Civil War Prisons

by William Best Hesseltine

Book Overview

First published in 1962 as a special edition of Civil War History journal, Civil War Prisons remains the standard on the topic. Editor Hesseltine tackles the historiography of northern and southern... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873381297
• Release Date: July 1972
• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Length: 123 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 5.9"

Customer Reviews

A good overview of Civil War prisons

Curiously, the two earlier reviewers, while writing interesting comments, aren't reviewing the book they think they are. They've confused William Hesseltine's 1930 Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology with the slim collection of essays edited by William B. Hesseltine entitled Civil War Prisons. The latter, issued in 1962 and reissued 30 years later by Kent State University Press, is the book they should've reviewed here. The essays collected in Civil War Prisons all originally appeared in a special issue of the journal "Civil War History." Predictably, they're both enjoyable and rigorously documented. One of them, the article on Andersonville, is also generously illustrated with both line drawings and photographs. The essays focus on prisons both well-known and not so familiar. Ovid Futch writes on the infamous Andersonville; Minor McLain on Fort Warren, the federal prison on George's Island in Boston Harbor; T.R. Walker on Rock Island Prison on an island in the Mississippi River; Frank Byrne presents an edited version of General Neal Dowl's experiences as a captive in Richmond's Libby Prison; James Robertson's writes on New York's Elmira Prison, a camp so notorious for high death rates that it came to be called "Hellmira"; Edward Downer describes Johnson's Island in Lake Erie; and William Armstrong discusses the remarkable prison diaries of Pennsylvanian Edmund Ryan, captured not once but twice. The essays describe what we've come to expect from writings on Civil War prison camps: the generally sorry treatment of inmates in terms of food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. Explanations for the treatment range from indifference to revenge to inability to care for massive quantities of prisoners after the parole system broke down. In short, there's nothing in these essays that will surprise readers already somewhat familiar with the vast literature on Civil War prisons. But for those new to the field, this is an excellent place to start.

New interpretations needed

In a field where new scholarship is not only recommended but needed, Hesseltine's Civil War Prisons- written seventy-five years ago- remains a standard on the topic. Hesseltine tackles the previous historiography of northern and southern prisons during the American Civil War. The author attempts to bring closure to the legendary northern myth that the Southern government did its best to "exterminate" Union prisoners by calling the effective northern war propaganda a wartime "psychosis." Furthermore, the author offers his analysis over the much debated prisoner exchange system, and comes down hard on the North, especially its government and General Ulysses S. Grant, for their questionable approach to this issue. It almost appears as if Civil War Prisons comes from a Southern perspective with some northern sympathy. While Hesseltine accuses northerners of creating this wartime psychosis, and literally blames them for creating a public frenzy, no mention is recorded of how it was organized, why it occurred, and who was responsible for it. Additionally, the author leaves little criticism for the Southern mistreatment of Union prisoners, but does discuss the problems at Andersonville and other Confederate camps. In addition, the author dismisses the Southern notion that Confederate prisoners suffered the same or worst fate at Northern camps. However, though in no way a Southern apologist, Hesseltine's upbringing in Virginia remains filtered throughout the book as the author appears to have trouble "criticizing" the South. The focal argument deals with the prisoner exchange system in which the author blames Lincoln and Grant for not exchanging prisoners of war during the last two years of the conflict. Hesseltine questions the motives of the two popular northern leaders-further arguing Hesseltine as a progressive historian similar to scholars of that genre- and labels them as hypocrites who wanted black soldiers as part of the cartel, but in reality only used that as a covering for limiting Southern manpower by not participating in this system. Even with the suffering of Union prisoners known by the administration, Hesseltine argues that this approach made it more appetizing to the public who could not fathom why Lincoln would not bring these prisoners home. Obviously, more scholarship is needed in this area and new approaches could be attempted to reevaluate the black prisoner issue. Moreover, a look at the southern policies of this cartel would have balanced the argument. Also, the author does not discuss the treatment of African American prisoners in Southern camps for various reasons, and, therefore, questions can arise as to his motivations for this exemption. But to immediately chastise Hessletine as a southern sympathizer or one, who ignored the reasons for the no exchange, would be unfair. The author did not ignore the evidence or twist the material to a pro-southern meaning. He relied more on the dependable, but at time