Andersonvilles of the North

Andersonvilles of the North PDF Author: James Massie Gillispie
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574412558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This study argues that the image of Union prison officials as negligent and cruel to Confederate prisoners is severely flawed. It explains how Confederate prisoners' suffering and death were due to a number of factors, but it would seem that Yankee apathy and malice were rarely among them.

Andersonvilles of the North

Andersonvilles of the North PDF Author: James Massie Gillispie
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574412558
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This study argues that the image of Union prison officials as negligent and cruel to Confederate prisoners is severely flawed. It explains how Confederate prisoners' suffering and death were due to a number of factors, but it would seem that Yankee apathy and malice were rarely among them.

Captives in Blue

Captives in Blue PDF Author: Roger Pickenpaugh
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081731783X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Captives in Blue, a study of Union prisoners in Confederate prisons, is a companion to Roger Pickenpaugh's earlier groundbreaking book Captives in Gray: The Civil War Prisons of the Union, rounding out his examination of Civil War prisoner of war facilities. In June of 1861, only a few weeks after the first shots at Fort Sumter ignited the Civil War, Union prisoners of war began to arrive in Southern prisons. One hundred and fifty years later Civil War prisons and the way prisoners of war were treated remain contentious topics. Partisans of each side continue to vilify the other for POW maltreatment. Roger Pickenpaugh's two studies of Civil War prisoners of war facilities complement one another and offer a thoughtful exploration of issues that captives taken from both sides of the Civil War faced. In Captives in Blue, Pickenpaugh tackles issues such as the ways the Confederate Army contended with the growing prison population, the variations in the policies and practices inthe different Confederate prison camps, the effects these policies and practices had on Union prisoners, and the logistics of prisoner exchanges. Digging further into prison policy and practices, Pickenpaugh explores conditions that arose from conscious government policy decisions and conditions that were the product of local officials or unique local situations. One issue unique to Captives in Blue is the way Confederate prisons and policies dealt with African American Union soldiers. Black soldiers held captive in Confederate prisons faced uncertain fates; many former slaves were returned to their former owners, while others were tortured in the camps. Drawing on prisoner diaries, Pickenpaugh provides compelling first-person accounts of life in prison camps often overlooked by scholars in the field.

Hellmira

Hellmira PDF Author: Derek Maxfield
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1611214882
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
An in-depth history of the inhumane Union Civil War prison camp that became known as “the Andersonville of the North.” Long called by some the “Andersonville of the North,” the prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, is remembered as the most notorious of all Union-run POW camps. It existed only from the summer of 1864 to July 1865, but in that time, and for long after, it became darkly emblematic of man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate prisoners called it “Hellmira.” Hastily constructed, poorly planned, and overcrowded, prisoner of war camps North and South were dumping grounds for the refuse of war. An unfortunate necessity, both sides regarded the camps as temporary inconveniences—and distractions from the important task of winning the war. There was no need, they believed, to construct expensive shelters or provide better rations. They needed only to sustain life long enough for the war to be won. Victory would deliver prisoners from their conditions. As a result, conditions in the prisoner of war camps amounted to a great humanitarian crisis, the extent of which could hardly be understood even after the blood stopped flowing on the battlefields. In the years after the war, as Reconstruction became increasingly bitter, the North pointed to Camp Sumter—better known as the Andersonville POW camp in Americus, Georgia—as evidence of the cruelty and barbarity of the Confederacy. The South, in turn, cited the camp in Elmira as a place where Union authorities withheld adequate food and shelter and purposefully caused thousands to suffer in the bitter cold. This finger-pointing by both sides would go on for over a century. And as it did, the legend of Hellmira grew. In this book, Derek Maxfield contextualizes the rise of prison camps during the Civil War, explores the failed exchange of prisoners, and tells the tale of the creation and evolution of the prison camp in Elmira. In the end, Maxfield suggests that it is time to move on from the blame game and see prisoner of war camps—North and South—as a great humanitarian failure. Praise for Hellmira “A unique and informative contribution to the growing library of Civil War histories...Important and unreservedly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review “A good book, and the author should be congratulated.” —Civil War News

Captives in Gray

Captives in Gray PDF Author: Roger Pickenpaugh
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817316523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Perhaps no topic is more heated, and the sources more tendentious, than that of Civil War prisons and the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). Partisans of each side, then and now, have vilified the other for maltreatment of their POWs, while seeking to excuse their own distressing record of prisoner of war camp mismanagement, brutality, and incompetence. It is only recently that historians have turned their attention to this contentious topic in an attempt to sort the wheat of truth from the chaff of partisan rancor. Roger Pickenpaugh has previously studied a Union prison camp in careful detail (Camp Chase) and now turns his attention to the Union record in its entirety, to investigate variations between camps and overall prison policy and to determine as nearly as possible what actually happened in the admittedly over-crowded, under-supplied, and poorly-administered camps. He also attempts to determine what conditions resulted from conscious government policy or were the product of local officials and situations. A companion to Pickenpaugh's Captives in Blue.

Confederate Prisoners at Fort Delaware

Confederate Prisoners at Fort Delaware PDF Author: Joel D. Citron
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476628963
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
During the Civil War, each side accused the other of mistreating prisoners of war. Today, most historians believe that there was systemic and deliberate abuse of POWs by both sides yet many base their conclusions on anecdotal evidence, much of it from postwar writings. Drawing on both contemporaneous prisoner diaries and Union Army documents (some newly discovered), the author presents a fresh and detailed study of supposed mistreatment of prisoners at Fort Delaware--one of the largest Union prison camps--and draws surprising conclusions, some of which have implications for the entire Union prison system.

Confederate View of the Treatment of Prisoners

Confederate View of the Treatment of Prisoners PDF Author: Southern Historical Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nazi concentration camps
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description


Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons

Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons PDF Author: Homer Baxter Sprague
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description


George W. Alexander and Castle Thunder

George W. Alexander and Castle Thunder PDF Author: Frances H. Casstevens
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786437308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Captain George W. Alexander was a controversial figure in Richmond during the Civil War, honored as a hero and condemned as a cruel prison superintendent. He was appointed Provost Marshal and put in charge of Castle Thunder in 1862, after escaping imprisonment at Fort McHenry. At his Confederate prison in Richmond, he oversaw prisoners of all types, including Confederates, women, slaves, Federal deserters, and spies. This biography traces Alexander's life from the U.S. Navy voyage with Commodore Perry to Japan, hiding in Canada after Lee's surrender, editorship of Washington DC's Sunday Gazette to his death in 1895. The main body of the text concentrates on Alexander's time at Castle Thunder, but the book also explores the evolution of the prison system and the provost marshal's department, touching on unusual prisoners and escape attempts. Appendix 1 is a partial list of prisoners at Castle Thunder and when, where, and why they were arrested. Appendix 2 is a transcript of the court martial of Private John R. Jones. Appendix 3 lists prisoners sent from Camp Holmes and appendix 4 is a report of Alexander as Assistant Provost Marshall. Appendix 5 is a pamphlet published by the Republican Party National Committee; it struck at the Democratic Party by scorning its "military prison keepers."

While in the Hands of the Enemy

While in the Hands of the Enemy PDF Author: Charles W. Sanders, Jr.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807130612
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
During the four years of the American Civil War, over 400,000 soldiers -- one in every seven who served in the Union and Confederate armies -- became prisoners of war. In northern and southern prisons alike, inmates suffered horrific treatment. Even healthy young soldiers often sickened and died within weeks of entering the stockades. In all, nearly 56,000 prisoners succumbed to overcrowding, exposure, poor sanitation, inadequate medical care, and starvation. Historians have generally blamed prison conditions and mortality rates on factors beyond the control of Union and Confederate command, but Charles W. Sanders, Jr., boldly challenges the conventional view and demonstrates that leaders on both sides deliberately and systematically ordered the mistreatment of captives.Sanders shows how policies developed during the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War shaped the management of Civil War prisons. He examines the establishment of the major camps as well as the political motivations and rationale behind the operation of the prisons, focusing especially on Camp Douglas, Elmira, Camp Chase, and Rock Island in the North and Andersonville, Cahaba, Florence, and Danville in the South. Beyond a doubt, he proves that the administrations of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis purposely formulated and carried out retaliatory practices designed to harm prisoners of war, with each assuming harsher attitudes as the conflict wore on.Sanders cites official and personal correspondence from high-level civilian and military leaders who knew about the intolerable conditions but often refused to respond or even issued orders that made matters far worse. From such documents emerges a chilling chronicle of how prisoners came to be regarded not as men but as pawns to be used and then callously discarded in pursuit of national objectives. Yet even before the guns fell silent, Sanders reveals, both North and South were hard at work constructing elaborate justifications for their actions.While in the Hands of the Enemy offers a groundbreaking revisionist interpretation of the Civil War military prison system, challenging historians to rethink their understanding of nineteenth-century warfare.

To Die in Chicago

To Die in Chicago PDF Author: George Levy
Publisher: Pelican Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
Camp Douglas was built in 1861 as a Union recruiting and training depot, but by December 1864, it held over 12,000 prisoners of war, many of whom died of "starvation, neglect, cruelty ... pneumonia, dysentery, and small pox."--Jacket.