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Subject: [INDIAN-CAPTIVES-L] Prison Cemeteries
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 12:02:59 EDT

In 1864, having decided the exchange of prisoners benefited the Confederacy,
Union officials stopped the program, thereby bringing on overcrowding and
miserable conditions for most prisoners of war. Disease, hunger, and
overexposure to the elements were more often the rule than the exception at
prisons, and they took a heavy toll. Of the nearly 194,000 Union soldiers
held prisoner, 22,576 died; of about 214,000 Confederates in Northern
prisons, 26,436 died.

With no pomp or ceremony, prison cemeteries grew rapidly as brave men were
laid to rest far from their homes. In Sumter County, Ga., Andersonville, the
South's notoriously horrible prison, existed for only 14 months, but on some
days more than 100 men were buried in trenches there. Andersonville was
established as a national cemetery in 1865, and today white stone markers in
painfully long rows mark the almost 13,000 graves of prisoners who died
there, joined by almost 3,000 newer graves of veterans. The grounds also
house a museum honoring all American prisoners of war from all of the
nation's wars.

Assignment to Elmira Prison in New York was a death sentence for 2,917
Confederates. Ill equipped for the cold, many of the prisoners stood barefoot
in the snow for roll call. An ex-slave was paid to bury the dead prisoners in
a 2.5 acre cemetery. In 1877 the government bought the land for $1,500, named
it "Woodlawn Cemetery," and replaced the wooden headboards with stones.

Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio, was another horrible location for Southern
prisoners. Its cemetery, named "The City of the Dead," holds the remains of
2,260 Confederate soldiers. After the war the cemetery sat overgrown and
neglected until 1894, when Union colonel W.H. Knauss took it upon himself to
clear the ground and plant trees and bushes; he also "marked and kept green
all the long neglected graves he could find largely at his own expense."
Others then pitched in: an arch inscribed "America" was erected over the
entrance and decoration ceremonies were held to honor the dead.

Margie

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