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

5. Federal Policies at the Four Major Prisons in Illinois and Indiana

–5– FEDERAL POLICIES AT THE FOUR MAJOR PRISONS IN ILLINOIS AND INDIANA TO THIS POINT THE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN MADE that Union officials enacted policies that cannot accurately be termed negligent or abusive. Their policies towards captured Confederate soldiers and officers were well within the boundaries of the rules of war as defined and accepted by both sides during the Civil War. Yankee regulations were designed to provide prisoners with the basic necessities for survival: food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Of course, setting policies and actually having them implemented adequately can be two completely different things, as anyone familiar with government bureaucracies will readily confirm. Therefore a brief examination of major individual Northern prisons is necessary to determine whether or not the charges of negligence and abuse leveled at Yankee authorities are as irrefutable as many commentators have maintained for over a century. Alton Alton prison, located in Illinois on the banks of the Mississippi River, was opened in 1833 as Illinois’s first state prison. For nearly thirty years Alton served the state in that capacity until a newer facility was built at Joliet. By 1860 Alton was empty, all of its prisoners having been released after serving their debts to society or being transferred to Joliet. The prison would not remain unoccupied for long, however. When the Civil War erupted and failed to end in a single climactic battle as many had hoped, the unforeseen 109 problem of what to do with prisoners of war became an increasingly thorny issue for both governments. As early as December 1861, Union officials began looking at Alton as a place to house Confederate prisoners. The idea made perfect sense because the prison was already there, it was unoccupied , and the government would not have to spend a great deal to get Alton ready to receive Southern prisoners. Beginning in February 1862, Confederate prisoners began arriving at Alton, where the population would range from between 500 and 1,800 at its most crowded in January 1865. Generally the average was between 1,000 and 1,400 prisoners.1 Perhaps because Alton was one of the smaller prisons and one that lacked the notorious reputation of an Elmira or Fort Delaware, this Northern prison was not singled out very often by Lost Cause-era polemicists . That certainly was not because Alton was comfortable or healthy compared to other larger and more notorious prison camps. In fact, during the Civil War, nearly 1,500 Southern prisoners died at Alton, which works out to roughly one prisoner per day. Such a statistic shows that life at Alton could be precarious, but the more meaningful thing to determine is whether that statistic reveals Federal negligence and abuse of Alton prisoners. Prisoners’ experiences at the prison would have varied quite a bit between 1863 and 1865, running from pretty decent to utterly deplorable. The reason lay largely with the rather large amount of turnover in the facility ’s commandant position. Between the exchange cartel’s suspension in the spring of 1863 and the war’s end, no fewer than four officers ran the post with varying degrees of skill and efficiency. The result was a lack of continuity in leadership during the war’s final two years that adversely affected living conditions at Alton. At the time the cartel was suspended, Alton was run by Major T. Hendrickson, who showed commendable concern for the prisoners’ welfare. In April and May 1863 he was in constant contact with Colonel William Hoffman about soliciting estimates and approval for fixing the hospital’s leaky roof. He explained to Hoffman that he would need to spend $2,000 to replace the existing roof “in order to have a good tight roof upon [the hospital .]” In June of the same year, Hendrickson expressed his concern that Alton was getting far too crowded. That month the population shot up to over 1,700 prisoners. Surgeon Augustus M. Clark, Hoffman’s prison inspector and his eyes and ears at the various prisons, said that Alton’s absolute maximum should be no more than 1,200 inmates, making Hendrickson’s concerns very valid. During that summer the population was reduced at the site by between 300 and 400 prisoners—not ideal but certainly a step in the 110 ANDERSONVILLES OF THE NORTH right direction. But perhaps the best evidence that Major Hendrickson took seriously his duty to care for the prisoners according...