Did Confederate Authorities Deliberately Mistreat Union POWs?

Did Confederate Authorities Deliberately Mistreat Union POWs?

fter the war some former Union prisoners of war wrote memoirs and books detailing the cruelty that Southern forces allegedly displayed to their captives. Lt. James Madison Page disputes these descriptions. He states in the preface of his book, THE TRUE STORY OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON, that he was writing of his own experiences in Southern prisons "in the interest of truth and fair play," and to reduce sectional friction "caused by the exaggerated and often unjust reports of Major Wirz's cruelty and inhumanity to prisoners."
Page speaks of his Confederate captors in most generous terms, from the moment of his capture by Confederate cavalry, through his first internment in a field POW camp, to his transfer first to Libby Prison, then Belle Isle, and later to Andersonville.

James M. Page was in action near Culpeper Court House on September 21, 1863 when he as ordered with other company members forward, dismounted, only to find themselves facing a superior Confederate cavalry troop over the crest of a hill. Page and others ran from the overwhelming force, and were ordered to "halt!" by the advancing Confederates. He did not do so, and admits the Southern troops would have been justified by all the rules of war in shooting him down, but they did not.
Page was soon captured, genially interrogated by General A.P. Hill, and sent to a makeshift POW camp. His first night in camp, another Union POW cut his pockets open while he slept, stealing his watch, cash, pocketknife, and other possessions. He knew he had been robbed by the other POW, and reported the theft to the North Carolina troops in charge, who were indignant at the crime. They soon persuaded the thief to confess and return the goods, after they had put a rope around his neck and hoisted him off the ground a couple of times. Page's possessions were returned, and reported that he was consistently treated with kindness by his Southern captors.

While imprisoned at Belle Isle, Page became sick with fever for eight days, and his comrades feared he would die. A Confederate guard encouraged him daily, telling him he was due to be exchanged "tomorrow." Page later realized that the kindly guard told him the white lie so he wouldn't lose his will to live.
This white lie was used often by the guards, telling the prisoners that exchange would come "next week" or whenever; and though some postwar Northerners stated that this giving of false hope was a form of Southern cruelty, Page believes it was done with benevolence, because the Confederates knew that men without hope would soon succumb to despair and then death.

While Page was convalescing from his fever, a Confederate soldier passed him by, noticed his emaciated form, then handed him a big, red apple. "Stick your teeth into that apple, Yank, and try for a minute to fohget about the Nawth," he said. Page hugged the apple to his breast, then sat down and cried. His one abiding regret was that the Southern soldier hurried away without giving Page the chance to thank him. This was not the only act of kindness Page received from his Confederate guards. Later at Andersonville, a guard brought him some Irish potatoes to cure his scurvy.
Page refutes many of the myths that abounded after the war, ones like the story that "Southern women and children would hold picnics at the edge of the prison so they could enjoy the suffering of the inmates within," which as Page points out, would have been difficult to do in light of the fifteen foot walls all around; or the myth that Confederate guards would be given "thirty days furlough for shooting a prisoner."  This latter propaganda would be given new life in Ted Turner’s movie about Andersonville.

Page says such shootings were rare indeed, and then were done only upon extreme provocation. Nevertheless, greatly exaggerated stories of bestial cruelty by the prison guards proliferated after the war.
Page states that the guards, particularly the 25th Alabama, were generally kind and humane. Page said of them: "And I said then, and I have ever since said, in speaking of our guards, the Twenty-fifth Alabama Infantry, I never met the same number of men together who came much nearer to my standard of what I call gentlemen. They were respectful, humane and soldierly."

Page also points out that though prison rations were poor and meager, they were the very same rations that were issued to the guards. Captain Wirz tried to diminish scurvy in the prison, paroled five men to act as emissaries to Washington to petition for exchange, pleaded with the Confederate Government for supplies and even to release the prisoners unconditionally.
Far from the "war crimes" he was hanged for, Henry Wirz did everything humanly possible to save the lives of the Union prisoners under his charge.

He was not alone in this effort; as early as January, 1864, the Confederate Commissioner for Exchange, Colonel Robert Ould proposed to his Union counterpart that doctors and medical supplies of opposing forces be admitted to POW Camps to care for their own sick countrymen.
This offer, if accepted would have done much to ease the suffering of Union POW's, but the offer was never even acknowledged by the North. Page writes of this: "...I have, during the past fifteen or twenty years, read accounts from Southern sources, that the Confederate Government during the summer of 1864 asked the Washington authorities to send physicians and hospital supplies for the express use of Union prisoners held in the South; they pledged that those supplies would be only for the Union prisoners; and it was said that Washington authorities ignored the proposition. This seemed incredible, and I hoped that this charge would be satisfactorily contradicted by Northern writers acquainted with the facts, but I have never read or heard a word of refutation of it."

Finally Ould offered to deliver up all sick and wounded Union prisoners without requiring an equivalent number in return. Though this offer was made in August, the U.S. Government did not send ships for them until December, almost five months later. As noted earlier, this was the very period when most of the Union deaths were occurring, where Federal haste in the matter would have saved thousands of lives. Ken Burns, in his book, “The Civil War,” page 335, writes: "One of the cruelest charges made against Abraham Lincoln was that he was guilty of ‘shameful disregard' of the thousands of Union prisoners languishing in Southern prisons."
The charge may be cruel, but is it true? We are content to let the reader decide.