by Jerry Curtis

Created on: April 18, 2008

"The History Buff's Guide of the Civil War," by Thomas R. Flagel (Cumberland House, Nashville: 2003) documents the top ten most deadly military prisons of the Civil War. Before chronicling that list, we should consider some fascinating, and often overlooked facts about Civil War prison camps:

. A soldier who marched in the Civil War stood a one-in-thirty chance of dying. If he ended up in one of the enemy prison camps, his odds fell to one in seven.

. More than 57,000 soldiers died in prison during the Civil War, only slightly few than the battle deaths of Vietnam.

. Neither side was prepared to cope with the need to house and care for prisoners of war. The numbers were overwhelming (211,000 Union and 265,000 captured, about one out of eight who served in the war).

. At the war's beginning, both sides engaged in prisoner exchange and parole. This system broke down in 1863 and deaths on both sides skyrocketed.

. Deaths in prison camps were from starvation, but most died from typhoid, smallpox, dysentery, and diarrhea.

Here are Flagel's "top" five:

Andersonville (Confederate).

Located in Andersonville, Georgia, this infamous camp opened in February 1864 to relieve the Southern capital, Richmond, from the burden of housing thousands of Yankee prisoners. Andersonville was ill-suited and far too remote to be an adequate shelter for the over 33,000 prisoners it eventually held. Over 12,900 union prisoners died there. The prison's commander, Swiss-born Henry Wirz, was tried and hanged for his part in the Andersonville cruelty.

Camp Douglas (Union)

In 1862 early Federal victories at Forts Henry and Donelson yielded thousands of Confederates. Union Army officials walled off a section of a training facility at Camp Douglas in South Chicago. After the Union victory of Shiloh, the camp soon became overcrowded, unheated in winter, and unsanitary. The winter of 1862-63 brought freezing temperatures and many prisoners dying of exposure and pneumonia. Almost 4,500 Confederate prisoners died at Camp Douglas.

Point Lookout (Union)

In 1863, the Union opened this prison in Maryland on a sandy peninsula "jutting between the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay." Hearing of the horrible conditions in Confederate prisons, Lincoln's Secretary of War Stanton "forbade the construction of barracks at Point Lookout and elsewhere." Confederate prisoners were also put on reduced rations and were victimized by "a succession of cruel commandants who enforced Stanton's mandates with impunity and further

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