Conditions at the prison and some of the officers in charge. This talk was part of a symposium on the war in the east hosted by the civil war blog. Hello, and welcome to the emerging civil war virtual symposium. Im editor in chief of emerging civil war. Delighted to have you with us. Our first speaker today is derek maxfield. Fr it earned fame at the courthouse. Derek has recently earned fame for his brandnew book as part of the emerging civil war series. Its called hellmira, prisoner of war camp. Please welcome derek maxfield. Thank you very much. Im very pleased to be here to talk about my latest project. You know, prisoner of war camps have been a surprise to me. Ive studied the civil war since i was quite young and, you know, knew the lengths of the tragedy during the civil war. But it was eyeopening to me the extent of the humanitarian crisis that unfolded over the course of those four bloody years. Over 56,000 died in prisoner of war camps over that time. Just over 500,000 incarcerated in total and although we understand, you know, the that this is just a small number of casualties considered the total number of casualties during the civil war, over 750,000 now, we believe. When you consider that we could have done better, both north and south, when you consider that this was in our power to a large measure to make lives for those who were incarcerated better, its quite disappointing. It tells us much about ourselves, i think, than as today. This was a project that actually started because i was asked to write this book. But it was something that was something of a surprise to me because when i was growing up 30 miles from elmira, i had no idea it was the site of a p. O. W. Camp. I think i learned in college for the first time about this and was shocked. I thought by that time, i was fairly well versed in the civil war. Come to learn that theres a good reason why i didnt know about it and in fact many people in elmira didnt know about it. To some extent, it was an exercise in civic amnesia. This was a community that wanted to hide its past. And really, it was only quite recently that they began to embrace what happened there along the river. And in large measure, the reason had to do with this being compared to andersonville. Andersonville was the p. O. W. Camp near georgia. It was the largest of the p. O. W. Camps. It was the most deadly of the p. O. W. Camps of the civil war. It held over 30,000. It had a death rate approaching 30 . As the war came to an end and the union came to learn more and more about the tragedy, the atrocities at andersonville, there began to be this kind of back and forth fingerpointing where every time the union would scream about the atrocities at andersonville, the south would answer, what about elmira . And this is the way that this is going to go on for 30some years after the war. As both sides tried to blame each other for what happened in these p. O. W. Camps. It wasnt until the 1990s that this community decided to reembrace its past. A High School Teacher in elmira at the time led a movement to place a monument on the spot where the camp sat. About 30 acres on the river, on water street. And so you see this here. The original flagstaff of the camp was placed near this monument as well at that time. About that same time, the only two modern books until mine were published, both were released within a year of each other. But before that, the next book you have to look at would be clay holmes book just before world war i. It hasnt had a lot of attention by historians. Those who knew about it really had no reason to want to uncover this again, fearing that it would be bad for business, bad for tourism, which is an industry that elmira relies upon quite heavily. So this was part of my interest. Another interest of mine had to do with this man here, this is william b. Reese. This is my third great granddaughte grandfather. And i learned that he served in elmira. He was part of the invalid corps, socalled. He had been in the battle of gettysburg, he was injured and could not return to full duty. He remained there guarding some of the prisoners that i would be studying. So lets start the story of p. O. W. Camps in general, just to contextualize this a little bit. So this is montgomery meigs. As the civil war got under way, one of the things that we say is neither side gave serious thought to the potential of needing to hold prisoners of war. Although there were prisoners taken in some of the early battles, they were exchanged pretty much on the spot in a kind of informal way that harkened back to the way things were done in the mexican war. No formal policy at all. It was in the earl days of the war that he suggests to Simon Cameron who was the secretary of war, maybe we should do something to prepare in case we need to hold prisoners of war. Cameron was interested in lining his own pockets than anything else. As a result nothing gets done. The confederates do little or nothing either. Then we come to the story of william hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel william hoffman. Hes going to be appointed at the request of montgomery meigs, the general of union prisoners. One of the things that occurs to me in all of this, if youre going to take this problem seriously, you want to have your best people on this. And when i look back at the way that both sides operated p. O. W. Camps from the top down, part of how they could have done things better is the people they chose to run these facilities. Hoffman was a good enough officer, but he had no administrative experience at all. He happened to be available. And one of his qualifications was he was a p. O. W. Himself for a short time. Hoffman was a graduate of west point. He served in the mexican war. He was in the eighth new york or im sorry, the eighth u. S. Regulars infantry and very early in the war found himself a p. O. W. He was exchanged in this kind of informal manner. While awaiting exchange, he was in washington and they said, hey, weve got this job, how about you . And this is how he comes to the job. And i think that when you look at his administration of the p. O. W. Facilities, one of the things that i think is a characteristic that is important here is his just engrained frugality. Hes really cheap. Thats himself, but thats also the way that hes going to run these p. O. W. Camps on a real shoe string. And thats something that incidentally makes the secretary of war, whether its Simon Cameron, but more especially Edwin Stanton very pleased because they dont want to spend any more money that is necessary either. On the confederate side of things, they didnt have as formal an administrative structure when it came to p. O. W. Camps. The closest they came was their provost majority. This is john linder. When the war started, he will be placed mora placed more or less in charge of the p. O. W. Facilities in richmond itself and thats primarily where their p. O. W. Facilities will remain for quite some time. And only later near the end of the war do they make this more formal. He was a west point graduate, a tactics instructor. Mexican war vet. He has more of an administrative capacity than hoffman did, but he has Less Authority, much Less Authority than his union opposite. So the p. O. W. Issue comes to a head at shiloh. Shiloh is really the big battle early in the war. It is a battle that opened the eyes of the north and south to how long, how bloody this war is really going to be and over the course of two days saw over 23,000 casualties. This also meant that you had hundreds if not thousands of prisoners taken on both sides and shiloh is in the middle of a vast wilderness. Pittsburgh landing is on the river, but where the battle took place is in the middle of nowhere. And so you have to move your wounded and your casualties out of this wilderness to be treated or imprisoned. And it was an emergency in the west at this time for the holding of p. O. W. S. They have to be shipped north and the union in very quick order has to convert what facilities they have available to them. This might be old penitentiaries, prisons, fairgrounds, anything where you can convert to holding a large number of prisoners in a fairly short amount of time. Now, the issue of Prisoner Exchange was really complicated by abraham lincolns stance when it came to recognizing the confederacy which he could not of course do. He saw this as an insurrection, a rebellion, and to treat with them about the p. O. W. Issues in some ways would be to recognize them, which is something he could not do. And yet the pragmatist in lincoln recognized that yet weve got to do something. We have to formalize a system of exchange because this really isnt going to work otherwise. And this is what leads to what is called the dix hill cartel. They come to an agreement largely based on the framework of the mexican war with some updates. They have something in place, something that they can work from. That gives some hope to men that find themselves incarcerated and to come extent empties out the p. O. W. Camps that were then in place. But this is all quite complicated by the emancipation proclamation issued in january 1864. Abraham lincoln came to the conclusion that in order to win this war, this measure would be necessary. And so he issues the preliminary emancipation proclamation after the battle seeing this as a victory. And it becomes official in january of 63. As you might imagine, it sends the south into a tail spin over this and theres some fury. But it also opens the door to africanamerican prisoners and this is where the breakdown of the cartel system begins. The high demand of the confederacy, of course, does not want africanamerican soldiers in the field. They are offended by this. But they absolutely refuse to treat them as white soldiers. And this complicates exchange dramatically. At the time the black soldiers cannot be recognized in any way as soldiers subject to the rules of war. And they absolutely refuse to exchange africanamericans. This gets worse as time goes on. Not only is the confederacy refusing to exchange any africanamerican soldiers they take, but reports start to get back to Union Authorities that many men are shot in the process of surrender. The causality rate among africanamericans remains very high. Over 800 black p. O. W. S are taken which is really a small number of those that the number should reflect. And of those that do go into captivity, only 35 im sorry, 35 die in captivity. Lincolns response to this at the time is to halt exchanges. Well, when you halt exchanges, that means that both sides now have the burden of taking care of these p. O. W. S. Where are you going to hold them . Of course, as the war goes on and the fighting gets worse, this problem becomes worse and worse. They have to open new camps. They have to be on the lookout for new facilities. And the one that most impacts our story is Point Lookout, maryland. Point lookout, maryland, results from the fighting in 1863. The camps are overflowing. And camp hoffman, aka Point Lookout, is created at that time. It had the add add advantage of being very near the Biggest Union hospital. So this hospital, you can see, down here on the point, it looks like the smokes on a wheel. The hospital is the largest of the union hospitals. It has very Good Transportation access. Its also a place that would be hard to escape from and so they begin to set up camps very near there. Youll see those in the upper right of the screen. Now, Point Lookout will very quickly swell to over 20,000 at its peak. This will be the big feeder camp to what becomes elmira. Theres another view. At about the same time, early 64, andersonville is created in the south. We talked about this a little bit earlier. This was a camp that will come to house over 30,000. Its really just a big pen where Union Soldiers are thrown and they will have little freshwater. They will have food occasionally, as the confederacy can get supplies to them, but most immediately reports start to get back to the union about how things are going there and the state of the prisoners in the confederate charge. The Overland Campaign is another thing that really directly impacts the overflow and then the real humanitarian crisis of the p. O. W. Camps because this is a campaign thats going to see over 65,000 union casualties, over 35,000 confederate casualties, all the p. O. W. S are taken captive. Theres no exchange at this time. And so these camps are just busting at the seams. Grant says at the time that its hard on our men to be held in southern prison, not to exchange them. Its humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. He felt to Exchange Prisoners would help the south. It would help them to fight on longer and he felt this was a way to quicken the end of the war. Even if that meant that Union Soldiers are going to suffer in the process, which they certainly did. So elmira comes into the story because of the union camps busting at the seams. Where are we going to put these mean . The load was becoming almost unbearable. And they were beginning to have security concerns there. And so they decided to look about for another location and elmira suited them quite well because elmira was already a draft ran dendezvous. It was next to a canal. This was a place that had been a feeder location for Union Soldiers early in the war. Many of the facilities were still there and still available. And so there would be a minimum of preparation necessary to get this ready. So at that post was Lieutenant Colonel seth eastman. He was kind of your average soldier. He was not a great able administrator. He was a topographical engineer by training. He graduated from west point. Heres a guy that was also really not up to the job either. But he is a good soldier and you can see in his correspondence that hes ready to do what they want him to do. Though hes not in great health himself. Hes kind of conflicted because his real interests arent in military. Its in oil painting and being an illustrator and an artist. And really the stress and the physical toll that the camp takes on him will lead to his removal in a short amount of time. But while hes there, he does the best that he can. One interesting side note on this, though, is eastmans wife, mary hinderson, was a virginian. She was very proslavery and was so agitated by the book Uncle Toms Cabin that she wrote her own in answer to this. And so that had to have been controversial. Its more interesting when you consider that Harriet Beecher stowe herself lived in the same part of elite elmira society. One wonders what those conversations were like. One of the more interesting figures in elmira was the commandant henry colt. He also is kind of on the injured reserve, if you will. He was with a new york regiment and he had been injured in battle. They put him on duty in elmira to run the p. O. W. Camp. Its interesting when you look at the memoirs, the vitriol is quite thick. And some of that, i think, is guided by the controversy over andersonville at the time, but what is really interesting is, although they have terrible things to say about the conditions and the food at elmira, especially the winters, they love this man. Love this man. And in the memoirs of anthony kylie, they talk about how humane and kind that this man was. So hes their jailer. And they write in their memoirs about how terrible a place elmira was, and yet they love the man that is in charge of it, which i find kind of interesting. In january, when he returns to duty, the prisoners give him a parting gift on a silver platter, literally, on a silver platter, a chalice that is made from a coconut, thats the bowl of this cup, handmade chalice as a gift to him on his way out. Youll see here the outlines, the rough outlines of the p. O. W. Camp at elmira. Youll see that the wall at the top there is right on the river. This is definitely built on a floodplain. Fosters pond youll see about a third of the way down and the largest amount of the camp is there in the bottom half. This encompasses over 30 acres of land. And just to give you some notion of what this looks like today, this is an overlay of that map on the modern neighborhood. And youll see near the top there water street, you can see fosters pond overlaid there and a place on the river. So there are probably at least a hundred homes that sit where the p. O. W. Camp was during the war. Fosters pond was one of the big controversies in the occupation of this land. Its a farm pond. But it was very still water. And early in the occupation in july of 64 they set up the sinks, the la treclose to the p. Its getting filled with urine and excrement and it begins to stink really bad. At the time this was cited as a health concern. An inspector from the War Department cited it as such, citing it for odors which they believed would make men sick. So this was cited as an issue very early on and yet nothing is going to be done about it, despite the fact that they feel that this is hazardous to the health of the soldiers in their charge. There are also no hospital facilities in july of 64 when this camp opens. The prisoners are marched in. Theyre housed in tents, and that is the way it will remain for quite some time. One of the early tragedies in the history of the camp was a wreck, a train full of prisoners, on its way to elmira. I believe this was the third or fourth shipment of soldiers. It was carrying 800 prisoners from jersey city and it collided head on with a coal train in the mountains of pennsylvania. In that wreck, 14 guards are killed, 40 prisoners are killed, a number escape and all of the townspeople and the people for miles around come to help load up a new train and bury the dead and deal with this tragedy. And we know that it was the middle of the night that the wounded arrive in elmira with no advanced word. So in elmira they had no idea that this tragedy had happened. All they know is the train arrives unexpectedly and you got vast numbers of wounded that need immediate treatment. The facilities to treat these wounded were not in place yet. And so this leads to untold amounts of suffering. At about this time, they have to establish a cemetery to bury the dead before august 1st, already 11 prisoners had died. This will not be removed until the 20th century. They were buried on the spot there, but theyll be moved later. This was put into the charge of a very interesting man named john jones. Jones was at one time a slave who ran away to his freedom. He settled in elmira where he became a predominant conductor on the underground railroad ushering hundreds to their freedom. But settled there and found a new life. He was so trusted that they made him caretaker of the local cemeteries including wood lawn cemetery. He was placed in charge of the prisoners that died at the camp. And he will have almost 3,000 of those to deal with during his tenure as the caretaker. Another interesting figure in all of this is eugene sanger. He does not arrive until at least six weeks into the existence of this camp. Theyre operating on local physicians at the start. But sanger is sent to become the chief surgeon, native of maine, went to Dartmouth College before going to school medical school in philadelphia. He was not a man that was really well respected in elmira. Especially among the prisoners. Anthony kylie one of the more predominant of the prisoners who wrote a memoir said he especially hated sanger and accused him of murdering the prisoners. He called him a little man with snakey eyes. Kylie himself had much to say about his incarceration. Hell be there from july until october. Hes worth mentioning because hes not the ordinary prison. When you look at the ranks of the prisoners in elmira, these are your foot soldiers from lees army largely. Almost no officers. And kylie actually was a civilian when he was caught near petersburg. He was called out to help the local militia and was at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets snatched. He was a remember of the Virginia House of delegates at the time. He was incarcerated at Point Lookout and sent onto elmira. But where he strikes up a really interesting friendship with henry colt, in fact, is given a special job. Hes given special quarters, hes given special meals. He really gets abnormal treatment. And yet after the war his memoir will be one of the most interesting to read, but filled with some of the worse vitriol of any of the memoirs. Its worth reading. Another interesting aspect of this camp was the enterprising gentleman on the outside in the town who set up an observation platform, which you can see on the right side of the screen there. Theyll charge you ten cents to go to the top and get a look at a real live reb. As i said before, seth eastman didnt last long. His health was not good when the tenure of the chaamp began and s health grew worse and worse. In his place, they put colonel benjamin tracy. Tracy is not on the injured reserve. Really interesting man in his own right. Hes one of those politician soldiers that grant and sherman so disliked. He was an assemblyman in new york before the war, a lawyer, a district attorney. To give him credit, you know, he raised the regiment. He earned a medal of honor for his heroism. So he earned his stripes. But he was a politician through and through. And its very clear that when they place him in elmira, the War Department knows who theyre getting. And he has a clear idea of what is expected of him. They want him to keep his head down, not make noise, and be prepared to follow orders from the War Department about how they want these prisoners treated which includes the cutting of rations twice during his tenure. Despite the fact that food was abundant in the area around elmira. This has led to some suggesting that what you had going on here in elmira was a union answer to the atrocities in andersonville, a concerted effort to punish confederate prisoners because of the treatment of Union Soldiers at andersonville and the evidence definitely sustains this. As i told you before, they were housed in tents. The prisoners were housed in tents at the beginning. By october 1st, you have 9,000 prisoners in elmira, but you only had a small number of barracks. The first snow arrives in october and you are still going to have hundreds of men in tents into january when the final barracks get up. The men not in barracks are sleeping on the ground, on the bare ground, largely, unless they have straw or Something Else to sleep on. Every prison is given two blankets. But, of course, we all know those of us that are from western new york how cold it can get in elmira that time of the year. We know that by january 1st, there was a foot of snow standing on the ground. And so these men would have been sleeping in the snow, standing in the snow and ice for roll call each morning. It must have been really hard on an alabamian or a mississippian. Heres a view of the reconstructed barracks that you can see now that have been built there. Another interesting prisoner is marcus tony. Hes a tennessean. In his memoirs we get an interesting view of life in camp because he contracted smallpox while he was there and had to be housed in the smallpox hospital. The smallpox hospital was set up close to the river, away from everybody else to provide isolation and they thought that this was the best place to put it. Tony finds himself there and gives us a really riveting account of how these smallpox patients suffered. The men who died there, he said, were dragged out and left in front of their tents, in whatever position man was when death overtook him, in that position he froze. And they would stay there, frozen in these odd positions, for as much as a day before their bodies would be removed. Food was always an issue at elmira. It should not have been. It was an area of plenty. Scurvy was a real problem inside of elmira and, again, theres no reason that this needed to be because there was an abundance of vegetables in the elmira area. But as i already mentioned to you, the high demand issued a cutting of rations twice in the First Six Months of the existence of the camp. Men were forced to look out for themselves, in some cases. There was a lively market in mus musk rats. Theres reports of dogs going missing. Another prisoner said there were a lot of drones or lifeless men, dueless persons who moped around, losing their humanity, eating almost anything a brute would eat, even gangrene poultices and the like. Another interesting part of the story has to do with the Spiritual Life of the confederates housed in elmira. A number of local pastors and ministers would come to minister to the spiritual needs of the prisoners. Some were welcomed with open arms. Others were a little bit too preachy for the likes of prisoners. Thomas beecher was probably the most predominant pastor in elmira at the time. Thats the brother of Harry Beecher stowe. One of the things that we know that was happening inside of the camp was these prisoners looking for something to do. Boredom was their biggest enemy apart from the cold. And they looked for different ways to pass the time. And these are some pieces, some pieces of jewelry, a die, made by prisoners. You can see these in the historical society, very enterprising men in elmira. They would make ring and is trinkets and make deals with the guards who would sell them in the community and some of the money would actually make it back to the prisoners. The medium of exchange was tobacco. In high demand north and south. This kind of became the replacement for money there for a time. So the winter of 64, 65 was quite brutal. We know that the temperatures were below zero for much of early january, deep snows, howling winds, and in the barracks, those that were lucky enough to be in barracks, there would be one or two stoves, first wood and later coal stoves. They were given an allotment for the day. When that ran out, they would be cold. What would happen, they would be warm for a few hours, run out of their fuel and freeze for the better part of eight hours. At least they were sheltered from the wind. Shelters provided for them unlike the prisoners in andersonville. As i said before, this was built on a floodplain on the river. Its a substantial river. And its surrounded by high hills. I already told you that there are deep snows on those hills. So it does not take a genius to figure out, when that snow begins to melt, that is a river that is going to swell rapidly. So this is something that the authorities in elmira should have seen coming. Benjamin tracy, in fact, we know was warned several times in writing, you had better figure something out here because that river is going to come booming in february, march or april, and this is exactly what happens. There was a quick thaw and this massive flood that washes down the valley, it was called the st. Patricks day flood. This was march of 65. And it wiped out threequarters of the fencing along the river. 90 of the camp was under water. And they had to in fact rescue the smallpox patients who were in vital danger of drowning. The smallpox hospital was way out down close to the river itself. And so they mounted this rescue effort in the middle of the night with jury rigged rafts and tow ropes. You had guards and prisoners side by side working through the night to rescue these prisoners. Some of whom, unfortunately, fell into the icy water and will die shortly after. Many of them were in fact rescued. For their efforts, the prisoners were given a ration of whisky. So the dismantling of the camp begins to happen in march of 65. They begin to move prisoners out. By this time, grant has given permission for exchanges to be resumed. In fact, these were resumed before the Appomattox Campaign and so elmira began to empty out little by little. It wasnt, though, until july, of course, long after appomattox and the surrender at benton place that these men will go home. Sadly, 140 men were not able they were not well enough to travel and will be staying in elmira for some time. Some actually of those 140 never leave. The camp began to be dismantled almost immediately. Part of the Lease Agreement between the foster family who owned the land and the government was that the land would be returned to its original state as much as possible. So all of the buildings were dismantled and sold off. They were auctioned off. But, you know, remnants and reminders of what was once there became very sparse in a short amount of time. One of those that existed into the 20th century was the former dead house where they would hold dead bodies until they could be buried over atwood lawn cemetery. Clay holmes writes about this in his book shortly before world war i. Today we have an organization in elmira called the friends of the elmira prison who are working really hard to bring back that history and acknowledge what happens there. Their efforts have included the reconstruction of an original camp building. This was made from lumbar that was held in storage ever since the civil war, reconstructed. About 80 of it is original lumber. Theyve reconstructed the original barracks. Lets take a look at the numbers before i wrap up here. Over 400,000 soldiers were held in 150,000 different facilities. 56,000 died in captivity. The elmira numbers include almost 10,000 held. Death rate of 24 . This is why elmira gets compared to andersonville, the death rate in most other ways, i dont believe theres an aggregate comparison here, a good comparison at all. What i argue in the book, its long past time for fingerpointing and its time to acknowledge that both sides could have done a much better job taking care of the prisoners in their care. Thank you very much. Week nights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Following more than four years of world war, 51 founding members signed the United Nations charter in hopes of prevents future wars and promoting global peace and justice. On october 24th, 1945, the u. N. Was officially established. We feature five films beginning with the signing of the charter. Thats tonight at 8 00 eastern. And enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3 go in a different classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging into class. With most campuses closed due to the impact of the coronavirus, watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him and supported him. Madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press and it is indeed freedom to print and publish things. Its not a freedom for what we now refer to institutionally as the press. Lectures in history on American History tv on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Located in charleston harbor, fort sumter was still held by forces