Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: #3Fan
What were the number of prisoners?

Depends on who is doing the counting. Stanton's figures were acknowledged to be low for the number of prisoners prisoners kept in Southern prisons. A more complete 1903 estimate reported approximately 194,000 Union troops were held in Southern prisons while 215,000 Confederates were held in Northern prisons. See the following site:

1903 Tabulation

As the site notes there should have been a much greater disparity in deaths between the two sides given the North's greater supplies of food, medicines, and doctors.

In the summer of 1864, the Confederate Agent of Exchange, Judge Ould, offered to buy medicines for Union prisoners at 2-3 times their cost and to let Federal doctors bring the medicines through the lines and treat the sick Union prisoners. The North never replied to this humane offer. Medicines were embargoed by the Federal blockade and were scarce in the South.

Records were not all that well kept on either side. One of my wife's ancestors died at Point Lookout prison in the North but he is not listed on the prison death rolls. There are claims on the web of severe undercounting of deaths at Point Lookout. While I don't know whether these claims are correct, there is evidence to support the undercounting.

The Charleston Daily Courier (December 3, 1863) reported that deaths were being substantially undercounted at the Fort Delaware Federal prison, but this report may not be correct. Who knows?

The number of prisoners kept at Andersonville is not certain. Those who were prisoners in the camp counted more than the somewhat PC park currently does. Fortunately for posterity, the prisoners carved their count into a stone monument at the park. The reduced number currently acknowledged by the Park Service has the effect of boosting Andersonville's death rate to more than the range claimed for Elmira Prison in New York.

1,688 posted on 03/25/2004 7:58:10 PM PST by rustbucket
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1653 | View Replies ]


To: rustbucket
From your link it looks like the union casualty rate was 12%, while Andersonville was 39%.
1,692 posted on 03/25/2004 8:24:11 PM PST by #3Fan (Kerry to POW-MIA activists: "You'll wish you'd never been born.". Link on my homepage.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1688 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson