Justin LeClair
Cadet
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2011
- Location
- Middleburg, FL
I was wondering what yalls opinion where on Camp Douglas and Andersonville.....Which one was more cruel...which was the Worst prison camp on the war?
Comparisons like this are pointless... all were a living hell
Andersonville.
I grew up in the Chicago area (Camp Douglas), and I've been to Rock Island and Johnson's Island in the winter. Had Federal forces maintained the Confederate prisoners at those locations under conditions similar to Andersonville - no shelter, no clothing, and no blankets except what they brought with them, as well as no fire wood, inadequte food, and inadequate medical care - the Confederate death rate would have approached 100% every winter. For a Confederate soldier all of those locations would have been no better than Siberia.
I've also been to Andersonville while I was stationed at Fort Benning. The Confederacy couldn't provide shelter and firewood in a forested area? All they needed to do was seize the timber and send prisoner details out to cut it. The Confederacy couldn't provide food in the middle of an agricultural area? In the middle of farm country, even transportation shouldn't have been much of an issue. Clothing and blankets were another matter.
Look at the phtographs of the living dead that were released from Andersonville and compare them with the reasonably healthy Confederate POWs pictured in Faces of the Confederacy. Wirtz was a war criminal who got exactly what he desrved. But then, one of my great, great uncles ended his war as a guest of the Confederacy at Andersonville.
Don Dixon
A good book on camp Douglas is "To live and die in Chicago" written by Confederate POW's.
I've walked most of the battlefields, but nothing made me feel as much as standing on the ground at Andersonville. First, it was shocking to see how small it was with that many men crowded in. But you could feel the anguish coming out of the ground. And the creek from which they got their drinking water-- creek is too grand a word. Let's say trickle. Wicked place. Sort of like Execution Hollow at West Point.
Utterly unbalanceded comment. MORE Southerners died in Yankee prison camps than Yankees in Southern camps. Fact. U are begining to look like a Cool Aid drinker. U appeare to know little bout Union camps or u would not have made this statment. Andersonville was horrofic...but, u need to read bout the Northern camps also. U really a Civil WAR author?
Utterly unbalanceded comment. MORE Southerners died in Yankee prison camps than Yankees in Southern camps. Fact. U are begining to look like a Cool Aid drinker. U appeare to know little bout Union camps or u would not have made this statment. Andersonville was horrofic...but, u need to read bout the Northern camps also. U really a Civil WAR author?
Copperhead-mi,
I want to commend you for your excellent posts #10 and #14 above.
Informative and balanced with sources throughout.
Thank you for posting them.
Sincerely,
Unionblue