At the Community College in new york. Derek has recently earned fame for his brand new book as part of the emerging civil war series. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome derek maxfield. Thank you very much. Im very pleased to be here and talk about my latest project. You know, elmira is, and prisoner war camps in general, have been a surprise me. Ive studied the civil war since, umm, since i was quite young, and, umm, you know, knew the lengths of the tragedy during the civil war, umm, but it was eyeopening to me the extent of the humanitarian crisis that unfolded over the course of those four bloody years. Umm, over 56,000, umm, died, umm, in prisoner of war camps over that time. Just over 500,000 incarcerated in total. And all though we understand, you know, the that this is just a small number of casualties considered the total number of casualties during the civil war, over 750,000 now, we believe, umm when you consider we could have done better both north and south. You consider this was in our power to a large measure to make lives for those that were incarcerated better, its really, umm, quite disappointing. It tells us much about ourselves, i think, than as today. This was a project that actually started, umm, because i was asked by Chris Mackowski to write this book. It was something, umm, something of a surprise to me because when i was growing up, just 30 miles from elmira, i had no clue that elmira was a site of a p. O. W. Camp. I think i learned in college, for the first time, about this and was just entirely shocked. Because i thought by that time i was fairly well versed in the civil war. I come to learn theres a good reason why i didnt know about it and, in fact, many people in elmira didnt know about it. To some extent, it was an exercise in civic amnesia. They wanted to hide the past. It was only quite recently that they began to embrace what happened there along the river. And in large measure, the reason for this had to do with being compared to andersonville. So andersonville, many people know, was the p. O. W. Camp near americas georgia. It was the largest of the p. O. W. Camps. It was the most deadly of the p. O. W. Camps of the civil war. It held over 30,000. It had a death rate approaching 30 . And as the war came to an end and the union came to learn more and more about the tragedy, the atrocities at andersonville, there began to be this kind of back and forth finger pointing where every time the union would scream about the atrocities at andersonville, the south would answer what about elmira . And this is the way this is going to go on for 30 some years after the war. As both sides tried to blame each other for what happened in these p. O. W. Camps. It wasnt until the 1990s that this community decided to reembrace its past. A High School Teacher lead a movement to place a monument on the spot where the camp sat on water street. So you see this here. The original flagstaff of the camp was placed near the monument, as well, at that time. About that same time, umm, the only two modern books were published, until mine. Both were released within a year of each other. But before that, the next book you have to look at would be clay holmes book just before world war i. It hasnt had a lot of attention by historians, and those that knew about it really had no reason to want to uncover this again fearing it would be bad for business, bad for tourism, which is an industry that elmira relies on heavily. This is one of my interests. Another interest had to do with this man here. William b. Reese. My third great grandfather. In my research, i learned he served in elmira during the time it was a prison camp. He was part of the veterans reserve corps. He had been in the battle of gettysburg. He was injured on the first day and couldnt return to full duty. He ends up at elmira guarding some of the prisoner ins i would be studying. We start the story of p. O. W. Camps in general. This is montgomery. He is the Quarter Master general for the union. As the civil war got underway, one of the things we see is neither side give serious thought to the potentiality of needing to hold prisoners of war. All though there were prisoners taken in some of the earliest battles of the war, they were exchanged pretty much on the spot in a kind of informal way that harkened back to the way things were done in the mexico war. No formal policy at all. It was early days in the war that was suggested to the secretary of war, maybe we should do something to prepare in case we need to hold prisoners of war. Simon cameron was more interested, i think, in lining his own pockets at that time than anything else. And as a result, nothing gets done. The confederates do little or nothing either. So, umm, then we come to the story of william huffman. Hes going to be appointed at the request of montgomery. The commissary general of union prisoners. One of the things that, that occurs to me in all of this, that if youre going to take the problem seriously, you want your best people on this. When i look back at the way that both sides operate in p. O. W. Camps from the top down, part of how they could have done things better is the people they chose to run these facilities and how farman was a good enough officer but he had no administrative experience at all. He happened to be available. And one of his qualifications was he was a p. O. W. Himself for a short time. Huffman was a graduate of west point. He served in the mexican war. He was in the 8th u. S. Regulars infantry. Very early in the war he found himself a p. O. W. He was exchanged in the informal manner but while awaiting exchange, he was in washington and they said, hey, weve got this job. How about you . This is how he comes to the job. And i think that when you look at his administration anyway of the p. O. W. Facilities, one of the things that i think is a characteristic that is important here is his ingrained frugality. Hes really cheap. Thats himself but thats also the way hes going to run the p. O. W. Camps on a real shoe string. Thats something that incidentally makes the secretary of war, whether its Simon Cameron or admiral stanton very pleased because they dont want to spend anymore money than is necessary, either. On the confederate side of things, they didnt have as formal an administrative structure when it came to the p. O. W. Camps. The closest they came was their marshall. This is john winder who was prohost marshall of richmond, virginia. When the war started, he would be placed more or less in charge of the p. O. W. Facilities in richmond itself, and thats primarily where the p. O. W. Facilities will remain for some time. Only later near the end of the war did they make this in any way more formal. Hes an interesting guy. He was a west point graduate. A Tactics Instructor a little bit after his graduation. Mexican war vet. Riveted for gallantry in the field. He has more of an administrative capacity than huffman did but he has Less Authority. Much Less Authority than his union opposite. So the p. O. W. Issue comes to a head at shy l shiloh. Shiloh is the battle early in the war. Its the battle that opened the eyes of the north and south how long and bloody the war is going to be. Over the course of two days saw over 23,000 casualties. This also meant that you had hundreds, if not thousands of prisoners taken on both sides, and shiloh is in the middle of a vast wilderness. Pittsburgh landing is on the tennessee river, which is is a water highway out of there, but where the battle took place is really in the middle of nowhere. So you have to move your wounded and your casualties out of this wilderness to be treated or to be imprisoned and what it meant was, really, kind of an emergency in the west, at this time, for the holding of p. P. O. W. S. They have to be shipped north and the union, in quick order, has to convert what facilities they have available to them. It might be old penitentiaries, old prisons, old fairgrounds, anything where you can convert to holding a large number of prisoners in a fairly short amount of time. Now the issue of Prisoner Exchange was complicated by lincolns stance when it came to recognizing the confederacy, which he could not, of course, do. He saw this as a rebellion. To treat with them about the p. O. W. Issues, in some ways, it would be to recognize them, which is something he could not do yet the pragmatist in lincoln recognized that yet weve got to do something. We have to formalize the system of exchange because this really isnt going to work otherwise. This is what leads to what is called the dicks hill cartel. So if you have these two men, john a. Dix, d. H. Hill. They get together and come to an agreement. Largely based on the framework from the mexican war with some updates. Its largely a manforman exchange and formula of exchange of officers and enlisted men. At least they have something in place, something they can work from. That gives some hope to men that find themselves incourarcerated and, to some extent, empties out the p. O. W. Camps that were then in place. This is all quite complicated by the emancipation proclamation issued in january of 1863. So lincoln came to the conclusion that in order to win this war, this measure would be necessary. So he issues the preliminary emancipation proclamation after the battle of antietam seeing this as a victory and it becomes official in january 63 and as you imagine it sends the south into a tail spin over there and there is some fury. But it also opens the door to africanamerican prisoners. And this is where the breakdown of the cartel system begins. The high command of the confederacy, of course, does not want africanamerican soldiers in the field. They are offended by this. But they absolutely refuse to treat them as white soldiers. And this complicates exchange dramatically. Sed don says at the time black soldiers cannot be recognized in any way as soldiers subject to the rules of war and they absolutely refuse to exchange africanamericans. This gets worse as time goes on because not only is the confederacy refusing to exchange any africanamerican soldiers they take, but reports start to get back to Union Authorities that many men are shot in the process of surrender. The casualty rate among africanamericans that are incarcerated is very high. Over the course of the war, over 800 black p. O. W. S are taken, which is really a small number of those that the numbers should reflect. And of those that do go into captivity, only 35 im sorry, 35 die in captivity. And so lincolns response to this at the time is to halt exchanges. Well, when you halt exchanges, that means that both sides now have the burden of taking care of these p. O. W. S. And where are you going to hold them . Of course as the war goes on and the fighting gets worse this problem becomes worse and worse. They have to open new camps. They have to be on the lookout for new facilities. And the one that most impacts our story is Point Lookout maryland. So Point Lookout, maryland results from the fighting in 1863. The camps are overflowing. And camp hoffman, aka Point Lookout is created at that time. Its a beautiful area, a former resort area. But it also had the added advantage of being very near the Biggest Union hospital. So this hospital, you can see down here on the point, it looks like spokes on a wheel. Hammond General Hospital is the largest of the union hospitals. It has very Good Transportation access. Its also a place that would be hard to escape from. And so they begin to set up camps very near there. And youll see those in the upper right of the screen. Now, Point Lookout will very quickly swell to over 20,000 at its peak. This will be the big feeder camp to what becomes elmira. Theres another view. At about the same time, early 64, andersonville is created in the south. We talked about this a little bit earlier. This was a camp that will come to house over 30,000. Its really just a big pen where Union Soldiers are thrown and they will have little fresh water. They will have food occasionally. As the confederacy can get supplies to them. But almost immediately reports start to get back to the union about how things are going there in the state of this the prisoners in the confederate charge. The Overland Campaign is another thing that really directly impacts the overflow and then the real humanitarian crisis of the p. O. W. Camps because this is a campaign thats going to see over 65,000 union casualties, over 35,000 confederate casualties. All the p. O. W. S are taken captive. There is no exchange at this time. And so these camps are just busting at the seams. Grant says at the time that its hard on our men to be held in southern prisons, not to exchange them, but its humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. He felt to Exchange Prisoners would help the south, it would help them to fight on longer and he felt this was a way to quicken the end of the war, even if that meant that Union Soldiers are going to suffer in the process. Which they certainly did. So elmira comes into the story because of the union camps busting at the seams, where are we going to put these men. The load on Point Lookout was almost unbearable and they were beginning to have security concerns there and so they decided to look about for another location. And elmira suited them quite well because elmira was already a draft rauendezvous. It was next to a canal. This was a place that had been a feeder location for Union Soldiers earlier in the war so many of the facilities were still there and Still Available and so there would be a minimum of preparation necessary to get this ready. So at that post was Lieutenant Colonel seth eastman. He was kind of your average soldier. He was not a great able administrator. He was a topographical engineer by training. He graduated from west point. Hes a guy that was also really not up to the job either. But he is a good soldier, and you can see in his correspondence with his superiors that hes ready to do what they want him to do. Though he is not in great health himself. Hes also kind of conflicted because his real interests arent military. His real interests are in oil painting and being an illustrator and an artist. And really, the stress and the physical toll that the camp takes on him will lead to his removal in a short amount of time. But while hes there, he does the best that he can. One interesting side note on this, though, is eastmans wife, Mary Henderson was a virginiian. She was an ffv from one of the first families of virginia and very proslavery. And was so agitated by the book written by Harry Beecher stow, uncle toms cabin, she wrote her own vision called aunt phylliss cabin in answer to this. That had to have been controversial. Its more interesting because Harriet Beecher stow summered in new york. These two ladies would have been circulating in elite elmira society. One wonders what those conversations were like. One of the more interesting figures in elmira was the commandant of the elmira p. O. W. Camp henry colt, he also is kind of on the injured reserve, if you will. He was with a new york regiment, and he had been injured in battle, the 104th new york. And they put him on duty at elmira to run the p. O. W. Camp. And its really interesting that when you look at the memoirs of the prisoners in the years of the war the vitriol is quite thick. And some of that, i think, is guided by the controversy over andersonville at the time. But what is really interesting is although they have terrible things to say about the conditions and the food at elmira, especially the winters, they love this man, love this man. And in the memoirs, especially the memoirs of Anthony Kylie who well talk about, they talk about how humane and kind that this man was. So hes their jailer. And they write in their memoirs about how terrible a place elmira was, and yet they love it had man that is in charge of it, which i find kind of interesting. In january when he returns to duty the prisoners give him a parting gift on a silver platter, literally on a silver platter, a chalice that is made from a coconut. Thats the bowl of this cup. Handmade chalice as a gift to him on his way out. Youll see here the outlines, the rough outlines of the p. O. W. Camp at elmira. Youll see that the wall at the top there is right on the shmung river. Its definitely built on a floodplain, fosters pond, one of the things well talk about in a moment youll see about a third of the way down and the largest amount of the camp is there in the bottom half. This encompasses over 30 acres of land. And just to give you some notion of what this looks like today, this is an overlay of that map on the modern neighborhood. And youll see near the top there water street, you can see fosters pond overlaid there and a place on the shmung river so there are probably at least a hundred homes that sit where the p. O. W. Camp was during the war. Fosters pond was one of the big controversies in the occupation of this land. Fosters pond is just kind of a farm pond but it was very still water. And early in the occupation in july of 64 they set up the sinks, the latrines very close to the pond and they were very poorly sided so the pond is getting filled with urine and excrement. Its still water, no fresh water running through it so it begins to stink really bad. And at the time this was sighted as a real health concern. An inspector from the War Department cited it as much, citing myasmas, a word used at the time of odors which they believed would make men sick. This was cited as an issue very early on yet nothing is done about it despite the fact that they feel this is hazardous to the health of the soldiers in their charge. There are also no hospital facilities in july of 64 when this camp opens. The prisoners are marched in. They are housed in tents. And that is the way that it will remain for quite some time. One of the early tragedies in the history of the camp was a wreck, a train full of prisoners, on its way to elmira. I believe this was only the third or fourth shipment of soldiers. It was carrying 800 prisoners from jersey city. And it collided head on with a coal train in the mountains of pennsylvania near shohola. 14 guards are killed, 40 prisoners are killed. A number escape. And all of the townspeople and the people from miles around come to help to load up a new train and bury the dead and deal with this tragedy. And we know that it was the middle of the night that the wounded arrive in elmira, with no advanced word. So in elmira they had no idea that this tragedy had happened. All they know is the train arrives unexpectedly and youve got vast numbers of wounded that need immediate treatment. The facilities to treat these wounded were not in place yet. And so this leads to untold amounts of suffering. At about this time they also have to establish a cemetery to bury the dead. Before august 1st. Already 11 prisoners had died. The shohola dead will not be removed to elmira until the 20th century. They were buried on the spot down in shohola but theyll be moved later. This is something thachs put into the charge of a very interesting man named john jones. Jones was at one time in his life a slave who ran away to his freedom. Settled in elmira where he became a prominent conductor on the underground railroad, ushering hundreds to their freedom. But settled there and found a new life. He was so trusted that they made him caretaker of the local cemeteries, including woodlawn cemetery. He was also placed in charge of the prisoners that died at the camp and he will have almost 3,000 of those to deal with during his tenure as the caretaker. Another interesting figure in all of this is eugene sanger. So he does not arrive until at least six weeks into the existence of this camp. Theyre operating on local physicians at the start but sanger is sent to become the chief surgeon, native of maine, went to Dartmouth College before going to medical school in philadelphia. He was not a man that was really wellrespected in elmira, especially among the prisoners. Anthony kylie, one of the more prominent of the prisoners who wrote a memoir said he especially hated sanger and, in fact, accused him of murdering the prisoners in his charge. And kylie has some really interesting quotes. So he called sanger clubfooted little gentleman with an abnormal head and snakey looking little eyes. Kylie himself had much to say about his incarceration. Hell be there from july until october and hes worth mentioning because hes not the ordinary prisoner. So when you look at the ranks of the prisoners in elmira, these are your foot soldiers from lees army largely, almost no officers. And kylie actually was a civilian when he was caught near petersburg. He was called out to help the local militia and was in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets snatched. He was a member of the Virginia House of delegates at the time. He was incarcerated at Point Lookout and then sent on to elmira. But where he strikes up a really interesting friendship with henry colt. And, in fact, is given a special job. Hes given special quarters. Hes given special meals. So he really gets abnormal treatment. And yet, after the war his memoir will be one of the most interesting to read. But filled with some of the worst vitriol of any of the memoirs. Inviculus is the name of his memoir and its definitely worth reading. Another interesting aspect of this camp was the enterprising gentleman on the outside in the town who set up an observation platform which you can see on the right side of the screen there. Theyll charge you ten cents to go to the top and get a look at a real live reb. As i said before seth eastman didnt last long. His health really wasnt good when the tenure of the camp began and his health just grew worse and worse until they finally were forced to remove him. In his place they put colonel benjamin tracy. Tracy was not on the reserve. Interesting man. He was one of those politician soldiers that grant and sherman so disliked. He was on assemblyman in new york before the war, a lawyer, a district attorney. Though, to give him credit, you know, he raised the regiment, served with the 109th new york and, in fact, earned the medal of honor for his heroism at the battle of the wilderness. So he earned his stripes but he was a politician through and through. And its very clear that when they place him in elmira, the War Department knows who theyre getting. And he has a clear idea of what is expected of him. They just want him to keep his head down, not make any noise, and be prepared to follow orders from the War Department about how they want these prisoners treated, which includes the cutting of rations twice. During his tenure. Despite the fact that food was abundant in the area around elmira. This is what has led to some suggesting that what you had going on here in elmira was a union answer to the atrocities in andersonville, a converted effort to punish confederate prisoners because of the treatment of Union Soldiers at andersonville and the evidence definitely sustains this. As i told you before they were housed in tents. The prisoners were housed in tents at the beginning so by october 1st you have 9,000 prisoners in elmira. But you only had a small number of barracks. The first snow arrives in october. You are still going to have hundreds of men in tents into january when the final barracks get up. The men not in barracks are sleeping on the ground, on the bare ground largely unless they have some straw or Something Else to sleep on. Every prisoner is given two blankets. But of course we all know those of us that are from western new york how cold it can get. In elmira that time of the year. We know that by january 1st there was a foot of snow standing on the ground and so these men would have been sleeping in the snow, standing in the snow and ice for roll call each morning. It must have been really hard on an alabama or a mississippian. Here is a view of the reconstructed barracks that you can see now that have been built there. Another interesting prisoner is marcus tony. Hes a tennesseean and in his memoirs we get an interesting view of life in camp because he contracted smallpox while he was there and had to be housed in the smallpox hospital. The smallpox hospital was set up very down close to the shmung river, away from everybody else to provide isolation. And they thought that this was the best place to put it. Toney finds himself there, and gives us a really riveting account of how the smallpox patients suffered. The men who died there, he said, were dragged out and left in front of their tents in whatever position a man was when death overtook him in that position he froze and they would stay there frozen in these odd positions for as much as a day before their bodies would be removed. Food was always an issue at elmira. It should not have been. It was an area of plenty. Scurvy was a real problem inside of elmira. And again, theres no reason that this needed to be because there was an abundance of vegetables in the elmira area but as i already mentioned to you the union high command issued a cutting of rations twice in the First Six Months of the existence of the camp. And so men were forced to look out for themselves in some cases. There was a lively market in muskrats. Theres reports of dogs going missing. They would scrounge for whatever they could get. Another prisoner side there were a lot of drones or lifeless men he wrote in his memoirs, do less persons who moped around, pining away for whatever sufficient food to eat, losing their humanity, eating almost anything a brute would eat, even gangrene poultrices and the like. Another interesting part of the story has to do with the Spiritual Life of the confederates housed in elmira, a number of local pastors and ministers would come to minister to the spiritual needs of the prisoners. Some were welcomed with open arms. Others were a little bit too preachy for the likes of prisoners. Thomas beecher was probably the most prominent pastor in elmira at the time, pastor of the park church, that is the brother of Harry Beecher stow. One of the things that we know that was happening inside of the camp was these prisoners desperately looking for something to do. Boredom was their biggest enemy, apart from the cold, and they looked for different ways to pass the time. And these are some pieces, some pieces of jewelry, a die made by prisoners. You can see these now in the shmung Valley Historical society. They would make rings and trinkets and make deals with guards who would sell them in the community and some of the money would actually make it back to the prisoners. The medium of exchange was tobacco. In high demand, north and south. And this kind of became the replacement for money there for a time. So the winter of 6465 was really quite brutal. We know that the temperatures were below zero for much of early january. Deep snows, howling winds. And in the barracks those that were lucky enough to be in barracks, there would be one or two stoves. At first wood and later coal stoves but they were given an allotment for the day and when that ran out they would be cold and so largely what would happen is they would be warm for a few hours, run out of their allotment of fuel and freeze for the better part of eight hours. But at least they were sheltered from the wind, shelters provided for them unlike the prisoners in andersonville who were provided with no shelters at all. Now as i said before this was built on a floodplain on the shmung river, which is a substantial river. Its surrounded by high hills. And i already told you that there are deep snows on those hills. So it does not take a genius to figure out, when that snow begins to melt, that is a river that is going to swell rapidly. So this is something that the authorities in elmira should have seen coming. Benjamin tracy, in fact, we know was warned several times in writing, hey, you had better, you know, figure something out here because that river is going to come booming in february, march or april and this is exactly what happens. There was a quick thaw. And this massive flood that washes down the valley. It was called st. Patricks day flood. This was march of 65. And it wiped out three quarters of the fencing, along the shmung river. Almost 90 of the camp was under water. And they had to, in fact, rescue the smallpox patients who were in vital danger of drowning. As i said the smallpox hospital was way out down close to the river itself and so they mounted this rescue effort in the middle of the night with jury rigged rafts and tow ropes and you had guards and prisoners side by side working through the night to rescue these prisoners, some of whom unfortunately fell into the icy water and will die shortly after but many of them were, in fact, rescued. For their efforts the prisoners were at least given a ration of whisky. So the dismantling of the camp begins to happen in march of 65. They begin to move prisoners out. By this time grant has given permission for exchanges to be resumed. In fact, these were resumed before the campaign. So elmira began to empty out little by little. It wasnt, though, until july, of course long after app mattics and the surrender at benton place that these men will go home. Sadly, 140 men were not able they were not well enough to travel and will be staying in elmira for some time. Some actually of those 140 never leave. The camp began to be dismantled almost immediately. Part of the Lease Agreement between the foster family who own the land and the government was that the land would be returned to its original state as much as possible. So all the buildings were dismantled and sold off. They were auctioned off. But, you know, remnants and reminders of what was once there became very sparse in a short amount of time. One of those that existed into the 20th century was the former dead house where they would hold dead bodies until they could be buried over at woodlawn cemetery. Clay holmes writes about this in his book shortly before world war i. Today we have an organization in elmira called the friends of the elmira prison who are working really hard to bring back that history and acknowledge what happens there. Their efforts have included the reconstruction of an original camp building. This was made from lumber that was held in storage ever since the civil war. Reconstructed. About 80 of it is original lumber and you can see it in elmira today and theyve also reconstructed an original bar lacks. Lets take a quick look at the numbers before i wrap up here. As i said over 400,000 soldiers were held and 150,000 different facilities, 56,000 died in captivity. The elmira numbers include almost 10,000 held. Death rate of 24 . This is why elmira gets compared to andersonville, the death rate. In many or most other ways i dont believe that there is an adequate comparison here, a good comparison at all. But what i argue in the book is its long past time for finger pointing and it is time just to acknowledge that both sides could have done a much better job taking care of the prisoners in their care. Thank you very much. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Following more than four years of world war, 51 founding members signed the United Nations charter in hopes of preventing future wars and promoting global peace and justice. On october 24th 1945 the u. N. Was officially established. We feature five films beginning with the signing of the u. N. s charter. Thats tonight at 8 00 eastern and enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Located in charleston harbor, fort sumter was still held by union forces in april of 1861, despite south carolinas secession in 1860. Up next, National Parks service historian mark maloy describes the events of april 12th, 1861 when confederate guns open fire on fort sumter. This talk was part of a symposium on the war in the east hosting the civil war blog. Welcome back to the emerging civil war, virtual symposium, glad to have you with us, my name is chris mccows key, the editor in chief of emerging civil war. Our next speaker today comes to us from our sister site,
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