Page News & Courier
Heritage and Heraldry
County had not-so-pleasant prisoner-of-war experience
Article of March 12, 1998
Prison life, in both the North and South, has often been either exaggerated or sugar-coated in order to substantiate the denials that came out of the war. However, it is often said that "history speaks for itself."Neither side was prepared for prisoners-of-war. However, by the close of the war over 410, 000 soldiers, North and South, had been imprisoned in various POW Camps; nearly one-eighth of those that had served in the entire war.
From available records it can be estimated that over 1,350 men served from Page County in the Confederacy during the war including those that served in the regular volunteer units, reserves, militia and other various units formed outside of Page. Of that number, approximately 950 men were frequently "on-the-line" with active regular volunteers. Even from this number we cannot yet (but give me time) give a fair assessment of those that served strictly from Page County as a number of men in the units that were formed in Page County actually came from other counties or states. Nevertheless, after all "ciphering" has been completed, approximately 170 (eighteen percent) Page men found themselves on the wrong side of the fence when the battles were over. Of that number, fortunately less than one percent of the Page men died of disease while in the camps. By comparison, the overall death rate average of the POW camps stood at thirteen percent.
After capture they were sent to three of the four winds (excluding, of course, that "southerly wind"); including POW camps in Illinois, Libby Prison (it was converted from holding Federal POW's to Confederate POW's at war's end) in Richmond, and the infamous "Helmira" or Elmira prison camp in New York state. More than 75 of Page's POW's found their way into Elmira.
While conditions for POW's in any war are typically poor, Civil War prisons were extraordinarily inhumane. It was worse in that Americans were mistreating Americans. While conditions at Camp Sumter/Andersonville were appalling, supplies and manpower were more readily available to the POW camps in the North to rectify poor conditions; sanitary and otherwise. After all, the manpower in the Northern armies represented only a fraction of what was available, continuing to support the theory that the North fought the war with one arm tied behind their back.
Not unlike Andersonville, while at Elmira, prisoners were continually insulted and belittled by the guards. To add insult to injury, tickets were sold to Northern citizens to take a look into the Elmira prison camp from observation towers. In an account by one prisoner, mention was even made of a "sweat-box" as a means of discipline in Elmira. Ultimately, Elmira could be fairly compared as the Andersonville of the North, sustaining the highest mortality rate of the POW camps in the North.
Does the article sound biased? I'll remain somber but pleasantly neutral and straddling the fence in this argument and state that I have indirect ancestors that lie buried today near the confines of the camps that once held them at Andersonville, Elmira and Point Lookout.
Excellent sources are becoming more readily available on this darker side of the war including one of the newer books on the subject entitled Portals to Hell, by Lonnie R. Speer. A much older book worth reviewing, when it comes to at least three Page County POW's, is entitled The Immortal Six Hundred. Web sites are also becoming available including the Elmira Prison Camp On-Line Library which can be reached at: ');
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