Prison fund

[bdtex]

Maybe some of y'all who have been at this a little longer than me can help me wrap my brain around something. I'm reading a book about a Union prison for Confederate POWs and from the very beginning the book has a lot of material on the "prison fund" there and at other Union prisons. It says they they started out with good intentions to create a fund to acquire extra things for the prisoners but the funds became something else. Instead of using the funds,the camp commanders hoarded them. The goal became to to increase the fund and keep a high balance on the books.

I know that sutlers at the camps had to give the camps a cut and that went into the fund. It seems that another popular way to increase the fund was by ration cuts for the prisoners. I guess the way that worked was the camps were allotted a certain amount in their budget each month to feed the prisoners and any unspent funds could go to the prison fund. Am I reading that right? I'm a little unclear about other ways that money could be obtained for the prison fund. I'm a pretty good numbers guy and have a coupla pretty successful businesses but I'm having a hard time grasping this. I almost feel like I'm gonna need to read the book again after I'm done to understand the prison fund. I appreciate any help I can get.

 

[bdtex]

Anyone?

 

[Yankeedave]

I think you understand it. Prison trying to turn a prifit on the backs of pow's?

 

[Bruce Vail]

Anyone?

I have a book in my library on the history of Fort Delaware, but find nothing useful in there about the prison fund.