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Encyclopedia entry: Prisoner‐of‐War Camps, Civil War
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to American Military History
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to American Military History 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information)
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Prisoner‐of‐War Camps, Civil War.
Before 1861, Americans had never had to face the problem of internment of large numbers of captured enemy soldiers. British and Hessian soldiers had been exchanged or sent to farms on the frontier. The Civil War abruptly changed that situation. In four years of fighting, over 409,000 men became prisoners of war. That figure is at least four times more American soldiers captured than in all of the nation's other wars combined.
Neither side knew how to address the problem; neither made a concerted effort to do so. In place of badly needed attention and compassion were inexperience, clumsiness, and indifference. Suffering and the neglect of ...