Military Prisons of the Civil War PDF Download

Author: Charles W. Sanders, Jr.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807166634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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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.

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

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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.

Author: Cecil B. Currey
Publisher: Potomac Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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"Long Binh Jail was a place so feared that American soldiers would rather face the Viet Cong than be sent there." "Known as "LBJ" or simply "The Stockade," it was officially the U.S. Army Installation Stockade in Long Binh, South Vietnam. Within its confines were Americans whose offenses ran the gamut from drug possession, insubordination, and AWOL, to assault, rape, and murder. Containing up to a thousand prisoners at a time, Long Binh jail was, in effect, the Army's own little penal colony and one sharply divided by racial tensions." "In 1968, these tensions erupted when most of its African-American prisoners took over the prison compound. The riot, which had to be put down by armed American troops using tear gas, was noted around the world as another sign of the sagging morale of U.S. forces. Noted military historian Cecil Barr Currey tells the story of Long Binh jail through the words of dozens of former guards, prisoners, and administrators. They reveal a disturbing aspect of the Vietnam War that has not been examined until now."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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

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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

Author: William Best Hesseltine
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873381291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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"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.

Author: Lonnie R. Speer
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803293427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
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.

Author: Michael P. Spradlin
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545861519
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
He lied about his age to enlist. Now he'll have to lie about everything else to survive! Survive the war. Outlast the enemy. Stay alive. That's what Henry Forrest has to do. When he lies about his age to join the Marines, Henry never imagines he'll face anything worse than his own father's cruelty. But his unit is shipped off to the Philippines, where the heat is unbearable, the conditions are brutal, and Henry's dreams of careless adventuring are completely dashed.Then the Japanese invade the islands, and US forces there surrender. As a prisoner of war, Henry faces one horror after another. Yet among his fellow captives, he finds kindness, respect, even brotherhood. A glimmer of light in the darkness. And he'll need to hold tight to the hope they offer if he wants to win the fight for his country, his freedom . . . and his life. Michael P. Spradlin's latest novel tenderly explores the harsh realities of the Bataan Death March and captivity on the Pacific front during World War II.

Author: Asa Brainerd Isham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military prisons
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Author: Henry Wirz
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781017440324
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author: Dorothy H. McDaniel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781936488483
Category : Prisoners of war
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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As an American asked to serve, I was prepared to fight, to be wounded, to be captured and even prepared to die, but I was not prepared to be abandoned. It is that one American is not worth the effort to be found, we, as Americans, have lost. These are the words of Captain Eugene Red McDaniel, who for six years was prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. For three of those years, he was listed missing in action. During those tumultuous years, his wife Dorothy McDaniel clung to her faith, knowing that he was still alive. It was her fight to find information on her POW husband, and his subsequent release from a North Vietnam prison that prompted them both to fight to have the United States government conduct search and rescue missions for prisoners they believed were still being held. In this 20th anniversary edition of After the Hero's Welcome, read the story that shows the war didn't end for either Dorothy or her husband when he was released. The war on behalf of the many POWs still in North Vietnam prisons was just getting started.