The World’s Largest Prison: The Story of Camp Lawton by John K. Derden, and: Captives in Blue: The Civil War Prisons of the Confederacy by Roger Pickenpaugh (review)

These two works serve as a study in contrasts in differing trends of Civil War prison historiography. John Derden’s Camp Lawton book is a detailed micromonograph on the history of that Confederate prison near Millen, Georgia. In contrast, Roger Pickenpaugh’s work is a general macro-monograph of southern prisons, affording a wider range of camps and intertwining captivity themes in a comparative fashion. Although these authors have crafted their material in differing methodologies, both add to the prison camp historiography.

Derden’s The World’s Largest Prison: The Story of Camp Lawton is a thorough history of that stockade, with the benefit of newly unearthed findings. The author readily admits that although he is not a Civil War specialist, rather a Europeanist, he is nonetheless a trained historian for whom the prison experience held endless fascination. Derden, a passionate scholar of the Civil War, took advantage of Camp Lawton’s proximity along with the material culture recently discovered from an archaeological excavation at Magnolia State Park (site of Camp Lawton). Thus, the reader profits from not only Derden’s meticulous archival research but also the painstaking work of Georgia Southern University’s archaeology team.

Derden contends that his volume is the first full-length, comprehensive examination of Camp Lawton, and he mostly succeeds, but it is more of a narrative than an interpretative study. The book follows the pioneering work of anthropologist David Bush, who for more than twenty-five years has been digging at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, another Civil War prison. With his recent I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island, Bush meshes archeological findings through artifacts and historical inquiry through letters into a thesis. Although Derden falls short in this respect, he nonetheless provides a comprehensive look at a camp that existed for some six weeks, which is impressive, as this book is more than three hundred pages. Moreover, it attempts to answer some questions heretofore unresolved, and it brings together the eclectic efforts of historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists.

The book is divided into eight chapters and a conclusion, examining its selection site (much of it to alleviate overcrowding at other prisons like Camp Sumter, or Andersonville, which was only about twenty-six acres); construction of the compound and facilities, with much of Lawton’s design mirroring Andersonville. Unlike Andersonville, Camp Lawton had a good water supply, with Magnolia Springs, and its hospital care was also better. Derden delves into the transfer of prisoners and prison life, inmate population, escapes, and guard force. Derden finds Lawton prisoners had much more favorable opinions of prison administrators than those at Andersonville. Camp Lawton’s brief history ran parallel to Sherman’s March to Savannah, which threatened the stockade and ultimately led to its abandonment. Archaeological investigation supports documentation that Union forces burned the stockade but did not entirely destroy it. Mortality figures are more hazy: “We have only approximations of how many Union soldiers were incarcerated there; we do not know the exact number of deaths; and as a result we cannot calculate the precise death rate” (166). Records indicate it held more than 10,000 captives, and some sources indicate death total as high as 1,646 and as low as 486.

Author Roger Pickenpaugh’s broader Captives in Blue: The Civil War Prisons of the Confederacy is an ambitious attempt to detail Confederate prisons in fourteen chapters. Although the monograph is expansive, it is not exhaustive—many prisons are included, yet not all, and well-known camps overshadow the lesser-known but no less important ones. Also absent are new revelations or original insight. The work might disappoint scholars...