Some dark pages tell of the experiences of American prisoners in New York when the city was held by the British. Even worse were the experiences in the British prison ships in the harbour. There over-crowding, improper food and disease, took heavy toll of the prisoners, but the story is the same, in its essential features, as the account of the prison ships given in the preceding chapters. A prison ship was a prison ship whether anchored in British or in American waters.
With the great Civil War, we enter upon new ground. The contending parties were not different nations, but sharers of a common heritage joined both by tradition and by blood. War was waged upon an extraordinary scale. Never before were so many prisoners taken and held. While the figures are not entirely reliable, the best estimate places the number captured by both sides at 674,045, and the number held in prison for a longer or shorter time at 409,608, truly a stupendous army.
The proper care of such a number of men is task of surpassing difficulty, even where the authorities are accustomed to handling men in large masses. When they are not, the machinery must break down. Add to the inherent difficulty the fact that prejudice was strong, that war always brings out the petty and cruel as well as the nobler sentiments, and that one of the contending parties was hard pressed for food for its own soldiers, and you have the materials for tragedy.
Some prisoners were taken on both sides during 1861, and the number increased the next year. In 1862 Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War of the United States, stopped the exchanges because of a quarrel about terms. The differences were patched up, however, and exchanges went on until July, 1863, when Major-General Halleck again ordered exchanges to stop. On the Federal side many negroes had been enlisted, a considerable proportion of whom were runaway slaves. The Confederate authorities declared that these were not subject to exchange but should be returned to their masters. Both sides were firm, and few prisoners were exchanged until near the close of the struggle.
An investigator has counted sixty-eight points where Confederate prisoners were kept for a longer or shorter time, counting each town or city as one even though several prisons were within the limits. The number of Federal prisons was not so large as seldom was it necessary to remove prisoners because of the approach of a Confederate army. Only a few are important, however, on either side.
The best known Confederate prisons were Libby and Belle Isle in Richmond, Va., Salisbury, N. C., Florence and Charleston, S. C., Andersonville and Millen, Ga., though at different times there were large numbers at Danville, Va., Raleigh, N. C., Columbia, S. C., and Savannah, Ga., but it is chiefly Libby and Belle Isle, Salisbury and Andersonville, that have filled the popular imagination.
Libby was an old three-story warehouse 140 by 105 feet, in the centre of Richmond. The building was divided by transverse brick walls into rooms each about 105 × 45 feet. This was preëminently a prison for officers. Few enlisted men were confined here, but it was so crowded at times that it was difficult to walk among the sleeping bodies. There were no bunks. Wrapped in the thin vermin-infested blankets the men lay upon the hard floors. There was an abundant supply of good water for drinking and cooking, limited bathing arrangements, and fair sanitary conveniences. The ceiling and walls were whitewashed at intervals and the floor was scrubbed every day. Lying upon the damp floor was, however, a cause of much sickness.
The food in the early months of use was fair, though the Northern stomach unaccustomed to corn meal revolted at times. Boxes from home were promptly delivered, and the sutlers furnished dainties of a sort. As the months went on supplies in the Confederacy grew scarcer and rations were cut down. The portion of bread was smaller and of poorer quality. Some prisoners declare that both cob and husk were ground with the corn. The meat was poorer in quality and smaller in quantity. As it was generally served raw, the prisoners cooked it badly. The supply of vegetables was scanty and sometimes for days none was issued. Boxes were no longer delivered promptly. Scurvy, dysentery, and severe stomach troubles were prevalent, and hundreds died.
Yet hope was not given up. The men had resources within themselves. Prisoners tell of dances, vaudeville performances, and attempts to give special dinners. The hope of escape did not die. In the fall of 1863 several unsuccessful attempts to tunnel out were made. Col. Thomas E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania regiment had conceived the plan of tunnelling from the cellar under the street east of the prison into a warehouse yard. The tunnel led through a fireplace in the cook room, where the prisoners were permitted to go, down into the cellar. The piles supporting the walls were cut through with pocket knives, and the earth was attacked. The only implement was a chisel. A wooden spittoon, to which strings were attached, brought the earth back into the cellar where it was spread on the floor and concealed by straw.
The work went on for several weeks, when owing to a miscalculation the tunnel came to the surface in the street. The hole was stopped, however, and was undiscovered by sentinels or pedestrians, while the work went on under the fence. On Feb. 8, 1864, one hundred and nine officers passed through and fifty-three succeeded in reaching the Federal lines. Some of the remainder died of exposure, and some preferred death to further imprisonment. Those recaptured, among whom was Colonel Rose, were brought back and all prisoners were more closely guarded thereafter.