Biology

Thesis statement
Even though we cannot change our history, even though we cannot go back into the past and rectify evils committed against fellow man, history teaches us ways and means of never repeating past mistakes. It is in this light that we long to explore the civil prisoner war camps of both north and south and ask our selves, what are the landmarks of the Prisoner of war Camps during the American Civil war of 1861

Introduction
War occurs most of the times in an uncalled for situations that could have been resolved peacefully.  In the history of the world, many bloody wars have been fought and many lives have been lost. Some wars have been fought for the rights and freedom of men while others have been fought by those wishing to end imperialism. From the Great American Revolutionary war of the 1773 to the war for the liberation of the slaves from slavery fought by the black citizens of America during the times of Martin Luther, wars mark the dark history of our country and the world as a whole. Even though this research paper cannot fully explore the numerous wars of the past, it seeks to have an insight into the prisoner of war camps both north and south. War has always been defined as any form of armed conflict.

War can also be considered as a collaborative effort. As it is always well known, any form of collaboration requires communication in order to succeed. In the art of war, it is a well undeniable that the way, approach, method, reliability and mode that an army uses to communicate most often than not directly impacts on that army s performance at tactical, operational, and strategic levels and also determines their success. The term Prisoners of war can be defined as the soldiers or civilians taken captive during times of war.

Exchange of Prisoners  Historical Background
According to the English dictionaries, the term to exchange is used most often than not to simply refer to the act or process of giving out one thing and receiving another in its stead.  It may be likened very much to an act of barter trade where a set of commodities can be traded with other commodities. The exchange of prisoners thus referred to herein refers in a simple manner to the trade of a set of prisoners with another set of prisoners. The trade is done with an aim of freeing fellow countrymen captured during the act of war.

The exchange of prisoners is gotten from the medieval custom of holding prisoners for ransom, and was an established practice done by the American Revolutionists. This was demonstrated shortly after the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts where those in power arranged for the exchange of captured British soldiers for Massachusetts militiamen. It was after this that other states soon begun this trade.  In July 1776 the Continental Congress authorized military commanders to negotiate exchanges, and in 1780 it appointed a commissary general of prisoners and thus assumed the responsibility for exchanging prisoners of war. British refused to recognize American independence and by so doing prevented the agreement on a general cartel for the exchange of prisoners of war, though the American commanders used the power they had been given by Congress to make amendments and enforce the cartel.

In the month of March 1780 a separate cartel arranged for the trade of American prisoners held in Britain in exchange for British prisoners held in France. Also, in 1783 a general exchange of prisoners occurred after the hostile environment between America and Britain stopped and in recognition of American independence. It is also notable that during the War of 1812, battlefield exchanges happened under a general British-American cartel for exchanging prisoners. However, during the Mexican-American war, the United States and Mexico failed to negotiate a cartel but the United States released many Mexican prisoners on parole on the condition that they never fought in war again.

Thus, when the exchange of prisoners occurred during the civil war in the prison of war camps between the northerners and the southerners, it was not a strange act but rather an act that had been carried out during the preceding wars.

Prisoner of War Camps - a brief History
In the history of American wars, it can be stated and noted that the American nation had never had to face the problem of internment of large numbers of captured enemy soldiers before 1861. However, this year, many British and Hessian soldiers had been sent to farms on the frontier, a situation that was suddenly changed by the sudden emergence of the Civil War.

The war was harsh and by the end of four years of fighting, over 409,000 men had been captured. These became prisoners of war. The figure of these men captured was four times more than the combined total number of all the American soldiers captured in all of the other wars the country had ever participated in.  This created a problem that no one knew how to tackle and no one made any attempt to solve.

These men, who had been captured during the war, were completely separated from the outside world. This meant that these Prisoners of War lived in total isolation. During a normal day, their lives were based on a routine of waking up in the morning, answering roll calls and receiving something small to eat. After the rationed breakfast, these men were left idle for the remainder of the day and received a second meal late in the afternoon with another roll call.

As Hesseltine (1930) states, during those difficult times, there was no prison with sufficient medicines. He also notes that the physicians were in short supply and were not eager to treat the enemy the soldiers whom they saw as a threat rather than fellow human beings in need of their help and services.
It is also an undeniable fact that the prison commanders were cruel and vindictive to the prisoners that were placed in their charge. They mistreated the prisoners and some prisoners suffered death through torture. Also, the conditions in Civil War prisons were primarily caused due to poor planning rather than a calculated conspiracy to kill prisoners as many later thought and argued.  The war camps were divided into two camps namely
Confederate Prison Camps
Union Prison Camps

Confederate Prison of War Camps,
An estimated number of two hundred thousand prisoners were taken during the civil war by the Confederates. There were not enough resources and no proper preparation for the vast number of prisoners and this drained the material and the human resources of the South.  The planned exchange of prisoners which begun in 1862 was ended in 1863 and the prisoners of war were held in scattered prison camps until the war ended. The larger prisons were meant for officers, in Richmond, Va., Macon, Ga., and Columbia, S.C. and for enlisted men, in Andersonville, Millen, Florence and Charleston. Most of the prisons were made of open stockades or tobacco warehouses and poor quarters, insufficient rations and clothing, and lack of medicines produced excessive disease and a high death rate, which were understood by the North as a deliberate move to murder the prisoners of war.
In retaliation, the northern authorities reduced the allowances for rations and clothing to the prisoners they held. Some relief was obtained when southerners permitted the Union authorities to send food, clothing, and drugs through the lines, but conditions remained bad and the Confederate prisons became the major atrocity in northern propaganda.

The confederate prison camps consisted of Andersonville found in Andersonville, Georgia and currently has a National Prisoner of War Museum. Other prison camps included Belle Isle in Richmond-Virginia,  Blackshear Prison in Blackshear-Georgia, Cahaba Prison in Selma   Alabama, Camp Ford near Tyler   Texas, Castle Pinckney   Charleston, South Carolina, Castle Sorghum   Columbia South Carolina, Castle Thunder Richmond - Virginia, Danville Prison   Danville Virginia, Fort Pulaski   Savannah, Georgia, Salisbury Prison   Salisbury Carolina and Gratiot Street Prison in St Louis, Missouri.

Union Prison Camps
The first year of the civil war saw most captured Confederate soldiers being released on parole even though federal authorities confined captured officers and civilian prisoners in temporary prisons scattered across the North.  Lt. Col. William Hoffman, who became the commissary general of prisoners on the seventh of October 1861, hoped to consolidate the prisoners at a central depot for 1,200 inmates on John-sons Island in Lake Erie. However, the capture of 14,000 Confederates at Fort Donelson rendered the depot inadequate and soon the chaotic collection of prisons expanded to include four training camps across the Midwest.

During the confusion, guards and medical personnel changed frequently thus there was lack of continuity in administration which led to the mismanagement of the prison camps. Even though Lt. Col. William Hoffman tried to correct this, he made little success. The agreement to exchange prisoners in June 1862 reduced the number of inmates from nineteen thousand four hundred and twenty three to one thousand two hundred and eighty six making it possible for Lt. Col. William Hoffman to place the prisoners in three locations.

The collapse in the prisoner exchange program in 1863 led to an increase in the number of prisoners and deteriorations in the conditions in prison camps due to factors such as overcrowding, inadequate food, scarce clothing and lack of proper medical care. To gain control of facilities, Hoffman established large permanent prisons at Fort Delaware, Del., Rock Island, Ill., Point Lookout, Md., and Elmira, N.Y.,  the problems persisted and by February 1865, the Union prisons held over sixty five thousand inmates causing the federal government to begin the return of soldiers to the Confederacy. Union prisons were quickly closed after the surrender at Appomattox and by July of the same year, only a handful of prisoners remained in the prisons.

The Union prison camps consisted of Camp Chase - Columbus, Ohio, Camp Douglas (Chicago) - Chicago, Illinois, Davids Island - New York City, Elmira Prison - Elmira, New York, Fort Delaware - Delaware City, Delaware, Fort Warren - Boston, Massachusetts, Gratiot Street Prison - St. Louis, Missouri, Johnsons Island - Lake Erie, Sandusky, Ohio, Ohio Penitentiary - Columbus, Ohio, Old Capitol Prison - Washington, DC, Point Lookout - Saint Marys County, Maryland and Rock Island Prison - Rock Island, Illinois

The Existence of War Camps
As war progressed and even after the war had ended, many believed that the poor prison conditions were due to malice. However, the failure of Civil War prison camps was and is still believed to have occurred due to human error. The following are some of the war camps that prisoners were kept in

Andersonville Prison Of War Camp
The Andersonville Prison of War camp existed in 1864 and lasted for a year. The camp was mostly known for the exchange of prisoners. This exchange system was somewhat complicated because officers the higher the officer s rank, the more enlisted men were needed to be exchanged for them. This exchange however decreased as the war reduced. It is good to note that the Confederacy however refused to acknowledge black Union soldiers and their white commanders as prisoners of war and instead called the black men rebelling slaves.

Thus these black men were harshly punished and to some extent executed without mercy until president Abraham Lincoln declared that he would execute a Confederate prisoner of war, for every Union prisoner of war that was executed thus successfully preventing the execution of black prisoners. Despite this, black soldiers were still treated more harshly than white prisoners and the South still refused to exchange blacks in return for Confederate soldiers. However, in 1864, Grant refused to exchange any more prisoners until black and white soldiers were accorded equal treatment.

In 1864, the hastily constructed Civil War prison camps in both the North and the South were as a result of the slowing and eventual stop of the prisoner exchange program which caused tremendous overcrowding in the prison camps unlike the way it was at the beginning of the war when prisoners were rapidly exchanged and many were paroled without seeing a prison camp.

Salisbury Prison Of War Camp
The Salisbury Prison of War Camp existed in North Carolina and it is in this camp that Union prisoners from the First Battle of Manassas were held. Prison life in this camp was rough though the first prisoners enjoyed the freedom of playing baseball in the large prison yard.  This prison was also a place where those who had run away from the military and the southern political prisoners were held. Gradually, it became overcrowded holding up to ten thousand prisoners unlike the intended capacity of two thousand prisoners.

Alton Illinois Federal Prison Camp
The Alton Illinois Federal Prison camp which was instituted in 1862 and began receiving prisoners of war in February of the same year. It was one of the earliest prison camps and since it was an established prison with buildings, its prisoners did not suffer the exposure of diseases and other calamities that were common in other prison camps but the prisoners instead suffered from diseases brought about by malnutrition. This is ironic, since unlike the South, Alton never experienced a food shortage.

Prisoners of War
Sheltering so many people adequately was almost impossible in peacetime conditions. It is also a known fact that leaders from both sides agreed to a cartel that allowed for the exchange of prisoners. This was an unofficial agreement where paroled prisoners were supposed to be exchanged officially before going back to war. The following were the type of prisoners that existed in the war camps during these times-

Confederate Prisoners
Confederate prisoners existed during the year 1864 and were among the worst Civil War prisoners during those days. This was because places that they lived in were constructed in a hurry without proper considerations to sanitation. However, it is good to note that Belle Isle in Richmond which housed three thousand prisoners and Point Lookout in Maryland were the only prison camps intended to house prisoners in tents alone without any alternative housing.

The number at Belle rose twice to over six thousand prisoners and tents that were provided to house ten thousand men, instead housed between twelve thousand and twenty thousand prisoners. This meant that the prisoners had to sleep outdoors in Maryland s harsh weather and without tents.  For this reason, it is estimated that over fourteen thousand prisoners of war lost their lives due to diseases at Point Lookout camp in the two years it was in existence thus making it the worst of the Union Civil War prison camps.

In the New York City, there also existed the Elmira Prison camp that was believed to be almost as bad as Point Lookout Prison Camp. This is because almost a quarter of the twelve thousand, one hundred and twenty three confederate prisoners sent to Elmira died. Like in Point Lookout camp, many prisoners in the Elmira camp had to sleep outdoors with scarcely any blankets or adequate clothing. A good example of such was the United States commissary-general of prisoners, Col. William Hoffman who was intentionally placed under poor conditions and starvation.

However, it is also good to note that the head of Andersonville Confederate prison was executed after the war for failing to provide better living conditions though no evidence exists over his failure being deliberate. His failure can be projected to the large number of prisoners and lack of enough food, medication and clothing. Over forty five thousand Union troops were imprisoned in Andersonville and close to thirteen thousand prisoners died of diseases and also due to starvation.

Rebel Prisoners
These were the prisoners who existed during the times of 1865. At that time, dreadful food rationing was practiced at Andersonville whereby prisoners received slightly more than a pound of cornmeal and a pound of beef each day. However, it is important to note that this was also the ration of both the prison guard s and the confederate soldier s food supplies. Nutrition for soldiers in both the North and the South was inadequate most of the time and men from the Army of the Potomac died of scurvy while training near Washington due to deficiency of vitamin C in their diet. Medical care was insufficient with the enormous number of people living together in one place and many prisons lacked hospital facilities. Ignorance of proper hygiene also played a major role in the spread of diseases in these camps.

The state of The Prisoner of War Camps
From the books of history, it is a fact that the Civil War prison camps were terrible places. This is reflected in the reaction of the northerners when they saw the photographs of emaciated Andersonville prisoners who literally looked like skeletons. These northerners were shocked and horrified and they claimed that the conditions at Andersonville were a cruel conspiracy against northern soldiers and were deliberately perpetuated by Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders.
 The name Andersonville was in turn likened with the horrors of Civil War prison camps though in reality prison camps on both sides were poorly managed, horrendously overcrowded, and disease-ridden.  It is also good to note that at the war s outset, prison planners did not anticipate the conflict lasting for long. Most Civil War prison camps were poorly planned and some were situated in damp locations which made disease more likely.

Conclusion
It can thus be said that Just as Andersonville and the story of the prisoners of wars are of great interest for historical research, the issue of fair and ethical treatment of prisoners of wars continue to be an issue around the world today. In the same manner that it Andersonville was a concern to the public persons living in the north, prisoners of war have also been matters of public interest and has led to a world wide concerns that have eventually led to the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners-of-war.