. The photographic history of the Civil War : in ten volumes . sen to serve as a prison in May, 1864. The first detachment of Confederate prisoners arrivedthere July 6th, 649 in number. During the month of July, 1864, 4,424 more were brought; during August, 5,193; and from September1, 1S64, to May 12, 1865, 2,503 additional, making a total of 12,122 prisoners of war. For a considerable time a large proportionof these were accommodated in tents, though barracks were completed in the early part of the winter. The site of the prison wasbadly chosen; it was below the level of the Chemung River, an
. The photographic history of the Civil War : in ten volumes . sen to serve as a prison in May, 1864. The first detachment of Confederate prisoners arrivedthere July 6th, 649 in number. During the month of July, 1864, 4,424 more were brought; during August, 5,193; and from September1, 1S64, to May 12, 1865, 2,503 additional, making a total of 12,122 prisoners of war. For a considerable time a large proportionof these were accommodated in tents, though barracks were completed in the early part of the winter. The site of the prison wasbadly chosen; it was below the level of the Chemung River, and a lagoon of stagnant water caused much sickness. The severity ofthe winter also brought much suffering to the prisoners, may of whom came from the warm Gulf States. The number of deaths toJuly 1, 1805, was 2,917; the number of escapes 17; those in the hospital, July 1, 1865, 218; and the number released. 8,970; total, figures were taken from the books of the officer in charge. The high fence was built when prisoners were ordered to this r\ of oilcloth, coats, and blankets stretched upon sticks. Thetents and huts were not arranged according to any order, andthere was in most parts of the enclosure scarcely room for twomen to walk abreast between the tents and huts. . Masses ofcorn bread, bones, old rags, and filth of every description werescattered around or accumulated in large piles. If one mightjudge from the large pieces of corn bread scattered about inevery direction on the ground, the prisoners were either verylavishly supplied with this article of diet or else this kind of foodwas not relished by them. The stream was not strong enoughto carry away the filth and the swampy lowland became inde-scribably foul. Each day the dead from the stockade were carried out bytheir fellow prisoners and deposited upon the ground under ahush arbor just outside of the southwestern gate. From thencethey were carried in carts to the burying ground one-quarter ofa mile
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Keywords: ., bookauthormillerfrancistrevelya, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
