John Adams Dix
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Co-author of the Dix-Hill Cartel that established the terms for
North/South POW exchange.
1798-1879
John Adams Dix was born on July 24, 1798, in Boscawen, New Hampshire. He first saw action as an ensign at 14, and served under father, Lt. Col. Timothy Dix, in the War of 1812. Young Dix resigned from the service in 1828. He entered business in Cooperstown, New York; and became a Jacksonian Democrat politician. Dix served as state adjutant general, state school superintendent and a member of the Albany Regency, and was a member of the US Senate (1845-1850). For the next
ten years, he was president of 2 railroads, while practicing law in New York City. In 1859, President James Buchanan appointed Dix postmaster of New York City; and, in 1861, Dix was made US Secretary of the Treasury. After he started his term, he issued the famous "American Flag Dispatch": "If anyone attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." Dix received the first commission from President Lincoln as major general of volunteers, dated May 16, 1861. Thus, Dix outranked all other volunteer officers until the end of the Civil War. He commanded the Department of Annapolis and the Department of Pennsylvania in 1861, the Middle Department in 1862, the Department of Virginia in 1862 and 1863 and the Department of the East to the end of the war. Dix made a great contribution to the Union war effort by suppressing the New York draft riots in 1863. He resigned in 1865, returning to private life. Soon, however, he was appointed minister to France, and was elected governor of 1872. He was not reelected, however, and spent the rest of his years in retirement. Dix died on April 21, 1879, in New York City. Fort Dix, an army installation in southern New Jersey, is named after him.
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THE DIX-HILL CARTEL . . .
In the very beginning of the Civil War, prisoners of war were exchanged right on the battlefield, a private for a private, a
sergeant for a sergeant and a captain for a captain. In 1862 this system broke down and caused the creation of large holding pens for prisoners in both the North and South. On July 18, 1862, Major General John A. Dix of the Union Army met with the Confederate representative, Major General Daniel H. Hill, and a cartel was drafted providing for the parole and exchange of prisoners. This draft was submitted to and approved by their superiors. Four days later, the cartel was formally signed and ratified, and became known as the Dix-Hill Cartel.
The Dix-Hill Cartel failed by midyear, for reasons including the refusal of the Confederate, Government to exchange or parole black prisoners. They threatened to treat black prisoners as slaves and to execute their white officers. There was also the problem of prisoners returning too soon to the battlefield. When Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, most of those Confederate prisoners who were paroled were back in the trenches within weeks.
The discussions on exchange lasted until October 23, 1862, when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton directed that all commanders of places of confinement be notified that there would be no more exchanges. This decision would greatly affect the large numbers of prisoners in northern and southern prison camps. The so- called "holding pens" now became permanent prisons.
Although more than 150 places were used as prisons on both sides
during the war, only a handful are important. Generally they fit into
certain types: the fortifications, former jails and penitentiaries,
altered buildings, enclosures around barracks, enclosures around
tents and open stockades.
Of the first type, the only important example in the Confederacy is
Castle Pinckney. The Union had Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, Fort
Lafayette in N.Y., Fort McHenry in Baltimore and, most dreaded in the
South, Fort Delaware in the Delaware River. The Union used the Alton,
Ill., and the Columbus, Ohio, penitentiaries for prisoners, and the
Confederate cavalryman, John Morgan, escaped from the latter. The
Confederacy's Libby Prison and the Union's Old Capitol and Gratiot
Street Prisons were converted buildings. Others, all in the South,
where tobacco factories were common and excellent for this purpose,
were Ligon's in Richmond and Castle Thunder in Richmond and
Petersburg. Buildings were also converted in Danville, Lynchburg, and
Shreveport, and Cahada (Ala.) was one of the more important ones.
Union prisons that were enclosures around barracks included Johnson's
Island, Camp Morton, Camp Douglas, Camp Chase, Elmira, and Rock
Island. The Confederate Belle Isle and the Union Point Lookout
prisons were enclosures built around tents. Prisons that were open
stockades existed only in the South, and the most infamous was
Andersonville. Others of this type were Camp Lawton, Camp, Camp Ford
Camp Groce, and stockades at Salisbury (N.C.), Macon (Ga.),
Charleston, Florence (S.C.), and Columbia (S.C.).
