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The following article is from the Confederate Veteran, Vol. VI, No. 12, Nashville, Tennessee, December
1898.
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AT CAMP MORTON
Elder J. K. Womack
That den of misery a little north of Indianapolis, known as Camp Morton, was constructed as a fair ground.
Temporary stables for horses were erected in long rows. These were converted into barracks for Confederate prisoners.
In the fall of 1863, soon after the battle of Chickamauga, Gen. Joe Wheeler made a raid into Middle Tennessee, during which event Joel Womack, Jim Hood, Pete Donald, Jeff Barlow,
Josh Dillon, Will Pickett, and I were captured, near Cainsville, Tenn. We were first placed in jail at Murfreesboro, sent
from there to the penitentiary in Nashville, thence to the barracks in Louisville, and finally to Camp Morton. There was not
a bunk in the division, so our bed during that winter was an oilcloth spread upon the earth in the aisle of these barracks.
Those who had preceded us were in much want. They were dirty, pale, emaciated, ragged, and lousy. Only a few had a change
of clothing. We slept in our clothing every night to keep from freezing. There were two hundred and fifty prisoners in No.
7, and about four thousand in the prison. Those who had occasion to be up at night walked upon us unavoidably, as we slept
in the only outlet. We were often spit upon at night by comrades who had colds. Camp life as a Confederate soldier was hard,
but prison life in Camp Morton was harder. Daily rations were eaten immediately upon being issued. We were supplied with one
loaf of bread and one small piece of beef, and nothing more. It happened occasionally that we would draw this about eight
o'clock in the morning, and then not get any more until the following day, late in the evening. When this was the case we
became so hungry that we would stand and look for the wagons to come through the gates with our bread. Sometimes, by stealth,
we would pick up potato peelings thrown out from the cook rooms, roll them into balls, and cook and eat them with a relish.
The beef bones were broken into small pieces, boiled in clear water, the grease dipped off and poured into a saucer, and sold
as bone butter at ten cents a half cake. Crawfish were caught in the ditches, boiled, their pinchers pulled off when hot,
and then converted into most excellent soup. A cutler's dog, killed and barbecued, furnished food that we relished.
Every man who was able to walk was required to fall in line for roll call about sunrise each morning. The
Yankee sergeant who called the roll for our division was named Fiffer. I never heard a kind word fall from his lips. He was
about grown and really a demon in human flesh. I have seen him walk through our barracks with a heavy stick in his hand, striking
right and left on the heads, faces, backs, or stomachs of the poor, starving prisoners, as though they were so many reptiles,
crying out: "This is the way you whip your Negroes." I dislike to write this, but it ought to go down in history.
Our division was not the only one that suffered from inhuman treatment. Division No. 12, near the center
of the camps, had a sergeant named Baker. One bitter cold morning while we were standing in line stamping the earth to keep
from freezing a pistol shot was heard, and immediately the piteous cries of a prisoner were wafted to our ears. The poor fellow
had stepped a little out of line at roll call, and for this crime(?) was shot down. I saw Fiffer strike prisoners over the
head with a loaded pistol.
Death had thinned our ranks so much during the first winter that we had a bunk the next. We were packed
in like sardines on our sides in spoon fashion. When one became tired he would cry out, "Turn!" when all would turn from right
to left or left to right. We existed in this condition, with the thermometer below zero, in open stables without door shutters,
hungry, and shivering with cold, having only one stove for two hundred and fifty men. How good a piece of corn bread from
home would have been at that time! While memory lasts I can never forget the great war and that cruel prison.
Recommended
Reading:
To Die in Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp
Douglas 1862-65 (Hardcover: 446 pages). Description:
The author’s research is exacting, methodical, and painstaking. He brought zero bias to the enterprise and the result
is a stunning achievement that is both scholarly and readable. Douglas, the "accidental" prison camp, began as a training
camp for Illinois volunteers. Donalson and Island
#10 changed that. The long war that no one expected… combined with inclement weather – freezing temperatures -
primitive medical care and the barbarity of the captors created in the author’s own words "a death camp." Stanton's
and Grant's policy of halting the prisoner exchange behind the pretense of Fort
Pillow accelerated the suffering. Continued below...
In the latest edition, Levy found the long lost hospital records at the National Archives which prove conclusively
that casualties were deliberately “under reported.” Prisoners were tortured, brutality was tolerated and corruption
was widespread. The handling of the dead rivals stories of Nazi Germany. The largest mass grave in the Western Hemisphere
is filled with....the bodies of Camp Douglas dead,
4200 known and 1800 unknown. No one should be allowed to speak of Andersonville until they have absorbed the horror of Douglas,
also known as “To Die in Chicago.”
Related Reading:
Recommended Reading: Portals
to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War. Description: The military prisons
of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have
been nearly forgotten. Lonnie R. Speer has now brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between
the Union
and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true “hell on earth.” Drawing on
scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners’ experiences in great detail
and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this
chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders.
It is available in paperback and hardcover.
Recommended
Reading:
So Far from Dixie: Confederates in Yankee Prisons (Hardcover: 312 pages). Description: This book is the gripping history of five men who were sent to Elmira, New York's infamous POW camp,
and survived to document their stories. You will hear and even envision the most stirring and gripping true stories of
each soldier that lived and survived the most horrible nightmares of the conflict while tortured and even starved as
"THE PRISONER OF WAR."
Recommended
Reading:
The True Story of Andersonville Prison: A Defense of Major Henry Wirz. Description: During
the Civil War, James Madison Page was a prisoner in different places in the South. Seven months of that time was spent at
Andersonville. While at that prison, he became well acquainted with Major Wirz –
who had previously held the rank of captain. Page takes the stand and states that "Captain Wirz was unjustly held responsible
for the hardship and mortality of Andersonville." It was his belief that both Federal and
Confederate authorities must share culpability. Why? Because the Union knew the inability of the Confederacy to meet the reasonable
wants of its prisoners of war, as it lacked supplies for its own needs – particularly for its Confederate
soldiers - and since the Federal authorities failed to exercise a humane policy in the exchange of those captured in battle...
that policy was commonly referred to as prisoner exchange. Continued below...
The writer, "with malice toward none and charity for all", denies conscious prejudice, and makes the sincere
endeavor to put himself in the other fellow's place and make such a statement of the matter in hand as will satisfy all lovers
of truth and justice.
Recommended Reading: The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (444
pages) (Louisiana State University Press) (Updated edition: November 2007) Description: The
Life of Johnny Reb does not merely describe the battles and skirmishes fought by the Confederate foot soldier. Rather,
it provides an intimate history of a soldier's daily life--the songs he sang, the foods he ate, the hopes and fears he experienced,
the reasons he fought. Wiley examined countless letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and official records to construct this
frequently poignant, sometimes humorous account of the life of Johnny Reb. In a new foreword for this updated edition, Civil
War expert James I. Robertson, Jr., explores the exemplary career of Bell Irvin Wiley, who championed the common folk, whom
he saw as ensnared in the great conflict of the 1860s. Continued below...
About Johnny Reb:
"A Civil War classic."--Florida Historical Quarterly
"This book deserves to be on the shelf of every Civil War modeler and enthusiast."--Model
Retailer
"[Wiley] has painted with skill a picture of the life of the Confederate
private. . . . It is a picture that is not only by far the most complete we have ever had but perhaps the best of its kind
we ever shall have."--Saturday Review of Literature
Facts regarding Prisoner of War Camp Morton
History, American Civil War Treatment of Confederate Soldiers Prisoners of War Treatment by Union Army, Yankees, Southerners,
Confederates Starved, Tortured, Beaten and Abused.
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