Captives in gray : the Civil War prisons of the Union / Roger Pickenpaugh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pickenpaugh, Roger.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Army.

Military prisons.

History.

Prisons.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Prisoners and prisons.

United States.

United States. Army--Prisons--History--19th century.

Military prisons--United States--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

xii, 287 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2009]

Summary:

Perhaps no topic is more heated, and the sources more tendentious, than that of Civil War prisons and the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). Partisans of each side, then and now, have vilified the other for maltreatment of their POWs, while seeking to excuse their own distressing record of prisoner of war camp mismanagement, brutality, and incompetence. It is only recently that historians have turned their attention to this contentious topic in an attempt to sort the wheat of truth from the chaff of partisan rancor. Roger Pickenpaugh has previously studied a Union prison camp in careful detail (Camp Chase) and now turns his attention to the Union record in its entirety, to investigate variations between camps and overall prison policy and to determine as nearly as possible what actually happened in the admittedly over-crowded, under-supplied, and poorly-administered camps. He also attempts to determine what conditions resulted from conscious government policy or were the product of local officials and situations. A companion to Pickenpaugh's Captives in Blue .

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780817316525

0817316523

OCLC:

263408664