Civil War Prison Camps
In the very beginning of the Civil War, prisoners of war were exchanged right
on the battlefield, a private for a private, a sergeant for a sergeant and a
captain for a captain. In 1862 this system broke down and caused the
creation of large holding pens for prisoners in both the North and South. On
July 18, 1862, Major General John A. Dix of the Union Army met with the
Confederate representative, Major General Daniel H. Hill, and a cartel was
drafted providing for the parole and exchange of prisoners. This draft was
submitted to and approved by their superiors. Four days later, the cartel
was formally signed and ratified, and became known as the Dix-Hill Cartel.
The Dix-Hill Cartel failed by midyear, for reasons including the refusal
of the Confederate, Government to exchange or parole black prisoners.
They threatened to treat black prisoners as slaves and to execute their
white officers. There was also the problem of prisoners returning too
soon to the battlefield. When Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, most of
those Confederate prisoners who were paroled were back in the trenches
within weeks.
The discussions on exchange lasted until October 23, 1862, when
Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton directed that all commanders of places
of confinement be notified that there would be no more exchanges. This
decision would greatly affect the large numbers of prisoners in northern
and southern prison camps. The so-called "holding pens" now became
permanent prisons.
Old Libby Prison
Although more than 150 places were used as prisons on both sides during the
war, only a handful are important. Generally they fit into certain types:
the fortifications, former jails and penitentiaries, altered buildings,
enclosures around barracks, enclosures around tents and open stockades.
Of the first type, the only important example in the Confederacy is Castle
Pinckney. The Union had Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, Fort Lafayette in
N.Y., Fort McHenry in Baltimore and, most dreaded in the South, Fort
Delaware in the Delaware River. The Union used the Alton, Ill., and the
Columbus, Ohio, penitentiaries for prisoners, and the Confederate
cavalryman, John Morgan, escaped from the latter. The Confederacy's Libby
Prison and the Union's Old Capitol and Gratiot Street Prisons were converted
buildings. Others, all in the South, where tobacco factories were common and
excellent for this purpose, were Ligon's in Richmond and Castle Thunder in
Richmond and Petersburg. Buildings were also converted in Danville,
Lynchburg, and Shreveport, and Cahada (Ala.) was one of the more important
ones. Union prisons that were enclosures around barracks included Johnson's
Island, Camp Morton, Camp Douglas, Camp Chase, Elmira, and Rock Island. The
Confederate Belle Isle and the Union Point Lookout prisons were enclosures
built around tents. Prisons that were open stockades existed only in the
South, and the most infamous was Andersonville. Others of this type were
Camp Lawton, Camp, Camp Ford Camp Groce, and stockades at Salisbury (N.C.),
Macon (Ga.), Charleston, Florence (S.C.), and Columbia (S.C.).
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