Conference smurf::civil_war

    
    Here is Wes' earlier note:
    
    	[ some stuff removed, not relevant here......]
    
		..........................  Andersonville saw a higher
    percentage of fatality than any other war, but two Federal prisons
    killed a greater number of men.  Elmira, New York was one.  The
    other was either Camp Douglas or Point Lookout.  (Good grief!  I
    don't believe the brain fade today.  Sorry for the vagueness.  I
    am absolutely certian of Elmira.  You see, Andersonville was only
    open a part of a year.
    
    Now let me set something straight right now:  Andersonville was
    a ghastly place -  a place where good men died needlessly and
    helplessly.  By condemning the Federal prisons I make no effort
    to excuse Andersonville; it was a horror.  It's just that I get
    so blasted sick and tired of people trying to shove it in my face
    as proof of the innate depravity of Southerners!  (I know y'all
    weren't trying to do that; I'm just real sensitive.)
    
    The treatment of prisoners on both sides was, in my opinion, the
    sorriest chapter of the war.  The catch is that the South really
    didn't have the resources to do much better than they did.  The
    North, on the other hand, had plenty of stuff, but deliberately
    starved and murdered Southern men.  For example, Johnson's Island
    in in the Great Lakes.  It's pretty far north.  The Federal government
    took boys from the deep South and sent them up there.  They had
    very little shelter from the weather - leaky, open huts - and almost
    no uniforms or blankets.  They died by the hundreds of exposure
    and starvation.  Yet close by Johnson's Island was a warehouse filled
    with rejected Federal Army uniforms, sent there by the quartermaster
    expressly for the use of the prisoners.  The commandant of the camp
    refused to issue the goods.  That, in my opinion, is cold blooded
    murder.  Another Federal camp commandant, I believe of Point Lookout,
    was given a medal for saving money.  He saved the money by cutting
    prisoner's rations and starving them to death.
    
    In his memoirs, Jeff Davis tells of two communiques sent to the
    Lincoln government after the cessation of the exhange of prisoners.
    In the first, Davis explained in detail the conditions at Andersonville
    and begged Lincoln to reinstate the exchange so those good men would
    not die like animals.  Lincoln never answered the letter.  A few
    months later, working through a neutral emmissary, Davis sent another
    letter to Washington.  In this letter, he offered to buy, in gold,
    medicines for the Federal prisoners.  He also offered safe passage
    through the lines for Federal doctors to adminsiter the medicine
    to their own men.  Linclon refused to answer the letter.
    
    Toward the end of the war, Davis offered to just RELEASE Federal
    prisoners, with NO EXCHANGE, if the Yankees would come pick them
    up.  Lincoln never answered the letter.  In my opinion, most of
    the blood and waste of Andersonville is on Abraham Lincoln's hands.
    
    When I held, in my own hands, a list of the Confederates who died
    at Elmira, I vowed that I would never again apologize for
    Andersonville, nor back up one inch from charges of inhumanity.
    
    The statistics on the prisons are readily available, but Burns chose
    to not use them.  I have an interview Burns granted before the series
    went on the air.  If I can dig it out, I will enter it in this forum.
    
    
    Wess
    

    
    Re: -1

First of all, no side in the American Civil War could be proud of its
treatment of prisoners. However, Wes has clearly gone over the top by 
allocating all the blame to the Northern side, o.k. so he reacting
to allegations about Andersonville but one should not react to mistaken
or false allegations by ignoring some of the salient facts about
the prisoner-of-war issue.

The major quantity of prisoner-of-war deaths took place in the 1863-64 
period, after the exchange system had broken down. It broke down for two 
reasons:

- The South declared that any black found in arms would be enslaved. In
  practice, some black prisoners were slain out of hand, free blacks
  captured were put doing labouring tasks and ex-slaves were handed over
  to their masters if claimed. In response, the North felt morally bound
  to stand by ALL men who had taken arms in defence of the Union and
  refused to exchange white prisoners only. The man who was mainly 
  responsible for this policy was not Lincoln or Grant (though both are
  usually credited with it) but Secretary-of-War Stanton.

- The South returned to the army many men paroled after Vicksburg. This
  particularly angered Grant, who had given generous terms when Pemberton
  surrendered.

It is for this reason that the exchange system broke down and the prisons,
not healthy places at the best of times, became overcrowded. However, the
South resolutely refused to include captured blacks in the exchange system
- their commissioner said they would "die in the last ditch" rather than 
give up the right to re-enslave blacks. There were two reasons for their
policy:

- It was politically expedient. The slaveowners were a powerful bloc
  in the Confederacy - they were its very backbone. Any dimunition of the
  Confederacy's commitment to slavery would have provoked an outcry.
  This is why Davis in late 1863 also suppressed Patrick Cleburne's proposal 
  to enlist slaves in the army in return for their freedom.

- The prisoner-of-war issue damaged the Lincoln administration's chances
  of re-election. Stories about the camps in Northern newspapers backfired
  when the Democrats heavily critised the administration for letting
  Northern boys die for the sake of blacks taken prisoner. Appeals from
  prisoners themselves were printed in the newspapers begging that the
  exchange system be re-instituted. However, Stanton was adamant that
  the South must change its policy before exchanges began.

Thus we come to Jefferson Davis' letters - the ones he claimed he wrote
to Lincoln offering to release or buy medicine for the Andersonville 
prisoners. I have found no record of these in any work I have consulted 
but if they were indeed sent to Mr. Lincoln, Jeff Davis was being almost 
incredibly obtuse. He must have known that Lincoln scrupulously ignored 
any communications emanating from a person styling himself as "President 
of the Confederate States of America". All communications dealing with 
prisoners taken in the field were made between the generals of the 
armies, so that if Davis was seriously making this offer, he should have 
made his initiative through Lee or another commander. Both armies had 
nominated commissioners to deal with prisoner-of-war issues, so why did 
Davis ignore the process normally used by both sides to make his offer? 
I frankly doubt the existence of these letters until someone comes up with 
some corroboration, otherwise we are allowing Mr. Davis to be prosecutor, 
chief witness and judge in his own case.

If Davis meant well, then he should have changed his policy sooner. For
all the bombast about dying in the last ditch, the South DID change its
policy. In January 1865, with Lincoln re-elected and about to enlist
blacks itself, the Confederacy quietly began exchanging black prisoners.
Tragically, this was a year too late for the dead in the camps and
prisons, North and South.

To re-iterate, neither side can take much pride (and take a high degree
of blame) in the treatment of prisoners. There were Henry Wirzs on both
sides. However, on some of the impassioned pleas I have read exculpating 
the South of ANY responsibility,"methinks, they protest too much." 
A neutral reader can judge for themselves.

Toby
    

    
    I seriously doubt Wes' assertion that more men died in total in two
    Northern prisons than in Andersonville.
    
    Based on my recollection, 13000 men died in Andersonville. This
    suggests that something like 14000 men died in each of two Northern
    prisons, making 28000 in all.
    
    Now Wes himself in note 38.0 gives 31000 as the maximum estimate
    of Confederate prisoners who died in the North, and about 26000 as
    the minimum. This suggests that at least 90% of the fatalities were 
    in only two prisons - which is surely incorrect! 
    
    These statistics warrant further investigation.
    
    BTW, 45000 men passed through Andersonville, and 29% of them died
    there. It also looks as if 43% of all Federal prisoner fatalities
    occurred in that dreadful place.
    
    Toby

    
    	Some other stats that I recall on Andersonville that differ a
    little;
    	The infamous commander Henry Wirz was assigned to head the newly
    formed military prison in Georgia in January 1864, it came to be known
    as Andersonville (although its formal name was Camp Sumter). It was a 
    log stockade enclosing some 17 acres (later growing to 26 acres).
    
    	Andersonville quickly grew to take in some 33,000 Federal
    prisoners - all enlisted men - by the summer of 1864. Although they
    were given the basic rations of the Confederate troops, there was such
    overcrowding and poor sanitation that the diet plus exposure to the 
    elements soon led to diseases spreading. 
    
    	As I recall there would be some 13,000 identified graves there, but
    it was estimated that many others died. I don't think there has been an
    actual count.
    
    	As General Sherman drew near in September 1864, the Confederates
    transferred the healthy prisoners to Charleston. Wirz was taken
    prisoner later, and then charged with committing specific crimes, even
    conspiring to kill prisoners, and in November 1865, after being found
    guilty by a special courtmartial, he was executed. He was, in fact,
    the only individual executed after the war for any crime committed
    during the war. Scapegoat? Or was he a pawn sacrificied to ease the
    minds of the nation?
    
    	I'm sure the conditions weighed heavy on Wirz's mind. I think he
    emigrated to the United States in 1849 -1850? I'm not sure, I'd have to
    check, from Switzerland. When he came to America, I believe he took up
    practicing medicine in Louisiana. Strange way to make a living for a
    man so connected to such an infamous prison camp.
    
    My $.02 worth....
    
    						The Alabama Slammer
    

    
    	Not to go off the track from the subject to much....but,...
    in the backwaters of Boston Harbor there stands a fort that housed
    Confederate prisoners during the war, Fort Warren. Its most famous
    claim to fame it once housed the two Confederate commisioners Slidell
    and Mason of the TRENT affair for a short period. Also the Vice
    President of the Confederacy.
                                                                   
    	Being an Civil War Reenactor, I have had the pleasure of visiting
    the island fort on several occasions. There is held on the Island an
    reenactment of sorts every year in the beginning of August. Basically,
    after the John Q. Public goes home on the last ferry, we pretty much
    have run of the Fort. We have had the pleasure of investigating various
    catacombs of the Fort, including the morgue.
    
    	Enough rambling, back to subject. The history of Fort Warren was
    fortunate. As stated it held Confederate prisoners during the war. It
    was getting to the point of overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions,
    lack of supplies for the prisoners, etc. But, before conditions were
    out of control, people of Boston got together abd shipped supplies out
    to the Fort to help with the poor conditions.
    
    	Now could the same happen at Fort Warren that happened at
    Andersonville? What if the people of Boston didn't supply the prisoners
    with necessary supplies. It seemed that the Union jailers weren't going
    out of their way to help. It was just the reverse conditions, cold
    weather instead of heat, stuck out in the harbour exposed to the ocean
    in the winter. How many of those Southern boys would have survived?
    
    	Now don't take me wrong. I'm not saying Andersonville was a picnic.
    But it would seem to me, that both sides had an equal hand in the 
    treatment of prisoners. I honestly believe at the beginning of the war,
    both sides never estimated the total count of prisoners that they would
    have to take care of.
    
    	Fort Warren was fortunate, only sixteen prisoners died while
    imprisoned there. There is a monument to them on the Island. We also
    have a short ceremony every year in tribute to them.
    
    						The Alabama Slammer  

    
    While I accept that the North has as shameful record as the South
    in the matter of prisoners of war, I am not one of those who 
    accept statements like "Elmira was as bad as Andersonville".
    
    For a start, Elmira was almost twice as large as Andersonville
    (46 acres against 26), but held at maximum capacity one third
    as many men (10000 against 33000).
    
    Just looking at the statistics, one sees that in Andersonville
    28% of inmates died, in Elmira 24% died. BUT Andersonville was
    only open for approximately one year, Elmira was open for 4.5 
    years. Using these statistics, and figures of 13000 dead in total
    for Andersonville, 14000 for Elmira, I can up with the following
    probabilities. For comparison, chances of surviving a year in the 
    army without dying of illness in are also included:
    
    Chances of surviving a year in the army  		= 97.7%
    Chances of surviving a year in Elmira   		= 94.7%
    Chances of surviving a year in Andersonville 	= 74.7%
    
    The conclusion is that whereas Elmira was no doubt a brutal and
    unhealthy place, it does not rate the deadly reputation of 
    Andersonville. Recalling that one year was probably the longest
    one had to spend as a prisoner without exchange (roughly 1864)
    puts the figures into context.
    
    Bruce Catton points out that figures for prisoner of war camp
    deaths should be compared with the death rate in camp for a true
    comparison. A Civil War camp was not the healthiest of places,
    even in the Army of the Potomac, the best looked-after army on 
    either side. Something like 10% of men involved in the Civil
    War died of illness (compared to 5% from battle wounds), so that
    some camps like the one mentioned (in Boston) were possibly
    reasonable enough in the circumstances.
    
    In context I must point out that James McPherson gives the death
    rate at Johnson's Island as 2%. This is the camp where Wes (and
    Jefferson Davis) alleges that Southern prisoners were murdered
    by the commandant. Again, corroboration must be asked for.
    Those Southern boys didn't do too badly in the Northern cold 
    (though I'm sure it wasn't exactly a Holiday Inn, either). 
    One must also point out that the prisoners in Andersonville
    were not provided with any cover whatsoever from the hot Georgia
    sun, nor were they allowed go to the surrounding woods to obain 
    any. Their only water for drinking and sanitation came from a 
    stream that ran through the camp.
    
    The worst camp in terms of straightforward deathrate was a Southern
    one at Salisbury, North Carolina, where 34% of men died in a camp
    holding about 10000 men.
    
    The one major reason for the higher death rate of prisoners in
    Southern camps is their inefficiency in maintaining the system -
    but they were also less efficient in supplying their army in the
    field. Altogether 15.5% of Northern prisoners died in Confederate
    camps (thought by many to be an underestimate) and 12% of Southern
    prisoners died in Northern camps.
    
    To conclude, we must again recognise that both sides must be allocated
    a fair portion of blame and shame for the treatment of prisoners, but
    to allege that one side "did its best" while the other deliberately
    let prisoners die is stretching the issue way beyond what the 
    statistics and facts tell us.
    
    Toby

    
    The above note on "Deaths by Disease" gives some good statistics:
    
    Deaths from illness in Union Army = 	9%
    
    Northerners who died as prisoners of war =	15.5% *
    
    Deaths from illness in Confed Army =	13%
    
    Southerners who died as prisoners of war =	12%
    
    * Almost all authorities think this is an underestimate. The South
      did not keep good records.
    
    Except for the result that Southerners who got captured saw a marginal
    incease in survival chances (probably not significant statistically),
    the figures tell us what we expected: Both sides treated their
    prisoners less well than they treated their own soldiers.
    
    Given the death rate in some camps (like Salisbury, Elmira and
    Andersonville) was as high as 34%, 24% and 28%, and in others like
    Johnson's Island, or the one in Boston, it was as low as 2%,
    survival as a prisoner probably depended on the luck of being sent 
    to a relatively humane camp. Attitude of the guards and camp commander
    was probably critical. 
    
    Length of time before you were exchanged was another major factor.
    I would guess that the breakdown of the exchange system probably
    contributed up to half the fatalaties.
    
    Toby

    I don't think you can point the finger at anyone for the pitiful
    condition of prisoners. First, I don't think there was a precedent in
    American History for taking care of POWs in such large numbers. There
    was the parole honor system in the Revolution and the Mexican War was
    very quick and localized. Who could have foreseen the problem prior to
    the Civil War? And who had time to resolve it once the war was on? With
    communications deficiencies (no T.V.), lack of management expertise (no
    Red Cross), and no highly visible activists (i.e. Amnesty Int'l) how
    could anyone expect anything different in the midst of the greatest war
    in the history of the continent?
    
    Besides, POWs have never been treated well by anyone.  At the end of 
    World War II thousands of German prisoners died because there was no
    way to feed and cloth such massive numbers of soldiers already suffering
    from poor health. Supplies were needed to end the war and that's where
    the priority was. (Never mind the treatment of POWs by the Nazis, the
    Japanese, North Koreans, Russians, etc.) I imagine the CW was the same,
    the jailers were not necesarily brutal, the system just couldn't handle
    the overload. Sad, but can't see how it could have been any different.    
                

    
    I can't accept the previous note. The soldiers of both sides also
    suffered from the inexperience of their support organisations,
    yet the figures clearly show that neither sides treated prisoners
    the same as they treated their own soldiers, as they were morally
    bound to do.
    
    It should not be shrugged off as unavoidable: Lincoln, Davis, Grant,
    Lee are all culpable in equal measure, even allowing for the
    limitations of the period.
    
    
    
    Toby

    
    Can anyone illuminate further the character of Henry Wirz?
    
    I did see a dramatization of his trial, with William Shatner as
    prosecutor (guess who was the good guys!), and it gave a reasonably
    credible picture, not all bad.
    
    Wirz came across as a type who unfortumately often turn up in war as
    commanders among the rear echelons: He had the breeding and social
    class to be considered officer material, but obvious lacked the
    physical and emotional strength required for service in the field.
    Product of a childhood without love or affection, a cold
    bureaucrat who cared more for his rules and regulatons that for 
    people (though I think he had a family). He could not be considered
    cruel or sadistic, but was given to outbursts of rage when crossed.
    He was alleged to have physically assaulted prisoners.
    
    The parallel to Nuremberg/ death camps was rather heavily drawn.
    However, the court (chaired by Lew Wallace, author of "Ben Hur")
    were seemingly very wary of the precedent they were setting, of
    trying a man for wartime acts. 
    
    In my Catholic education, we learned about sins of ommission,
    and sins of commission. Sins of commission are acts of evil,
    sins of ommission consist of allowing evil to happen through
    inaction. Wirz's sins were sins of ommission, and the Court 
    seemed to find that he could and should have done more to save
    the lives of men in his charge.
    
    I hope someone had more knowledge of Wirz and Andersonville.
    Or about other Wirzs who got away scot-free.
    
    Toby
    

    Re .9
    
    I haven't done a lot of research on this subject, as you obviously
    have, but I don't see how anybody was morally bound to treat prisoners
    as they did their own soldiers. There was no Geneva Convention as
    a basis of law governing the treatment of prisoners of which I am
    aware. It might be interesting to know if either side violated any
    agreement on the treatment of POWs. I believe one of the reasons the
    Red Cross was created in 1864 was because the treatment of POWs was so
    horrible worldwide. 
    
    As for the moral issue, we are talking war. Cities were burned down,
    civilians starved, POWs massacred (e.g. Fort Pillow) and in general all
    the nasty inhumane things that people do during war occurred. Some
    prisons appear to have been well run. Others appear to have been
    atrocious. But I don't see a systematic policy to mistreat prisoners as
    was evident by the Japanese, Russians, and Germans in WWII. I see a
    neglect based more on ignorance and incompetence than malice on the
    part of both North and South.
    
    There was a book written recently which tries to accuse Eisenhower of
    war crimes for the deaths of thousands of German POWs at the end of 
    WW II. Though many deaths regrettably did occur, it is obvious that it
    was only because of the inability of the Allies to support upwards of a
    million POWs while still engaged in a war. Accusing the leaders of the
    North and the Confederacy of war crimes would be like accusing FDR, and
    Churchill, and Eisenhower of the same. Not very realistic. 
    
    I'd like to think that if R.E. Lee commanded Andersonville and Lincoln
    commanded Elmira (directly) a lot fewer prisoners would have died. They
    would have found a way to improve things. As it was, they had a war to
    fight and were too removed. No shrug, just MHO.
    
    Tom                                                               
     
    

    
    I mean "morally bound" in the highest sense, for example, I'm sure
    both countries had laws against murdering defenceless people, starving 
    them, depriving them of adequate shelter etc. The is also a 
    natural, humane feeling that to do these things is wrong. Both
    sides also regarded themselves as Christians - it was a very religious
    age. Do you think in the matter of prisoners-of-war, the behaviour
    of the Union and Confederacy could be described as "Christian"?
    Both sides failed the prisoners, that is what I am saying: they 
    could have done more, but didn't.
    
    However, I am not accusing Lee, Lincoln etc. of "war crimes", that
    is not a concept that is generally applicable to the American Civil
    War, where a lot of the abuses (like that of the prisoners) were
    due to the primitive nature of the services available for soldiers
    in the field. There was a general failure of charity and humanity
    to prisoners on both sides, but except in certain cases I would
    not go along with the "war crimes" concept.
    
    You are right in that Wirz might have been hard done by to have
    been the only one tried - Forrest was never tried for Fort 
    Pillow. Whatever the rights and wrongs were, he surely had a 
    case to answer. There were other documented cases of the murder
    of black prisoners by Southern soldiers. On the other hand, 
    after Fort Pillow, black regiments were none to careful to save
    the lives of Southern prisoners, and the depredations of Sherman's
    troops in the South are well known.
    
    Perhaps "war crimes" trials would only have added to the bitterness.
    
    Toby

    
    	"If there was a hell on earth," wrote a Texan, "Elmira prison was
    that hell." No compound struck a deeper chill into the hearts of
    Confederate soldiers.
    	Opened in July 1864, it occupied 30 acres along New York's 
    Chemung River. Flooding of the river soon left a stagnant pool 40 feet
    wide and three to five feet deep in the center of the compound. Into
    the muck went garbage and thousands of gallons of camp sewage. The pond
    rapidly became a cesspool, a "festering mass of corruption" whose
    "pestilential odors" caused men who breathed them to vomit. Despite the
    health hazard that the pond presented, several months elapsed before
    William Hoffman gave the prisoners permission to build their own
    drainage ditch.
    	Other discomforts at Elmira went unremedied. After six months, the
    cheap, green lumber Hoffman had authorized for the barracks began to
    split and crack. Lacking foundations, the barracks' floors were 
    constantly cold and damp. And despite indications that the camp could
    expect 10,000 or more prisoners, preparations were made for barely half
    that. Only six weeks after Elmira opened, the barracks housed 9,600
    Rebels. As new prisoners arrived, they were crammed into hastily
    erected tents. And when tents ran out, some prisoners had to sleep out
    in the open.
    	Winter came early that year. The one stove allotted per barracks
    was woefully inadequate to warm the 200 inhabitants. Every morning,
    recalled a Confederate cavarlyman, "the men crawled out of their bunks
    shivering and half frozen, when a scuffle, and frequently a fight, for
    a place by the fire occurred. God help the sick or the weak, as they
    were literally left out in the cold."
    	In December 1864, it was reported that more than 1,600 of the
    prisoners at Elmira had inadequate clothing and no blankets. The
    inmates stood ankle-deep in snow that winter to answer morning roll
    call. Small wonder that for six of its 12 months of existence, Elmira
    led all Northern prisons in its death rate, an average of 10 a day.
    	Diarrhea and dysentery prostrated the men in droves. In September
    1864 scurvy afflicated fully one fifth of the camp. An inspector found
    the men "pale and emaciated, hollow-eyed and dispirited in every act
    and movement."
    	The commandant himself warned his superiors that if the rate of
    sickness continued at such levels, everyone in the camp would soon be
    dead. His predictions was not borne out, but the final tally was grim
    enough. By the time Elmira closed its gates in the summer of 1865, more
    than 12,000 Confederates had dwelt within its stockade; almost 3,000
    of them died there.
    
    						The Alabama Slammer
    

    
    	Re: 62.10
    
    		The commandant of Andersonville was Captain Henry Wirz.
    	A native of Switzerland, he had served nine years in various
    	European armies, absorbing their doctrines of rigid organization
    	and strict discipline, before becoming a physician in Louisiana.
    		After joining the Confederate Army, he was seriously
    	wounded at Seven Pines in 1862; the injury left one arm permanently
    	useless and Wirz himself in almost constant pain.
    		His accent was pronounced, and it grew thicker when he was
    	angered, which was often. The Federals who came under his command
    	after he became a prison commandant took an instant dislike to him.
    	One prisoner described him as "a most savage looking man, and who
    	was as brutal as his looks would seem to indicate."
    		Wirz was accused of every sort of atrocity. A Massachusetts
    	artilleryman asserted that when he arrived at Andersonville, Wirz
    	forced him and the other prisoners in his unit to stand in line
    	while he strolled back and forth in front of them waving a huge
    	pistol and shouting, "What'd you come down here for? First got-dam
    	man that falls out of line I blow him to hell. I make you wish you
    	stay at home!"
    		His accent, his foreign birth, his temper, and the
    	miserable conditions of his camp all combined to make Wirz a hated and
    	marked man. Many a prisoner under his rule vowed to take vengeance on
    	him if ever the War came to an end.
    		For all his faults, Wirz could hardly be held accountable
    	acute shortages at Andersonville. The remoteness of Andersonville
    	combined with the critical food, medicine, shelter and medical care
    	then plaguing the South, reduced rations to the point where the
    	men were on the brink of starvation. Both the guards and the 
    	prisoners.
    		I'm not claiming he wasn't at fault. Andersonville was
    	dark cloud in American history, but the question I'm asking is,
    	was he made a scapegoat to ease the conscience of America?
    
    		Just my $.02 worth...
    
    					The Alabama Slammer

    My limited knowledge on Andersonville comes from reading Mckinley
    Kantor's work many years ago and catching some of the Trial of Henry
    Wirz a few years back. I got two different impressions of the man.
    From the novel he came off as an aggressive bully but the trial
    portrayed him as a broken man who believed he "was just doing his job"
    and the misery of the prisoners was beyond his control. How close
    either came to real life I don't know. I'm fairly sure that the sight
    of suffering and dying Yanks did not bother him too much. 
    
    Does anyone recall what legal points the defense made in his defense?
    I'm sure the conditions in Northern prisons must have been pointed out.
    Also that the guards fared little better than the prisoners. I'd like
    to know what statutes he was charged with violating. Not that it
    matters a whole lot. He was measured for a hemp neck-tie before he ever
    got to trial.
    
    Tom  

    Re: .15
    
    	In May 1865, Federal authorities arrested Wirz and took him to
    Washington, where he appeared before a military tribunal.
    	The commandant of Andersonville was accused of conspiring "to 
    injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military
    service of the United States." More serious than that, he was charged
    with "murder in violation of the laws and customs of war."
    	Wirz's trial that summer was flawed. Witness after witness gave
    testimony of the commandant's misdeeds, but some of it was blatanly
    contrived. Prosecutors manipulated evidence to suit their case, and the
    defense was denied motion after motion.
    	The press called Wirz "the Andersonville savage", "the inhuman
    wretch", "the infamous Captain". Wirz repeatedly protested that he was
    merely a soldier carrying out orders in a dire situation.
    	The outcome of Wirz's trial was never in doubt from the moment it
    began. Found guilty on all charges, Wirz calmly mounted the gallows on
    November 10, 1865, amid an almost carnival atmosphere.
    	Reporters flocked around the scaffold in the yard of the Old
    Capitol Prison. Soldiers lining the walls chanted over and over again,
    "Andersonville, Andersonville," until the trap dropped and Wirz was
    dead.
    
    					The Alabama Slammer
    	

    
    	A study of conditions in both Northern and Southern prisons was
    undertaken by the United States Sanitary Commission in 1864. The
    commission's conclusion, summed up in a biased and inflammatory report,
    was that Confederate prison authorities had endorsed outrageously cruel
    practices and deprivations as part of " a predetermined plan for
    destroying and disabling the soldiers of their enemy." The report
    claimed that in Northern prisons, by contrast, Confederate soldiers had
    plenty to eat; mess funds had been provided so generously that there 
    was even a surplus, which was being used to buy the prisoners luxuries.
    	The fact was, North or South, the inmates were never far from
    starvation. A South Carolinian noted that his daily prison fare at
    Point Lookout, Maryland, was a half a pint of "slop water" coffee for
    breakfast and a half pint of "greasy water" soup for dinner, followed
    by a small piece of meat. "The writer has known large, stout men to lay
    in their tents at night and cry like babies from hunger," he said.
    	The meat and bacon available to men on both sides was described in
    letters and journals as "rusty" and "slimey" and the other fare was no
    better. A Confederate declared that the soup at Fort Delaware came
    filled with "white worms, half an inch long." It was a standing joke,
    he wrote, "that the soup was too weak to drown the rice worms and pea
    bugs, which, however, came to death by starvation."
    	But, to near-starving men, any fare would do: "Ate it raw," reads
    one entry in Private George Hegeman's dairy, presumably referring to
    his meat ration. "Could not wait to cook it."
    	In the absence of adequate protein, prison rats were staple fare.
    "We traped for Rats and the Prisoners Eat Every one they could get,"
    wrote a soldier of the 4th Arkansas at Johnson's Island. "I taken a
    mess of Fried Rats. They was all right to a hungry man, was like Fried
    squirrels." And no matter what they ate, the prisoners learned to eat
    their food quickly for fear it might be seized by their messmates.
    Vicious and sometimes deadly brawls exploded over a few morsels of
    spoiled meat.
    	More often than not, drinking water in the prisons was tainted.
    One Confederate found Point Lookout's supply " so impregnated with some
    mineral as to offend every nose, and induce diarrhea in almost every
    alimentary canal. It colors every thing black in which it is allowed to
    rest, and a scum rises on the top of a vessel if it is left standing
    during the night, which reflects the prismatic colors as distinctly as
    the surface of a stagnant pool."
    	The barracks in many prisons were primitive structures - wet, cold
    and unsanitary. In a communication to William Hoffman, U.S. Secretary
    of War Edwin Stanton made it clear that in the North primitive housing
    should be the rule: 'The Secretary of War is not disposed, in view of
    the treatment our prisoners of war are recieving, to erect fine
    estabilsments for their prisoners." In keeping with this injunction,
    the builder of the prison at Rock Island was told by Quartermaster
    General Meigs that the barracks "should be put up in the roughest and
    cheapest manner, mere shanties, with no fine work about them." At Camp
    Morton in Indianapolis, the barracks had no floors and were so flimsy
    that the snow and rain blew through them.
    	At most installations, filth built up inside and outside the
    barracks, inviting swarms of pests. "The vermin was so plenty,"
    observed a Rhode Islander, "that the boys said they have regimental
    drills." A Confederate at Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., good-
    naturedly remarked how he and his mates would get together against the
    insects and have "a promiscuous slaughter, regardless of age or sex. 
    But they must recruit from the other side, like the Yankee army, as we
    can notice no diminution in the forces."
    	Noting the infestation of the Camp Douglas barracks in Chicago, the
    president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission remarked that "nothing but
    fire can cleanse them."
    	Infested garments could not be discarded, for there was little
    other clothing available. Many prisoners, particularly the
    Confederates, arrived in the camps with their uniforms in tatters. The
    need for clothing was so acute that the living seized the garments of
    those who died. Prisoners in much of the South experienced mild
    winters. But in much of the Federal camps, inmates had to endure ice
    and snow, and overcoats and blankets were scarce. At Johnston's Island,
    ill-clad Confederate prisoners from the Gulf states suffered intensely
    from the winter winds off Lake Erie that cut through their barracks
    almost unimpeded. Survivors of the camp bore vivid memories of some of
    their comrades freezing to death on the bitter New Year's Day of 1864.
    	"From the crowded conditions, filthy habits, bad diet and dejected
    depressed condition of the prisoners, their systems had become so
    disordered that the smallest abrasion of skin, from the rubbing of a
    shoe, or from the effects of the sun, the prick of a splinter or the
    scratching of a mosquito bite, in some cases took on a rapid and
    frightful ulceration and gangrene."
    	Survivors of the camps remembered how men used to press a thumb
    into their flesh to see if a discoloration was left in the indentation.
    That meant scurvy. Victims of the disease would lose their teeth, along
    with their hair. Then they could not walk. Finally they died. Sometimes
    scurvy reached epidemic proportions. Just three months after a prison
    camp opened at Elmira, New York, 1,870 cases of scurvy were counted.
    At Fort Delaware between November 1863 and February 1864, at least 1 of
    every 8 Confederate prisoners suffered from the disease.
    	Fresh vegetables could have cured the problem, and they were
    available for purchase at Fort Delaware. But Colonel Hoffman insisted
    that only absolute necessities be bought, and vegetables were
    considered a luxury. Thus $23,000 remained in the Fort Delaware relief
    fund, even as hundreds of men languished with scurvy.
    	Prison hospitals were feared almost more than the diseases they
    were supposed to treat. At Chicago's Camp Douglas, sick Rebels lay in
    the hospital on cots that did not have mattresses, sheets or any other
    sort of bedding. In January and February of 1863, men died there at the
    rate of six a day, while twice that number died in the barracks each
    day, unable to find space in the hospital. Naive hospital attendants
    who frequently were paroled prisoners, cleaned wounds by pouring dirty
    water over them; the water then seeped into the earth, providing a
    breeding ground for insects. Flies swarmed over the patients, laying
    their eggs in open wounds.
    	The prisoners' conversations tended to gravitate to the same
    tantalizing topic: the possibility of being exchanged or released 
    outright, the chances of making it home.
    	Prisoners were permitted to write letters, but these were heavily
    censored and usually limited to one page. A surprising number of men
    managed to keep intimate journals, using whatever scraps of paper they
    could find and employing ink made from rust. Some found solace in
    religious services or in prayer. "Often while walking the floor of the
    prison, I repeat the Lord's Prayer," wrote  a Confederate prisoner on
    Johnston's Island, " and I find my whole mind absorbed upon the subject
    of my future state of existence or my appearing before God."
    
    						The Alabama Slammer 

I'd like to toss another parameter into this discussion.  I ran across
some numbers the other night detailing Union casualties during the war.
They were broken down not only by cause of death, but by officers/private
soldiers.  I remember them well enough to make my point:

                        Officers               Privates

Died of wounds           6000+                 110,000+

Died of disease          2000+                 190,000+

Died in prison             80+                  23,000+


What these numbers suggest to me is that officers were treated better
(by far!) both by their own army and by their Confederate captors.  My
point is that the greater distinction can be made between treatment of
Officers/Privates than between Union/Confederate prisoners.



Ben

Does anyone know the number of officers that served and the number of privates
that served?

The percentages would interest me more than the raw numbers.


dave

    
    The above war statistics and accounts are worth some comment:
    
    They certainly belie the assertion that there were two federal prison
    camps where the death toll surpassed Andersonville. 3,000 dead at
    Elmira is 23% of the Andersonville total of 13000. 
    
    It is also to be noted that Elmira was open mainly in the very year
    that the prisoner exchange scheme broke down. Had that cartel
    continued, many of the 3000 would have survived.
    
    Elmira was certainly a savage place - 78% chance of surviving
    a year. Wes and I had been under the impression that the camp had
    been open for the entire war.
    
    I have noticed that officers seemed to be exchanged more quickly than
    privates - also, the Andersonville prisoners were composed entirely of 
    enlisted men.
    
    Conditions were certainly grim for the troops of both sides. It
    bears out that North and South failed even by their own standards
    to properly care for, or be charitable to, prisoners.
    
    Toby
    

re .-2

Dave,

The point I should have made more clearly in my -.3 is that for privates in
the Union army, disease was more deadly than enemy fire, while for Union
officers it was the reverse.  This, to me, means that the Army treated its
officers much better than its private soldiers.  No big surprise, I suppose.

Further, the miniscule number of Union officers who died in Southern
prison camps means that the South treated its enemy's officers better than
its enemy's enlisted men.

Overall, then, a case might be made to show that rank (and implicitly, social
class) had more of a bearing upon whether you survived the war than the
differences between Northern and Southern armies or prisons.

Hope this is clearer.


Ben

    RE .21:
    
    As they stand, your data do not support your conclusions.  For
    instance, the small number of officers who died in prison _must_ be
    compared to the total number of officers _held_ in prison in order to
    draw any conclusion about relative treatment of officers and privates.
    I _think_ that captured officers were usually, or at least quickly,
    paroled - meaning they were released on a promise not to serve until
    they were officially exchanged, so that they were not actually held
    long in prison.
    
    Also, officers were certainly treated differently in many other respects 
    from enlisted men.  They got money to buy rations instead of rations "in
    kind", and so might have suffered less from dietary deficiencies.  They
    did not sleep 4 or 12 to a tent, which might have reduced their
    exposure to some diseases.  It is possible, but not certain, that on
    the average officers would have been more conscious of hygene than
    enlisted men, which would also have cut down on disease - even in the
    age before the germ theory.
    
    Another "skew" that your statistics might reflect is that veteran
    regiments tended to have few sick; most of the soldiers who couldn't
    stand the rough conditions of daily army life got sick early in the
    career of a unit (or perhaps in exceptionally bad circumstances like
    the winter of '62-'63 at Falmouth in the AoP).  In that situation, more
    new enlisted men would get sick than new officers (if for no other
    reason than that there were lots more of them).  However, officer
    casualties in veteran units might stay high; especially as the war
    dragged on, the best officers - those who were in the front of an
    attack and the rear of a retreat - had more chances to get shot.
    
    I would not disagree with your statement that officers were treated
    "better" than privates in the Union Army - or in any army I have ever
    heard of, for that matter!  :^)  But that conclusion could be reached
    without even looking at death statistics, simply by comparing
    differences in living conditions.  I'd be interested to know, in
    _percentage_ terms, whether it was more "dangereous" to be an officer
    or an enlisted man in the Civil War...
    
    MikeR

    I remember reading an excerpt from the diary of a yank who was captured
    in the opening days of the Penninsula.  He was sent to one of the
    prisons just outside of Richmond (I don't remember which one, but it
    was on an island in the James).  This was early in the war, but he
    still described the lack of food clothing and shelter in vivid terms.
    At one point, he and some others enticed a dog belonging to one of the
    guards into their lean-to and promptly made a stew out of it.  The
    guard later came around tearfully offering a $10 reward to any prisoner
    who could find the family pet.  The prisoner felt bad about what he'd
    done, especially as the guard was one of the kinder ones, but he kept
    his mouth shut: he was still hungry and there was stew left for another
    meal or two.  He wrote something to the effect that owing to the size
    of the reward offered it was the most expensive stew he'd ever eaten,
    but that no meal had ever tasted better given the circumstances.
    
    Ziff

    Soetimes ago I read "Andersonvill" By John McElroy.  He was a survivor
    of the prison.  It is a very grim diary of his days in Andersonvill. 
    It is very similar to stories told by POWs coming back from the USSR in 
    the 50s and 60s.  There is very little compassion in civil or religious
    wars even today.   

    Re: .18
    
    The comparatively better survival rate of officers was due to the fact
    that the ACW was considered to be a war between gentlemen.  Officers
    were gentlemen - they were better educated and of higher social
    standing than privates, who were often (but not always) poor and badly
    educated.  Gentlemen, obviously, deserved better treatment than trash -
    this attitude had its antecedents in the chivalric traditions of the
    Middle Ages.  In many cases, officers were even allowed to roam freely
    about (and even outside) their prisons after giving their parole not to
    escape.  Gentlemen, it seems, could be trusted to keep their word...
    
    -dick

    RE .25:
    
    Your statement about officers being gentlemen, of a higher social
    standing than the enlisted men, _might_ be an accurate "general"
    statement about the Confederacy, but I don't think it holds for the
    Union - not even in the upper echelons.  Remember that many (maybe
    most) volunteer regiments _elected_ their officers.
    
    Grant, for instance, was no "gentleman".  I think the lieutenant
    colonel of the 24th Michigan was a county sherriff (admittedly someone
    of local influence, but not exactly someone with "social standing"). 
    McClellan and Burnside were successful businessmen.  (These are just
    some I happen to remember off the top of my head.)
    
    It may well be true that officers were better educated than average,
    but I haven't seen any data, so I don't know.  Colonels tended to be
    people with good political connections, since state governors appointed
    almost all of them initially, so they would usually have been people
    who were prominent in their locality - but that is _not_ the same thing
    as being "gentlemen".
    
    I'm also not sure how sharp the distinction was on parole.  I seem to
    recall that sometimes both officers and enlisted men were released on
    parole rather than being held in prison camps until exchanged.  Anyone
    know more about that?  I have read that some officers were kept in
    prison (Libby Prison in Richmond was one, I think), but I don't know
    enough about circumstances or timing to go further.
    
    .25 may be right about historic patterns for treating officers &
    enlisted differntly being a major factor, but I don't think that the
    social distinctions which gave rise to those patterns applied during
    the ACW, especially in the Union Army.
    
    MikeR
    

    Ah, Mike, but we're talking of perceptions here, aren't we?  And, as
    you point out, the perception of the gentleman officer was was quite
    strong in the South.  Southerners treated captured officers better
    because that was their view of officers -- Northerners did it because
    the captured officers were in fact gentlemen.
    
    -dick

      Is there a list of prisoners who were in Libby Prison?  I was told that
  Libby kept a very accurate listing, however, I don't know if the list is
  available.  My GGrandfather was supposedly a prisoner there, I have a poem
  that he supposedly wrote while at Libby.  I'd like to confirm if he was
  indeed a prisoner.  He mustered out as a Private. I thought Libby only 
  held higher ranking soldiers.

      Gary

    Re .28
    
    I'd try contacting the National Archives to find if there is a list. 
    Another possibility might be the U. S. Army's records office in St.
    Louis.  Your easiest avenue is probably to go surfing on the Wide Workd
    Web, I think.  :-)