by Christi DuPre

Created on: April 20, 2008

At the start of the American Civil War, the Federals and Confederates had a gentlemen's agreement regarding prisoners of war. The sides agreed to exchange men of equal rank on the battlefield, a private for a private, a sergeant for a sergeant, and so on. In July 1826, the Dix-Hill Cartel was formed between the North and South allowing for parole and exchange of prisoners. In the chaos of war, the terms of this cartel broke down just three months later resulting in the formation of 150 Union and Confederate prison camps that took the lives of an estimated 56,000 men.

It was soon evident that neither the Union nor the Confederacy were equipped to handle thousands of prisoners, nor did they have the will to do so. "Holding pens" or prison camps took the form of existing fortifications, altered buildings, jails, enclosures around barracks, or fenced areas around tents and open stockades. There were no exemplary prison conditions; all were plagued with poor sanitation, limited shelter and food, overcrowding, and exposure to the elements. One could argue that a sentence to these prisons was a worse fate than the battlefield trenches.

The most notorious hell-hole of the Confederacy, Camp Sumter, was constructed in 1864 near Andersonville, Georgia. Although built to accommodate almost 10,000 captives, by July of that year it was heaving with more than 32,000, mostly enlisted men. The camp covered 26 acres and was designed as an open-air stockade with a 20 foot high log fortification. A stagnant creek that prisoners ludicrously dubbed "Sweet Water Branch" ran through the camp. Used for all their personal needs, it was disease ridden and would flood the camp when summer rainstorms struck. No barracks existed, and prisoners scraped to construct crude lean-tos for shelter. The Confederate troops barely had rations to feed themselves, so the prisoners received little food but rancid grains and spoiled beans or peas. The deplorable circumstances led to the Confederate medical commission relocating prisoners to other camps in September 1864. The deficient diet, appalling conditions, and the hot Georgia sun took its toll with dysentery, malaria, scurvy, and exposure contributing to the death of nearly 30 percent of the 45,000 men that were camped in Andersonville.

Following the closure of Camp Sumter, government workers composed a list of some 13,000 prisoners who had met death at the camp. A national cemetery was later built to honor the those that tragically and senselessly

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