The Civil War Prisons Message Board

Re: DeVall's Bluff
In Response To: Re: DeVall's Bluff ()

Moved from the Arkansas in the CW Message Board

Bryce,

My opinion of it is that while the South had the resources, the infrastructure was weak to begin with and had deteriorated completely by the end of the war. Having something and getting it where it is needed are two very different issues.

Both sides, obviously, put priority on their armies in the field, but even then the South had great difficulty getting supplies where they were needed (especially following the destruction of the Atlanta rail hub during Sherman's campaign).

It is an absolute fact that the Confederates tried repeatedly to exchange thousands of prisoners from Andersonville (Camp Sumter).

Near the end of the war, they finally gave up on exchanging them and actually took them to Jacksonville, Florida and offered to just hand them over to the Union army there. The Federal officers declined to accept them and the prisoners were loaded back on trains and taken back to Andersonville, where many of them subsequently died.

My honest opinion is that the entire system was overwhelmed, especially in the South. The prison population at Andersonville was as large as some of the Confederate armies in the field by the end of the war. With the North refusing to take the prisoners back and the South barely able to feed its own men, what could the the prison officers realistically have done?

I think it also is worth noting that eyewitnesses who visited Andersonville immediately after the war reported seeing mounds of cornbread piled inside the stockade. This was the standard food of the Southern army, but was virtually impossible for the Union prisoners to digest.

The North had much better capacity to care for prisoners but in some cases (notably Elmira) did withhold food and clothing from prisoners in response to press accounts of conditions at Andersonville. There were good people and bad people involved in managing the prisons of both sides.

Dale

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Re: DeVall's Bluff
Re: DeVall's Bluff
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