Andersonvilles of the North: The Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment of Civil War Confederate Prisoners

Image Plates

Above: Andersonville Prison as it appeared in August 1864. Courtesy Library of Congress. Left: A returned prisoner from Andersonville. To date, no comparable photo of Confederate prisoners has surfaced. Courtesy Library of Congress. Left: These drawings, copied from photographs, appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in June 1864. These extreme cases were used during and after the war to illustrate Southern barbarity. Courtesy Library of Congress. Below: Confederate Winter Quarters, Manassas, Virginia, 1862, showing the living quarters of soldiers in the field. When on active campaign the soldiers would have had only tents. Courtesy Library of Congress. Opposite upper: A Union regiment establishing winter quarters along the James River. Union Quartermaster-General Montgomery Meigs did not see why Confederate prisoners’ quarters should be superior to what U.S. soldiers occupied. Courtesy Library of Congress. Opposite lower: CommissaryGeneral of Prisoners, Colonel William Hoffman, 1865. Courtesy Library of Congress. Left: Commandant of Camp Morton in 1862, Colonel Owen was so respected by prisoners that they commissioned this bust as a tribute to him after the war. Courtesy Indiana Historical Society, P130. Below: Union prisoners being marched to exchange point, Aiken’s Landing, South Carolina, February 1865. Exchanges never entirely ceased. Sick and injured prisoners were sometimes exchanged. Courtesy Library of Congress. Opposite upper: Wharf on the James where lucky prisoners were exchanged. Courtesy Library of Congress. Opposite lower: Confederate prisoners being marched to the rear, then to Union prison camps. Notice the injured man in the foreground. Thousands of prisoners who entered the camps were either sick or injured, contributing to the mortality found in them. Courtesy Library of Congress. 1864 drawing of Point Lookout, Maryland. Courtesy Library of Congress. Confederate prisoners awaiting transport to Northern prisons, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1864. Courtesy Library of Congress. Aerial view of Pea Patch Island and Fort Delaware, a major depot for Confederate prisoners during the war. Courtesy Library of Congress. Camp Morton, Indiana. Prisoners here lived in wooden barracks heated by stoves in the winter. Contrary to Lost Cause tales, these prisoners were not robbed of blankets or forced to do without proper clothing. Courtesy Indiana Historical Society, P388. Wartime artwork done by a Confederate prisoner showing something of the condition of the inmates and their living quarters at Camp Chase, Ohio. Courtesy Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. Elmira was the most lethal of the Northern prisons and was sometimes called “Hellmira.” This photo of prisoners at roll call in late 1864 contrasts sharply with those of Andersonville. The tents were replaced for guards and prisoners with wooden barracks by the first of the year. Courtesy Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. ...