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Archiver > TN-CIVIL-WAR > 2007-01 > 1168277862


From: Joyce Luna <>
Subject: Re: [TN-CIVIL-WAR] TN-CIVIL-WAR Digest, Vol 2, Issue 2
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 09:37:42 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1527.1168236104.26547.tn-civil-war@rootsweb.com>


Kevin,
I had a gg-uncle Benjamin Johnson, from Davidson county,TN., who went to Civil War .
According to records in the Davidson County Courthouse, he died in Davidson County. He was 48 years of age, nine children and a wife,
He died in January of 1863, no military record
has ever been found. Yet the family claims that
Ben died in a Federal Prison in southern Illinois, as a prisoner of the Federal army. He was bound, hand and foot, and rats gnawed his body, severed vital arteries and he bled to death. Caroline took one of the older boys, and drove to
the prison and returned with his body in a "carry-all". She buried him in the Cane Ridge Church Presbyterian Cemetery where most all the family
is buried. She was later buried beside him. She died in 1900.
Two ladies from the State of Tennessee Archives went to the Cemetery and I received a letter from them that there were no military records at the
state, but they did locate his grave. We do not know what prison or what Regiment or Company.
There are many stories like this one, and no closure on their life.

Sincerely,
Joyce


wrote:


Today's Topics:

1. Re: Andersonville Civil War POW site (Gene Wade)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 21:23:33 -0500
From: "Gene Wade"
Subject: Re: [TN-CIVIL-WAR] Andersonville Civil War POW site
To:
Message-ID: <003201c732cb$ff0cb040$>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original

Hello Kevin and all,

I also don't want to restart the war and agree that, in pure numbers,
Andersonville was likely the deadlest of the prison camps. I do want to
point out that although Kevin pointed out that if there was supposedly a
civilian owned and controlled warehouse nearby with corn in it that that has
little relevancy with any official Confederate policy about feeding
prisoners. Also note that no amount of corn alone would have aleviated the
illnesses and the Confederate government had a great respect for private
property to seize this property, if it existed. Kevin's supposition that
guards had better meat and could hunt nearby is his supposition. And I'm not
too sure it is at all relevant.

Kindly note that Confederate officials appealed to the Union government for
clothing, food and medicines for Andersonville Union prisoners with the
guarantee that Union officers could escort the shipments to make sure that
Union prisoners actually received these items. These requests were rebuffed.
A delegation of Union prisoners from Andersonville was then parolled to go
to Washington to plead their case. All appeals were rebuffed by the Union
government and the delegation ignored.

Kevin was absolutely right when he says that starvation was not the killer
but was diahrrea. Unfortunately, medicines to the South were specifically
embargoed by the North and the refusal of Union forces to ship the
desperately needed supplies to the prisoners added to the miseries of the
unfortunate prisoners. After the war, numbers of former Union prisoners
accused their own government for ignoring their plight.

Confederate General Wirtz was "tried" and hung after the war because of his
supposed brutality toward Union prisoners at Andersonville. He was tried by
a military tribunal, the type of which was later declared unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court. Wirtz was allowed no defense witnesses even though
some of the former Union prisoners at Andersonville wished to be witnesses
in his defense. Some of the "witnesses" against Wirtz were later found to
have never been at Andersonville. Any decent historian will conclude that
the Wirtz trial was a kangaroo court with predetermined results.

It is fact that the Union government, especially Gen Grant, resisted
prisoner exchanges because they/he knew that the Confederacy was short of
supplies and that maintaining thousands of prisoners would be a tremendous
burden. Also, Union prisoners upon their release would normally be
discharged while exchanged Confederates would be serving for the duration of
the war. This cold-hearted decision was made even though the horrors of
Andersonville had become known. It appears that virtually all of the Union
prisoners at Andersonville had already served their term of enlistment thus
would have been lost as soldiers in the Union army had they been exchanged,
a fact that was factored in by Grant, Stanton and Lincoln.

Union Secretary of War Stanton retaliated against Confederate prisoners by
ordering all but "essential" clothing and bedding be withheld from
Confederate prisoners. Rations were repeatedly reduced with minimal or no
meat, vegetables or fruits issued to the Confederate prisoners. Camp
suttlers were often removed from these prisoner camps. The resulting
preventable scurvy, among other dietary related diseases, killed a large but
unknown number of Confederate prisoners. Even in sub-zero weather, blankets
were taken from Confederate prisoners. Might I add that the United States
Congress issued a proclamation supporting these harsh and deadly measures
and the Union Commissary General Hoffman took great pride in returning
"unused funds" back to the treasury thanks to his "frugal management".

It appears that the North took Lincoln's tone to heart. Lincoln refused to
recognize the Confederacy as a nation and insisted that Confederates were
traitors and rebels. The northern press misrepresented the treatment at
Andersonville and thus purposely incited still more hate of Confederate
soldiers. This harsh attitude likely accounts for the particularily
punitive attitude exhibited by northern captors against Confederate
prisoners. There were exceptions thanks to a few benevolent prison camp
commanders but overall Confederate prisoners, unlike Union prisoners in the
South, were purposely abused.

With all due respect to Kevin's figures, I wish to make a point. The
Confederate government may have been grossly inept and neglectful but I
have never come across any historian that accuses the Confederate Government
of systematic punitive acts against Union prisoners. Surely there were
individuals who acted so but it was not policy. Confederate regulations
stipulated that Union prisoners were to receive the same food rations as did
Confederate soldiers. Unfortunately, rations for both were lacking.

Since it was official Union Government policy to punish and starve
Confederate prisoners, even though abundant food and supplies were readily
available, then the ethical conduct of the United States government in that
time frame was especially reprehensible. One cannot but note that the
hapless and helpless Confederate General Wirtz was hung but General Grant,
President Abraham Lincoln and other Union officials were lionized for their
part. It is known that General Wirtz was offered a pardon if he would
implicate Confederate President Jefferson Davis as the "instigator" of the
Andersonville debacle. Wirtz refused, saying he had never even met Davis.
So, Wirtz was hung.

Also realize that numerous Confederates simply vanished in northern POW
camps and were likely never counted as dead. It is known that 4,000-5,000
Confederate soldiers simply "vanished" at Camp Douglas because camp
officials purposely stopped reporting the dead. It appears the "percentages"
for Confederate dead were minimized because of embarassment.


Again, I don't wish to start a war but death rates and statistics alone are
meaningless in studying the treatment accorded POWs in this war unless you
factor in reasons and conditions. Perhaps, if it appears that I am just a
little harsh, it is because one of my ancestors simply "disappeared" from
Rock Island on December 24, 1863 leaving a wife and six children wondering
what happened to him and another wound up in a mass burial trench at Camp
Douglas. And I'm not even ssure either of them became one of the
"statistical dead".

With all due respect to Kevin's obvious expertise, his percentages and
numbers reall don't tell the story of what happened or why.......

Good day to all and especially to Kevin.

Gene Wade
Loganville, GA


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Frye"
To:
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: [TN-CIVIL-WAR] Andersonville Civil War POW site


> Hi Donna,
> Andersonville is the National POW site for all American POWS from all
> wars. This includes those Confederates held in Northern stockades. My
> job
> and interest here is not to focus only on what happened here but to
> remember
> all of those who died for what they believed in. I enjoy talking about the
> subject and exchanging information and ideas. I also don't mean to imply
> that any stockade North or South was a vacation land. I do wish that more
> documentaries would be made on the others besides the recent Douglas and
> Andersonville segments on the History Channel.
>
> Its unique as many stockades in the North have carried the nickname "
> Andersonville of the North". This title is given to Rock Island which had
> 1960 Prisoner deaths and 171 Guard deaths in its 20 months of operation.
> Camp Douglas with its 3759 dead ( history channel reported 8000 ) in its
> 3
> years of operation. Camp Chase with its 2,200 dead, Point lookout with its
> 3,389 dead. Rock Island is at the least number of dead in these places.
> When you consider the numbers held over all in these places, they don't
> compare to the real " Andersonville of the North " which is Elmira New
> York.
> There were 12,123 held in its 11 months of existence which resulted in
> 2,963
> dead. The relatively low total prisoner number gives Elmira a 24% death
> rate which was indeed the highest of any Northern POW stockade.
> Although all the Northern stockades had shelter provided the prisoners ( I
> understand the conditions of the cold was as much as a hardship to deal
> with ) where as the stockade here at Andersonville provided no shelter at
> all from the heat and exposure to the elements.
>
> Andersonville held some 45000 during its 14 months of operation which
> resulted in 12920 dead as well as more than 200 guards. This gave
> Andersonville a 29% death rate. Its true the guards here were
> underequiped, but the starvation theory does not hold. Starvation was not
> the killer here as most believe. The biggest killer was Diarrhea. Poor
> diet did allow the immune systems to shut down and allow disease to do the
> killing. Guards did have the same size rations as prisoners, but they had
> a
> better choice of meat as well as the option to hunt wild game. Another
> note
> is that just 8 miles to the North of Andersonville in the town or
> Montezuma
> Ga there were several thousands of bushels of corn in warehouses going to
> waste where farmers were holding out on the Confederate government to pay
> a
> much higher price. This is all documented.
>
> The main point I want to make which is the focus of why Andersonville has
> always been cited as the worst of the worst, is that during the War,
> roughly
> 30,000 Union prisoners died as POW in all stockades. With 12920 dying
> here,
> this means that 42% or all Union prisoners dying as POW in the four years
> of
> war, died here,,,,,,,, in 14 months.
>
>
> Again , to all.... Please don't take this as something to begin a war
> between us as researchers. My intent is to share numbers and facts and to
> have a civil exchange.
> Your thoughts?
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donna"
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 12:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [TN-CIVIL-WAR] Andersonville Civil War POW site
>
>
>> Speaking of the War's POW camps---
>>
>> Rock Island Prison in Illinois was known by many as the "Andersonville of
>> the North"
>> http://www.bitsofblueandgray.com/august2003.htm
>>
>> The Confederate dead at Rock Island is searchable here:
>> http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilrockis/cemetery/confed.htm
>>
>> One difference between Andersonville & Rock Island was that at
>> Andersonville even the guards were starving and had pitiful rations. The
>> Rock Island guards ate much better than their CSA prisoners. They were
>> both horrific in their tragedy and cruelty. In total, more CSA died in
>> prison camps than did the Union soldiers, and the CSA army was so very
>> much smaller.
>>
>> I don't like to think of Rock Island, and only found it four years ago
>> when I saw the death date of my 18 year old gr grand uncle and realized
>> that he might have died in the War. One thing led to another, and I
>> cried
>> before I was done that day. He is buried there in Grave #1554. Two of
>> his brothers, also in the 49th TN, made it home. Hardly a Southern home
>> was untouched by death during the War---probably the same in the North.
>>
>> We all have similar stories from all branches of our families, and could
>> go on and on with them.
>>
>> I was a history major for both degrees, and in my youth saw the War as an
>> interesting study of examples of gallantry and sacrifice for a great
>> ideal. Now that I am much older, I feel quite differently. I feel an
>> unbearable sadness and sickness in the pit of my stomach.
>>
>> Warmest Regards to my Tennessee cousins----
>>
>> Donna
>>
>> P.S. This is an aside, but one of the features of the new CSA government
>> was that each bill in the CSA legislature had to be labelled clearly with
>> its topic. No bill could deal with multiple issues. Sounds like a good
>> idea.
>> http://www.tngennet.org/civilwar
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>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message
>>
>
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End of TN-CIVIL-WAR Digest, Vol 2, Issue 2
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