Andersonville North

“in a land of plenty; to die of lingering torture.”

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch November 16, 1864:

The Treatment of Southern prisoners at the North.

We find in the Washington National Intelligencer a private letter relative to the condition of our prisoners at Elmira, New York. The editors of that paper give as a reason for its publication that “it describes so feelingly the wretched condition of the miserable beings confined in one of the largest of our military prisons and appeals so fervently and eloquently to our common humanity for sympathy and succor to the sufferers”:

Baltimore, October 14, 1864.

My Dear Sir

Library of Congress: “elevated view of Elmira prison camp in New York, with a long line of prisoners standing along the fence”

My short acquaintance with you would hardly, under ordinary circumstances, warrant my thus addressing you; but I know you to be a christian gentleman, and as such I appeal to you in an emergency of appalling magnitude.

I have just returned from Elmira. Though not permitted to go inside the prison enclosure, I saw the condition of the fifteen hundred who were taken away for exchange, many of them in a dying condition. There are ten thousand prisoners at Elmira. A great number have been in confinement since the battle of Gettysburg. They have been kept at Point Lookout; have contracted disease from the unwholesome water there; were transferred to Elmira scantily clothed to face the cold Northern climate; no tea or coffee is allowed them; no variation of their scanty prison fare. No wonder that the mortality has been, and is, frightful; that the sick number fifteen hundred. Sleeping on the ground, under tents, four blankets for five men, many without socks or shoes; when, at last, taken to the hospital they are too far gone to be restored to life. Several of those taken away for exchange died on the cars. Happy they to be at rest! No more cold or hunger pangs to suffer! Only think of it! Never to be warm, never to have a full meal, a cup of coffee, in a land of plenty; to die of lingering torture.

It is useless to appeal to the Secretary of War. It rests with the men of the North to remove this foul stain from our country. The officers in charge of the prison at Elmira are kind and humane, but the condition of things is beyond their power to remedy. A quantity of coarse, warm clothing is immediately required. Socks, under-clothing, blankets and thick knit jackets are wanted for hospital use; and an effort ought at once to be made, such as Mr. Stanton cannot withstand, to have them allowed coffee, tea and sugar. I cannot, will not, believe that my countrymen of the North will permit this state of things to continue.

I know, sir, how nobly you have responded to the calls made upon you in the past, and I implore you to help me now. My voice is too feeble to reach the ears of the thousands who ought to be willing as they are able to give to this holy charity. From every prison in the North, East and West, from Rhode Island to Fort Warren, goes out this wail of suffering humanity — clothing and blankets to keep us warm, food and coffee to save us from perishing! Woe to the people, dwellers in a land of plenty, to whom these calls are made in vain! These men are our brothers. There is not a hamlet in the far West, a village in my own native New England, not a mining town in California, but shelters some gray head, some bleeding, anguished heart, whose hearts go right up to heaven for pity on these prisoners — their own kindred, blood of blood.

Mr.–, I cannot write of these things. Those fifteen hundred pale faces are before me as I saw them pass me at the depot. Those ghastly, pleading faces! I saw them here again — saw the pile of dead — dead from want of nourishing food — a cup of coffee. I saw in a city whose church s[t]eeples tower toward Heaven gentle women, who would have given this nourishment, driven by brutal police and detectives from the mission bequeathed to them by the pitying Son of Mary. Hot tears of shame for my countrymen who permit these outrages upon Humanity and Christianity — tears of pity for these poor sufferers blind my eyes. I cannot write.

Help me, Mr.–, and plead with others also to give of their abundance, as they hope for mercy in that awful hour when we must all give an account of our stewardship. I would plead for all the prisons, though I have only seen the horrors of Elmira.

With great respect, yours,

Mary W. Reonee.

One of the Elmira Star-Gazette’s 20 facts about Elmira’s Civil War prison camp seems especially pertinent to this letter:

6 An observation platform with chairs and binoculars was built outside the prison camp across Water Street west of Hoffman Street. Visitors were charged 10 cents apiece to look at the prisoners. Refreshments were sold to spectators while the Confederate soldiers starved.

At American Memory you can see and read a letter from New York City Mayor C. Godfrey Gunther to Abraham Lincoln in November 1864 about a scheme to relieve some of the suffering at Elmira – the South was to sell 1,000 bales of cotton in New York City; the proceeds were to be used to buy supplies for rebel prisoners of war. Apparently the negotiations had stalled and some of the mayor’s constituents were very concerned as winter approached.