Author Topic: THE POW ISSUE (Read 3861 times)

williamlayton · « **on:** September 29, 2011, 03:05:47 AM »

Not picking sides/pointing fingers/issueing prejudice, but, just conversation.
What--because we know that conditions in POW camps on both sides were horrible--do you see the main causes to be?
I see lack of thought. At first prisoners were exchanged but that attitude changed, for a number of reasons that only point out the fact that nobody stopped to think about prisoners before this war began.
Blessings

BUGEYE · « **Reply #1 on:** September 29, 2011, 03:25:06 AM »

I think neither side had the money to properly feed and house the prisoners, plus, later in the war the south was in dire straits and hated the north too much to bother trading prisoners.
and I think the north thought the rebels were 2nd class citizens and not worth the effort it took to make the trade.
meanwhile, the prisoners on both sides suffered terribly.

subdjoe · « **Reply #2 on:** September 29, 2011, 06:34:15 AM »

Let's see...the north, with plenty of everything feeding POWs practically nothing, not issuing clothing or blankets, vs. the south, lacking enough to decently feed its own people....hmmmm....that's a tough one.

The US hanged Japanese for treating POWs the way the federals treated POWs.

williamlayton · « **Reply #3 on:** September 29, 2011, 12:04:34 PM »

Perhaps some should have been done on both sides.
I think if i had been the South I would have shipped mine to South Texas.

Are you suggesting that there were not feeling of equal disregard in the South.
Did not the North want to ship help to the Northern prisoners in the South?
Blessings

BUGEYE · « **Reply #4 on:** September 29, 2011, 12:21:24 PM »

WL, it don't matter what you say, it's gonna be wrong to some people. the northern army didn't have vast quantities of funds to waste on rebels, just like the south didn't have it to waste on yankees.

okay Joe, start fighting the war again.

srussell · « **Reply #5 on:** September 29, 2011, 06:03:53 PM »

at one time the south offered to trade. but then the north decided if traded they would only have to fight the same men again so no trad. just let men on both sides die from lack of lack of basic needs

subdjoe · « **Reply #6 on:** September 29, 2011, 06:58:38 PM »

Quote from: srussell on September 29, 2011, 06:03:53 PM

at one time the south offered to trade. but then the north decided if traded they would only have to fight the same men again so no trad. just let men on both sides die from lack of lack of basic needs

It was also a calculated move to 1) put more strain on the Confederate supply system and 2) stir up emotions in the north with lurid tales of 'atrocities' in the southern POW camps and 3) justify the genocide by starvation that was going on in the northern camps.

Check "80 Acres of Hell" for some of the atrocities at Camp Douglass. Also look up "Descendants of Point Lookout Survivors" for more on the policy of deliberate starvation, mistreatment, and murder implemented by the Lincoln administration.

BUGEYE · « **Reply #7 on:** September 30, 2011, 02:21:51 AM »

mistreatment by the yankees was WRONG. there was atrocities on BOTH sides.
however, some think northern atrocities made southern atrocities OKAY.
it didn't. they were BOTH wrong. admit it.

williamlayton · « **Reply #8 on:** September 30, 2011, 03:37:53 AM »

This war, IMO, began so fast that neither side ever stopped to consider this problem.
I agree that the South had little supplies to feed their own much less POW's---which is the point---should they have not taken prisoners? Just killed them?
Camp Douglas had a man in charge who should have been hung.
I have little or no knowledge of Point Lookout.
Neither side has any excuse.
The POW thing was the worse part of the war---I don't blame anyone coming away from these interrments with bitter feelings--they were well earned.
Blessings

wncchester · « **Reply #9 on:** December 02, 2011, 02:59:43 PM »

"I have little or no knowledge of Point Lookout."

Nor, I assume, Libby prison in NY? Some folks would ask what options each side had.

Blessings. ??

williamlayton · « **Reply #10 on:** December 03, 2011, 01:41:27 AM »

Yes! Blessings.
Blessings

missouri dave · « **Reply #11 on:** January 16, 2012, 07:09:44 AM »

The south couldn't feed it's own population or it's military very well once the mississippi river was under union control. So feeding pow's was mostly beyond their ability. The north could very well have fed southern pow's and chose not too. The bad guys won and were thus never hung. His story indeed!

scootrd · « **Reply #12 on:** January 16, 2012, 08:01:29 AM »

Here we go again ,
Each War has it's own share of atrocities.... To come back years later, and try and rewrite history so one side can try and claim moral victory is non-sense. No side can claim a higher moral ground with regards to POW's.

Camp Sumter and camp Douglas were equally awful places for any person to endure, no matter where a man's allegiance layed so many years ago. May all our brave fighting men on both sides who had to endure camps and miss-treatments at the hands of their captors , and never made it home to loved ones after the war, rest in peace.

JMHO

Semper FI

VT30-30 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 21, 2012, 12:47:59 PM »

Both sides were wrong, treating prisoners that way. My GGGrandfather was in the 10th Vermont Vols. and was
captured at Cold Harbor on 1 Jun 64. He was taken to Libby Prison, transferred to Andersonville on 8 Jun. When that
prison was closed he was sent to a lot of places. He wrote that he was sent to Savannah, then to Millen, then Florida,
then Florence, then to Goldsboro and finally he was parolled in NC. on 28 Feb 65 I'm not sure of the place as on his record its listed as A E Ferry, NC. He said he was just lucky to be still alive. I think their was plenty of blame to go around, not just one
side.
Thanks

Swampman · « **Reply #14 on:** January 21, 2012, 02:01:07 PM »

At Andersonville the guards were eating the same thing as the prisioners. The North had food but they just let our boys starve.

Swampman · « **Reply #15 on:** January 21, 2012, 02:02:45 PM »

U.S. Grant was the one that stopped prisoner exchanges. Their blood is on his hands.

jamesrus · « **Reply #16 on:** January 21, 2012, 07:35:42 PM »

If you do a little research you will find that Lincoln was first to refuse to trade pows.....the south followed suit because they didnt want to give without getting. Both countries were in bad shape as far as food goes...there were instances of the general public feeding prisoners out of their own pockets.

Jamesrus

Swampman · « **Reply #17 on:** January 22, 2012, 05:26:54 AM »

I'd say you are the one that needs to do some research. Most folks in the North didn't even realize there was a war. They were completetly uneffected. The North starved our prisioners because they wanted to.

VT30-30 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 22, 2012, 05:36:18 AM »

I don't agree with Swampman on the North didn't realize their was a war. In the town that I grew up in the population in 1861
was around 1500. Out of the 1500, 180 men were in the war. Their weren't many families that didn't have someone in the war.
And most of the NE states were the same.

scootrd · « **Reply #19 on:** January 22, 2012, 05:51:12 AM »

I visited Camp Sumter military prison at Andersonville . I was amazed how many Vermont Boys as well as other NE states were buried their.

During the Civil war Vermont sent more than 34,000 of it's boys into the war. Almost 15 percent, were killed , mortally wounded in action, or died of disease, This was the highest percentage than any other state.

It's easier just to ignore some when they post silly comments like... The North didn't realize ....

VT30-30 · « **Reply #20 on:** January 22, 2012, 06:23:19 AM »

I'm still amazed every time I check out this site. Still a lot of people have deep resentment, still allmost still fighting
the war. In the late 70s, when I was in USAF basic training a guy that I hadn't had any thing to do with, hadn't talked
to him, had any trouble with. He finally started to talk to me. I found out he was from the south and didn't like any "Yanks." We finally got around to talking and he still hated the north, and that was about a 100 years later. I told him that I had
a few relatives who had suffered during the war also. Of course the north wasn't occupied like the south was after the war
and I know that the south was treated terrible.

Swampman · « **Reply #21 on:** January 22, 2012, 01:06:58 PM »

I do not resent the north, I'm simply stating the facts.

Swampman · « **Reply #22 on:** January 22, 2012, 01:11:27 PM »

I have no resentment, I'm simply stating the facts. Up north you could pay someone to take your place. Almost no fighting took place there. They had plenty of food and 20 times the manpower the South had. In the South everyone was affected. In the north almost nobody was affected.

VT30-30 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 22, 2012, 01:35:06 PM »

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree, that almost nobody was affected in the north.

jamesrus · « **Reply #24 on:** January 27, 2012, 07:21:35 PM »

ok if no one up north even knew there was a war going on why did federal troops have to be used in New York city to quell the rebelion that was starting there among the immigrant population who was being forced to go to war?

Jamesrus

jamesrus · « **Reply #25 on:** January 27, 2012, 07:25:35 PM »

If you have ever read any of my posts you will find out i am a proud southerner...i have a long list of ancestors who fought for the south out of Louisiana. I am a past member of the SCV, and an avid history buff. DOnt tell me i need to do the research, i have been to the library of congress, i have sat there for days reading copies of debates and speeches given by many politicians of the times. I have read depositions by military leaders from both the north and the south. There were attrocities commited by both sides....no one was innocent.

Jamesrus

BUGEYE · « **Reply #26 on:** January 27, 2012, 11:28:33 PM »

I have a cousin buried at Andersonville. I don't hate the south because of it, in fact, I live in the south.

Swampman · « **Reply #27 on:** January 28, 2012, 03:07:04 PM »

Quote from: jamesrus on January 27, 2012, 07:25:35 PM

If you have ever read any of my posts you will find out i am a proud southerner...i have a long list of ancestors who fought for the south out of Louisiana. I am a past member of the SCV, and an avid history buff. DOnt tell me i need to do the research, i have been to the library of congress, i have sat there for days reading copies of debates and speeches given by many politicians of the times. I have read depositions by military leaders from both the north and the south. There were attrocities commited by both sides....no one was innocent.

Jamesrus

Well you might have done 1/2 as much as I have, but you're still incorrect. Nobody is talking about attrocities.

jamesrus · « **Reply #28 on:** January 28, 2012, 04:45:32 PM »

All i can say is Lol...nuff said.

Ignorance is not a virtue.....unknown

Jamesrus

Swampman · « **Reply #29 on:** January 29, 2012, 12:40:39 AM »

We fought a war of defense. They fought a war of aggression. They had plenty and didn't have to starve our men but they did.