Freezing rain and snow, flooding waters seeping into barracks from the flooding waters of Lake Michigan, frozen bodies floating ashore days after the storm, an apparatus known as the "Mule", a sawhorse with the plank turned sideways with the jagged, splintered end for more pain, four feet off the ground, sand bags tied to men's feet, some cripplied so severely they never walk again. "Reaching for the Grub", men bending over and touching their toes unceasing, blood coming from their mouth and nose, eyes proturding and in some until their eyes burst. Starvation, no blankets or clothes, beatings with a sharp-edged belt with a metal clasp to rip and tear the flesh, firing into crowed barracks while men are sleeping in the dead of night, hanging men by their thumbs, and those to slow to move and those who could not move, shot on the spot, town citizens allowed to stand on observation areas, for a small fee, to watch the torture of these anguish men. This was known as "80 acres of hell", Camp Douglas, a Union prison of war camp located in Chicago, Illinois. The official number of dead 6,129 killed, although the exact number will never be known. The records were lost or misplaced for the sole purpose of hiding their hideous evil. To this day screams of pain are heard and the smell of decaying flesh are smelt. Now their bodies rest in a mass grave at Oakwood Cemetery. The Commander of Camp Douglas Colonel Cammeron was killed in action in the Shenadoah Valley. Commander Colonel Benjamin Sweet was in control of the death camp.
Elmira, better known as "Hellmira", a northern prison camp located in New York, Fort Delware, known as "Fort Delware Death Pen". Elmira was known for it's high death rate, 25% less death rate of any other yankee ran prison, 2% less death rate than Andersonville. The conditions were unexcusable. The north had more than enough food and substance for it's military , people , and population. On August 18th, Colonel Hoffman ordered rations reduced to water and bread. By the end of the year 1,264 died. Many froze to death due to the orders of Hoffman, only gray items distrubuted and colored clothes burned. At the end of the war 2,963 prisoners were dead. The Chief Surgeon at Elmira boasted that he had, "killed more Rebels than any Union soldier", when he resigned. A former slave via the underground railroad, John W. Jones came to Elmira and buried every Confederate Soldier, only seven were marked unknown, 2,963 Confederate dead. May God Bless this man.
I have written about these Northern Prison Camps, yet when a Civil War prison Camp is mentioned, spontaneously Andersonville is brought to mind. Andersonville is located in southern Georgia, on 26 acres of land and confined 45,000 union prisoners. Food was scarce we could barely feed our own soldiers or people as a result of the Union cutting supply lines . Prisoners died of starvation and disease as a result of polluted water. Raiding parties within the camp against their own comrades resulted in deaths. They were known as "Andersonville Raiders". The Commander Colonel Witz paroled five union soldiers with a petition signed by almost every prisoner to be delivered to Union Officials, asking for the reinstatement 10,1865, on charges of war crimes. Blind justice, the Northern death commanders walked free. The asking of the prisoner exchange, it was denied! The petition was denied by Secretary Seward, he stated, "we have got to fight until military power of the South is exhausted, and if we release or exchange prisoners captured, it simply becomes a war of extermination". That is what their death camps were, and they are solely responsible for the deaths of their on captive soldiers. I do not weep for the North, I only have pity. Colonel Witz, the
by Freda Mincey Burton
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