According to Federal War Department statistics, 24,000 Union soldiers died of wounds, starvation and disease in Southern prisons during four long years of war. This was a tragic rate. But even more tragic was that 26,000 Confederate soldiers died in Union prisons during the same period. Many of the Confederate deaths were unnecessary, because the Union Army had a wealth of food and medical supplies that could have been made easily available to their Southern prisoners. But Union authorities maliciously refused to do so. After the dust of war had settled, the South, having held 50,000 more prisoners than the North, had 4,000 fewer inmate deaths.

Popular history concerning the War Between the States has generally been biased against the South. Foremost in that bias has been the treatment of Civil War-era prison camps. As far as many historians have been concerned, including some who should have known better, all Southern prisoner-of-war camps were the most terrible places on earth, except for Camp Sumter at Andersonville, Ga.

Just plain Andersonville, as it was commonly called, was likened to the deepest depths of hellfire and brimstone. For a captured Union soldier to know he might be sent to Andersonville was equal to leaving the earth and being transported into the darkest regions. The prospects of ever returning alive were doubtful. It must be hard for history students to understand that Andersonville was not the only prison camp; that the Union Army maintained several prisoner-of-war camps, as well.

And what of Northern prison camps or prison pens? At best, they have been practically non-existent in most history lessons in most schools. However, as a well concealed, but not totally obscured, fact of history, the Union Army did maintain POW camps that equaled or surpassed those in the South for their inhumane treatment of prisoners. And a notable difference existed in the POW camps of the two sides. Confederate POW camps, such as Danville, Va.; Salisbury, N.C.; Florence, S.C.; Andersonville, Ga.; and Libby Prison in Richmond were appalling through forced circumstances imposed by conditions of war.

Union prison pens were terrible and inhumane through political purpose and intent. Yet few casual readers of history ever hear of Camp Douglas at Chicago; Camp Chase at Columbus, Ohio; and two of the worst, Point Lookout, Md. and Elmira, N.Y., known as "Andersonville on Ice." And these are just a few.

In the early part of the war, the Southern armies had usually found themselves outnumbered at least two to one. By 1864, Confederate soldiers were outnumbered three or even four to one, and by this time the Union, with more than enough men to use as replacement troops, adamantly refused to cooperate in prisoner exchanges. The Union blockade of Southern ports helped prevent the replenishment of critical medical supplies and other essentials. But the decision that was most detrimental to Union prisoners in Confederate prison pens was the decision on the part of the federal government to discontinue a prisoner-exchange program between the North and South.

The South's desire to exchange prisoners of war also had humanitarian motivations. The Confederacy was short of food and medicine for its armies, its civilian population, and, of course, its prisoners. People were near starvation. Sick and malnourished Union prisoners were dying without proper medical care and food. And the food and care given to wounded and sick Confederate soldiers was no better that what Union prisoners received. Union generals William T. Sherman in the South, particularly Mississippi and Georgia, and Philip Sheridan, later in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, plundered and burned large quantities of food supplies.

Within a two-week period, Southern representatives paid two visits to the U.S. Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, asking for prisoner exchanges. On the first visit, they offered to exchange prisoners of war man for man. On their second visit, the offer was to turn over all Union prisoners for all Confederate prisoners, even though the Confederacy held a great many more Union soldiers. And twice Stanton refused the Southern offer. The Confederates desperately thought of everything possible, up to kidnapping Lincoln and using him to force a prisoner exchange, to get their badly-needed manpower.

Unfortunately, Stanton, being a power-hungry and a power-wielding man, displayed cruelty not just by refusing the prisoner exchange. In a decision supported by Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, the Union War Department - essentially Stanton- through pure malice and vengeful intent, withheld food and medical treatment from their Confederate prisoners. As time passed, those prisoners began paying the price by dying in disproportionate numbers; from starvation; disease from contaminated water; being purposely infected with disease and having medicine withheld by Union Army doctors; and dying from exposure during the bone-chilling Northern winters.

In following columns, this travesty of Northern prisoner mistreatment will be explored more deeply. Several of the men who experienced these horrible places will be speaking for themselves through their own writings.

Bill Ward lives in Salisbury and is a historian, writer, and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Contact him at wardwriters@bellsouth.net