while the prison system at this point was loosely organized, Jefferson Davis and his administration moved to establish a more centralized system as the war dragged on (46). Sanders then traces the changing state of the prison system through the establishment of an official prisoner exchange program that began in 1862, and then after that program fell apart, which led to the conditions in camps becoming much worse. Through this time Sanders evaluates the actions of Confederate officials as they were forced to respond to supply shortages and an increasing number of prisoners. Based on his review of prison officials’ conduct during the war and their personal correspondence, Sanders concludes that Confederate (and Union) leaders failed to treat prisoners with basic principles of humanity. His work portrays these prison systems as doomed to fail from the beginning, and as places where suffering could have been prevented if leaders had acted with more conviction.
While there is a significant amount of scholarship and literature dedicated to infamous Confederate prison camps such as Andersonville and Danbury, there were certainly other prison camps that were forgotten both during and after the war. In Camp Groce, Texas: A Confederate Prison (2001), Brad Clampitt states that this prison’s remote location in Texas prevented many prisoner exchanges from happening and caused the Union government to mostly forget about its prisoners there (365). According to Clampitt, Camp Groce never had a large population of prisoners, and its conditions were more favorable than other camps in the Confederacy (370). Prisoners also had a significant amount of freedom to travel outside the limits of the camp stockade in order to purchase supplies (373). This does not mean that the camp did not experience hardship, however. The summer heat of Texas and outbreaks of yellow fever that required the camp to be evacuated twice reflect the inherent dilemma of properly caring for prisoners. To create an image of what life was like in this remote camp, Clampitt relies on diaries of Union prisoners who spent time in the camp. These firsthand accounts allow one to see what conditions were like, including what ration and supply levels were, how effective the prison doctors were, how easy it was to escape, and the character and leadership of the prison commanders. Clampitt relies heavily on these firsthand accounts and acknowledges that evidence from prison officials and sentries is lacking. However, Clampitt’s analysis of the conditions in Camp Groce sheds light on a remote and lesser-known prison camp, and challenges the notion that every Confederate camp was a house of horrors.
The treatment of prisoners of war and the conditions of prison camps were controversial issues that were kept alive in the vast amount of literature that was published after the Civil War. In his article, “The Propaganda Literature of Confederate Prisons” (1935), William Hesseltine examines literature written by prisoners after the war ended. He argues that prisoners’ accounts of their suffering were rooted in hatreds bred during the actual conflict, and that these hatreds “served to keep alive the bitter psychosis of the Civil War” long after the fact (Hesseltine 57). Hesseltine focuses his study on literature created by Union soldiers that described their experiences in Confederate camps. During the war, Hesseltine argues that abolitionist propaganda sought to portray Southerners as monsters in order to rally supporters to the Union cause, and that the Union government had a strong interest in portraying conditions in Confederate camps as grim in order to discourage its own soldiers from surrendering. Hesseltine then points to official fraudulent reports commissioned by the Union government and the sensational trial of an Andersonville prison official named Henry Wirz as literature that inspired former prisoners to exaggerate their experiences in Confederate camps after the war. A desire to punish the South during Reconstruction and former soldiers’ attempts to claim pension funds also contributed to this post-Civil War propaganda. Hesseltine’s analysis encourages Civil War scholars to carefully determine the validity of ex-prisoners’ accounts in order to avoid relying on biased information.
Andersonville Prison, Georgia
Of all Civil War prisons, none has left a deeper mark in the American memory than the Confederate prison at Andersonville in southwestern Georgia. Known for the extraordinarily poor conditions that prevailed in the prison and its unusually high mortality rate, Andersonville became emblematic of the horrors brought about by the American Civil War.
In Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology (1930), William Best Hesseltine conducted a thorough study of Civil War prisons, both North and South. Noting that previous considerations of Civil War prisons had been colored by the hatred the war had engendered, Hesseltine determined “to examine the prisoners and prisons of the Civil War in a scientific spirit” (vii). The passage of time not only permitted Hesseltine to examine the war in a more objective spirit, but allowed vital primary sources to be compiled and published. Hesseltine relied chiefly upon The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and the personal narratives of prisoners and prison administrators (vii). He also utilized contemporary newspapers (viii).
Hesseltine devoted one chapter of his study to the prison at Andersonville. He concluded that the preparation of the prison was delayed due to the local community’s objection to its construction and consequent refusal to give their aid. Permission to impress labor was required from the government at Richmond before construction could begin (133). Hesseltine also concluded that the inability to obtain lumber, tools, or cattle drivers prevented the prison from having the necessary supplies and accommodations to receive prisoners (134-135). Meager rations were provided to prisoners, the stream that flowed through the prison was polluted by refuse from the cookhouse, and proper latrines were not constructed (138-140). The scarcity of prison guards prevented the maintenance of order among the prisoner population, allowing the formation of prison gangs that robbed and preyed upon their fellow prisoners (143-146). Many prisoners fell ill with diarrhea, dysentery, and scurvy and medical care was very poor (151-152). Hesseltine concluded that the unsanitary conditions and lack of shelter, proper food, and medical care led to the high number of deaths at Andersonville (152). Hesseltine’s analysis is descriptive but, given the larger scope of the work, it does not examine Andersonville in great detail.
In 1968, Ovid L. Futch prepared his comprehensive and thorough History of Andersonville Prison. Remarking that no one had yet published a full history of the prison, Futch described his objective as follows: “to determine what happened at Andersonville, to examine the conditions which resulted in high mortality among the prisoners, and to consider the question of responsibility for those conditions” (iii). Futch relied upon the Howell Cobb Papers at the University of Georgia Library, the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and other government publications, published and unpublished diaries, personal narratives, and interviews with the descendants or kin of Confederate soldiers at Andersonville (133-141).
Futch reached similar conclusions as Hesseltine, but considered Andersonville in greater depth and detail. Futch devoted full chapters to the poor conditions of the camp (Chapter 3), the daily lives of the prisoners (Chapter 4), the prison gangs or “Raiders” (Chapter 5), and medical care (Chapter 7). Futch not only described the conditions of the camp, but also sought to determine who was responsible. He noted that the scarcity of resources and manpower “which afflicted the Confederacy in its latter days was a factor in the suffering experienced by prisoners at Andersonville” (122). The more novel of Futch’s conclusions, however, is that infighting among Confederate politicians and generals as well as poor management and organization made the conditions at Andersonville worse than they would have been otherwise (122). Futch rejects the immediate postwar claims of both the North and South. He disputed the Northern notion that the Confederacy deliberately treated prisoners poorly to reduce their numbers as well as the Southern argument that the breakdown of the exchange system necessitated the conditions of Andersonville (116-118).
In contrast to Hesseltine and Futch, Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn undertook an economic analysis of Andersonville. In “Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps”, published in The American Economic Review, they used both a “longitudinal database of Union Army soldiers and a cross-sectional database of the population of Andersonville” (1467) to determine the effects of social networks on mortality in Confederate prisons. They conclude that the more friends a soldier had (and the closer those friends were), the less likely a prisoner was to die (1482). The friends could help each other get food, but these networks could have imposed a cost if successful social networks were prison gangs such as the Raiders at Andersonville (1481). This approach supplements the historical approach of Futch and Hesseltine by providing an economic analysis of Andersonville to determine the social realities of the men who lived there.
Black Experiences in the Prison System
Freemen, escaped slaves, and enslaved men had an interesting and ironic role in prison camps during the Civil War in both the North and the South. Modern scholarship helps us understand the role of black people inside and outside of those camps. When captured in the South, black soldiers were either executed right away, sold into slavery, or forced to work as slaves for prison camps. Joseph Douglas, in his essay, The Ironic Role of African Americans in the Elmira, New York Civil War Prison Camp, 1864-65 explores explores black prison guards in the prison camp, Elmira, in New York. Slaves in the South, especially those around prison camps, played a crucial role in helping white prisoners escape as Robert Scott Davis tells us in his essay, “Near Andersonville”: An Historical Note on Civil War Legend and Reality.
Written in 1999, Douglas’s essay asserts that, “African- Americans were largely responsible for what good the Elmira camp had to offer its Confederate residents,” (8). This quote: “ what good the Elmira camp had to offer its Confederate residents,” seems to imply that Elmira had redeeming qualities. This view is contrary to accounts by some southerners that Elmira was “ten times worse than the notorious Southern prison at Andersonville, Georgia,” (7). Douglas attempts to discredit this account and many others that portray Elmira as dreadful as its colloquial name “Hellmira” describes.
Douglas portrays black soldiers as more capable guards and protectors of the prisoners than their white counterparts. Through his use of primary sources such as journals, speeches, newspaper articles, Congressional debates, and the meticulous chronicling of John Jones, an escaped slave turned prison guard, Douglas attempts to depict the guards as caring and kind, ensuring the humane treatment of the prisoners. While his evidence supporting his views of the roles of the guards is strong, attempts to discredit the narratives that Elmira was a horrible place to be sent. While there is contradicting evidence on both sides, Douglas’s narrative proffers a kinder view which is incompatible with a prison camp in which many men suffered and died in, due to inadequate care and inhumane conditions. Although the conditions may have been better in Elmira than some of its Southern counterparts, it seems unfair for Douglas to discredit sources that describe the infamous “Hellmira.”
Looking past the introductory analysis of the camp’s conditions, Douglas’s article tells of black prison guards who enthusiastically played a role in the war and treated their prisoners fairly, even though some were their former masters. The conclusion of the essay, that black prison guards were humane to the Confederate soldiers, seems to be a fair one to make. Douglas’s use of primary sources and building upon others’ work allows his work to provide a different perspective of the prison camp, possibly even a fair interpretation of the role that the black guards played in the war.
Another interesting work, by Robert Scott Davis, highlights the role of slaves living near the Andersonville prison in Georgia during the Civil War. He argues that the slaves played a crucial role in the prison’s history. Davis claims, “the African Americans of the Deep South, were in a position to help gain freedom for any and all who were held in bondage,” (99). He also discusses slave labor and the lives of black soldiers imprisoned at Andersonville. The Confederacy forced 900 slaves from the surrounding area to build the prison, which would hold their liberators (96). Many local whites were fearful of the prison being built thinking it would allow the Northerners held there to become catalysts for a slave revolt. The slaves, however, did not revolt. Staying on their masters’ land, they started a system similar to the Underground Railroad for Union soldiers (97).
Because of their experience in escape techniques and their knowledge of the prison layout, slaves were crucial figures in escapees’ lives. So much so, that the usual portrayal of slaves being stupid and uncivilized drastically changed in the memoirs of escaped Andersonville prisoners (Davis 98). By using memoirs, testimonies from freed slaves and escaped prisoners, as well as other modern scholarship, Davis produces a work that explores in detail the role of slaves in the lives of Andersonville prisoners.
Not only does Davis discuss the slaves surrounding Andersonville, he also discusses how black prisoners of war were given “special work details that brought them extra physical labor and punishment, but allowed them better rations [than their white counterparts] and thus a better chance of survival,” (101). While, often captured black soldiers were either sold back into slavery or executed right away, Davis’s shows us that if they were placed into a prison camp, they would survive longer. This also tells us that bigger rations were crucial to the survival of prisoners and suggests that increasing the rations could have saved thousands of lives.
Douglas’s and Davis’s works deal with different topics and provide insight into Civil War prison camps. Having such a variety of scholarship is one indication of the importance of black Americans in the prison camps during the Civil War.
Conclusion
The sheer scale of the Civil War meant that thousands of soldiers would spend portions of the great conflict in the custody of the opposing side. In Northern prison camps, the vast resource base ameliorated the situation for many Confederate prisoners, though most did not escape some form of suffering. An analysis of literature relating to Confederate prison camps reveals a similar logistical nightmare, with the newly born Confederate States struggling to cope with thousands of Union prisoners after President Lincoln halted exchanges. Though the North portrayed Southern prison camps as intently malicious, research reveals a substantial amount of hyperbole in accounts. At Andersonville in Georgia, the most notorious of the Southern prisons, soldiers needed to rely on a network of friends in order to take advantage of what meager resources they had in order to survive. Incompetency on the part of Confederate administrators running the camp, just as with soldiers in Northern prison camps, added to the suffering. Finally, throughout the war black individuals, either as soldiers, freedmen or slaves, played a crucial role in guarding and building prisons, contributing to both the Northern and Southern efforts. Over time, research has shifted from a mid-20th century focus on Southern prison camps to a broader look at both Northern and Southern camps. This analysis of secondary literature provides an understanding of the vast and complex prison system during the Civil War, exposing the similarities and differences apparent in Northern and Southern camps. The ideologies of both the Union and Confederacy impacted their treatment of prisoners, especially black prisoners, but the logistical trouble caused by the large number of soldiers proved difficult for both sides. The sheer numerical reality gave rise to the images of mistreatment of prisoners during the Civil War that continue to be painful memories of this bloody conflict.
The Civil War Prison System 