Download or read book Hellmira written by Derek Maxfield and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Andersonvilles of the North written by James Massie Gillispie and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Andersonville Diary Escape and List of the Dead written by John L. Ransom and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Captives in Gray written by Roger Pickenpaugh and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2009-05-24 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A Broken Regiment written by Lesley J. Gordon and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of over a decade of research, Lesley J. Gordon’s A Broken Regiment recounts the tragic history of one of the Civil War’s most ill-fated Union military units. Organized in the late summer of 1862, the 16th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was unprepared for battle a month later, when it entered the fight at Antietam. The results were catastrophic: nearly a quarter of the men were killed or wounded, and Connecticut’s 16th panicked and fled the field. After years of fighting, the regiment surrendered en masse in 1864. This unit’s complex history amid the interplay of various, and often competing, perspectives results in a fascinating and heartrending story.
Download or read book Den of Misery written by and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shines the harsh light of truth on a forgotten--and whitewashed--chapter of American history. Graphic and sometimesappalling, James R. Hall's account of conditions at Indianapolis's Camp Morton is necessary reading for anyone who prefers genuine history to the sanitized version."--Brian D. Smith, member, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel , 1983 The term"prison abuse scandal" has become a familiar phrase in our lifetime. But long before this phrase was used on the nightly news, truths about the treatment of enemy prisoners were defiantly denied, and the media-whose primary sources (much like today) were politicians and military officials-inevitably distorted the facts. In the case of Camp Morton, however, records exist from the firsthand accounts of prisoners, who were extremely vocal about their experiences after the Civil War ended. Confederate veterans who had been held at Camp Morton and heard that prominent Union officials were calling it a"model" Civil War prison were enraged and inspired to proclaim the truth about their suffering. Their experiences first were revealed publicly by former Morton prisoner, prominent physician, and medical researcher Dr. John A. Wyeth. James R. Hall has picked up where Dr. Wyeth left off, making the Camp Morton controversy known to a new generation. Den of Misery: Indiana's Civil War Prison details the cover-ups and denials as well as the cruel realities of the prison camp and chronicles the efforts by Confederate veterans to make known the truth about their experiences. The author includes a full list of prisoners who died at Camp Morton and are buried in a mass grave in Indianapolis.
Download or read book Civil War Prisons written by William Best Hesseltine and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1972 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The articles in this book carefully consider the passionate and partisan documents of the era in order to arrive at a clear, dispassionate understanding of the prisons North and South, how they were administered, and what life for the captured soldiers was like" - from back cover.
Download or read book The Yankee Plague written by Lorien Foote and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
Download or read book Camp Oglethorpe written by Stephen Hoy and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Camp Oglethorpe is largely overshadowed by that of nearby Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. It exists primarily as a footnote in the telling of Civil War prison narratives. A comprehensive reckoning reveals a saga that brings to light Camp Oglethorpe's decades-long role as a military training ground for Georgia's volunteer regiments and as a venue for national agricultural fairs which drew thousands of visitors to Macon. Its proud heritage, however, attracted the attention of leaders of the Confederate government. To the chagrin of Macon's citizens, the acreage at the foot of Seventh Street was surreptitiously repurposed for brief periods in 1862 and 1864. Although conditions at Camp Oglethorpe never approached the appalling state experienced by POWs at Andersonville, its proximity to and association with Camp Sumter cast a specter-haunted pall over the site. As Central Georgia recovered from the tangible vestiges of war. bitter memories minimized interest in restoring the property to any of its previous incarnations. The deafening sounds of the rail commerce that would eventually be situated there were inadequate to drown out the distressful noise of raw silence. The story of Camp Oglethorpe is predominantly remembered by its association with the atrocities of war as reflected in prisoner-of-war narratives. Indeed, the cries of those who demand to be heard haunt its memory. Smith and Hoy tell this story not only as an admonition to the consciences of humanity, but to illuminate history and paint a more complete recollection of the encampment at the foot of Seventh Street. Book jacket.
Download or read book Military Prisons of the Civil War written by David L. Keller and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Portals to Hell written by Lonnie R. Speer and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true ?hell on earth.? Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners? experiences in great detail and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders.
Download or read book Transforming Civil War Prisons written by Paul J. Springer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, 410,000 people were held as prisoners of war on both sides. With resources strained by the unprecedented number of prisoners, conditions in overcrowded prison camps were dismal, and the death toll across Confederate and Union prisons reached 56,000 by the end of the war. In an attempt to improve prison conditions, President Lincoln issued General Orders 100, which would become the basis for future attempts to define the rights of prisoners, including the Geneva conventions. Meanwhile, stories of horrific prison experiences fueled political agendas on both sides, and would define the memory of the war, as each region worked aggressively to defend its prison record and to honor its own POWs. Robins and Springer examine the experience, culture, and politics of captivity, including war crimes, disease, and the use of former prison sites as locations of historical memory. Transforming Civil War Prisons introduces students to an underappreciated yet crucial aspect of waging war and shows how the legacy of Civil War prisons remains with us today.
Download or read book Captives in Blue written by Roger Pickenpaugh and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Camp Douglas written by Kelly Pucci and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of Confederate soldiers died in Chicago during the Civil War, not from battle wounds, but from disease, starvation, and torture as POWs in a military prison three miles from the Chicago Loop. Initially treated as a curiosity, attitudes changed when newspapers reported the deaths of Union soldiers on southern battlefields. As the prison population swelled, deadly diseases--smallpox, dysentery, and pneumonia--quickly spread through Camp Douglas. Starving prisoners caught stealing from garbage dumps were tortured or shot. Fearing a prisoner revolt, a military official declared martial law in Chicago, and civilians, including a Chicago mayor and his family, were arrested, tried, and sentenced by a military court. At the end of the Civil War, Camp Douglas closed, its buildings were demolished, and records were lost or destroyed. The exact number of dead is unknown; however, 6,000 Confederate soldiers incarcerated at Camp Douglas are buried among mayors and gangsters in a South Side cemetery. Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison explores a long-forgotten chapter of American history, clouded in mystery and largely forgotten.
Download or read book I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island written by David R. Bush and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-09-23 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnson's Island, in Sandusky, Ohio, was not the largest Civil War prison in the North, but it was the only one to house Confederate officers almost exclusively. As a result, a distinctive prison culture developed, in part because of the educational background and access to money enjoyed by these prisoners. David Bush has spent more than two decades leading archaeological investigations at the prison site. In I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island he pairs the expertise gained there with a deep reading of extant letters between one officer and his wife in Alexandria, Virginia, providing unique insights into the trials and tribulations of captivity as actually experienced by the men imprisoned at Johnson's Island. Together, these letters and the material culture unearthed at the site capture in compelling detail the physical challenges and emotional toll of prison life for POWs and their families. They also offer fascinating insights into the daily lives of the prisoners by revealing the very active manufacture of POW craft jewelry, especially rings. No other collection of Civil War letters offers such a rich context; no other archaeological investigation of Civil War prisons provides such a human story.
Download or read book The Business of Captivity written by Michael P. Gray and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the many controversial issues to emerge from the Civil War was the treatment of prisoners of war. At two stockades, the Confederate prison at Anderson, and the Union prison at Elmira, suffering was accute and mortality was high. This work explores the economic and social impact of Elmira.
Download or read book Ship Island Mississippi written by Theresa Arnold-Scriber and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-04-03 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ship Island was used as a French base of operations for Gulf Coast maneuvers and later, during the War of 1812, by the British as a launching point for the disastrous Battle of New Orleans. But most memorably, Ship Island served as a Federal prison under the command of Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler during the Civil War. This volume traces this fascinating and somewhat sinister history of Ship Island. The main focus of the book is a series of rosters of the men imprisoned. Organized first by the state in which the soldier enlisted and then by the company in which he served, entries are listed alphabetically by last name and include information such as beginning rank; date and place of enlistment; date and place of capture; physical characteristics; and, where possible, the fate and postwar occupation of the prisoner.
