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| Title: | The American Civil War |
| Notice: | Please read all replies 1.* before writing here. |
| Moderator: | SMURF::BINDER |
|
| Created: | Mon Jul 15 1991 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Apr 08 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 141 |
| Total number of notes: | 2129 |
38.0. "prisoner of war stats." by ELMAGO::WRODGERS (I'm the NRA - Sic Semper Tyrannis) Fri Sep 06 1991 12:18
We might need a new topic for prisons and prisoners, but for the
present I'll post this here. I found three different sets of number
on prisoner fatalities. I think they are interesting because they
are so precise. They don't say, "About 25,000;" they nail the
number down to the one's column.
Time-Life series, "Brother Against Brother," in the general index
(as opposed to the major index, or even the sergeant index... ;-))
Federals who "died as prisoners of war..." 30,192
Confederates 31,000
The number for Confederates had the note that exact
records do not exist.
An interesting, if unrelated statistic that I noticed in the same
table was that 267 Federal soldiers were executed by their own army,
and another 391 committed suicide.
Bruce Catton's "...[brain fade!!] ..." Big, silver-covered book,
lots of pictures... was it the American Heritage HIstory of the
Civil War? Anyway, on p. 487 it was written by Catton:
Federals who died in prisons: 22,576
Rebels who died in prisons: 26,436
William C. Davis, in "Rebels and Yankees - Fighting Men of the Civil
War," p. 183:
Federals who died in prisons: 30,218
Rebels who died in prisons: 25,976
Clearly, neither side could brag about how well they treated the
prisoners they held. In reference to Chimborazo, Phoebe Pember,
who was a nurse there, left a memoir of her experience. Even if
you take out a healthy chunk for emotion and the exaggeration that
accompanies really unspeakable horror, the condition of Southern
boys when they were exchanged by the Yankee government was *REAL*
bad. (I got to visit the Chimborazo Hospital last spring. It is
part of the Richmond-Petersburg National BAttlefield park. Oh,
my. You can almost feel the agony seeping from the earth.)
Did Burns even mention Southern hospitals, such as Chimborazo?
I don't recall.
Wess
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
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| 38.1 | I believe he did | BROKE::LEE | Just trying to get stuff to work | Fri Sep 06 1991 12:29 | 10 |
| Wess,
I believe there was a few minutes on the hospital conditions (Burns used alot
of Walt Whitman comments, and he helped in hospitals during much of the war).
I think Chimborazo was the one that was "featured". It had a bakery, brewery,
(that's why I remember :-) ). I can look it up. I received the companion
book to Burn's series last year.
One of the unfortunate aspects of war is that medical science learns alot.
|
| 38.2 | | RDOVAX::BRAKE | A Question of Balance | Fri Sep 06 1991 17:13 | 19 |
| I don't recall Chimborazo being featured in Burns' series. Also, it did
NOT have it's own brewery. Just outside it's grounds was the J.D.
Goodman brewery and the city's Oakwood cemetary.
Wess, I work about 10 miles from the site of Chimboarzo. You are right
about the chills one gets when you walk the grounds. The hospital sat
atop a hill (called Chimboarzo after a volcano in Ecuador who some
Richmonder visited and named the hill for) with a magnificent view of
the James River and the city. It is just 3-4 blocks from St. John's
church where Patrick Henry delivered his "Give Me Liberty.." speech.
The buildings of Chimborazo could not have lasted to this day. All
white-washed pine boards, they were used for fuel after the war. A few
gazeebos and an old U.S. weather station building which has been
converted into the visitors center for the Richmond National
Battlefield Park dot the grassy plains of Chimborazo today.
Rich
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| 38.3 | If you call 3 minutes "featuring" | BROKE::LEE | Just trying to get stuff to work | Sat Sep 07 1991 15:06 | 15 |
| The companion book does mention Chimborazo, and I thought it was mentioned
in the Burn's series, but I could be confusing the two.
The book said that the hospital had a brewery. Maybe another miscue.
Anyways, back to POW stats. The companion book doesn't give an exact figure
on deaths inside of camp. It give a multiplier against the Gettysburg casualties.
I'll put that in later.
The book spends 3 or so pages (with pictures, so may 1 page of text). It is
not a great treatment, but the passage starts with PoW issues in general.
It does mention Elmira and a brief account on the living conditions there.
The book says that Andersonville was the worst of them (I'm paraphrasing,
I don't have the book with me). The section ends with an account from
a Georgian women talking about Andersonville.
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| 38.4 | Just a book... | JGODCL::JOOSTEN | | Wed Jul 29 1992 08:34 | 11 |
|
A few months ago a walked into an American book store in The Hague
(Netherlands) and found there to my suprise the book; "John
Ransom's Andersonville Diary" with an introduction by Bruce Catton.
(Berkley Books, New York 1991, $3.95-pocket).
It's a well written an good account of a northern ACW prisoner
who spent a good deal of the war in the famous Andersonville
prison. I like to reccomend it to everybody who wants to know more
of the real life in prison in the war.
JGF (Netherlands)
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