Different Prison Camps During The Civil War

The Civil War was a war between the union and the confederacy and the union. During the war there were prison camp. A prison camp is a place where prisoners of war are kept under guard. In this essay i will be telling you about different prison camps. The first cam i will be talking about is the Andersonville prison camp in georgia.The commandant of the camp was Henry wirz and he was executed because he was not producing enough supplies and shelter for the prisoners.Evidence suggest that there were too many prisoners and not enough materials.The prisoners made it worse for themselves because they were using the bathroom where they got there drinking water and that was spreading diseases.The prisoners would also form gangs and murder or beat the weak men for there food,supplies,and booty. While Andersonville, prison camp existed 45,000 received Andersonville prison, and and around 13,000 died.
By october 1864 the number of prisoners went to 5,000 then 10,000.With the increase in the men there was an decrease in sanitation and food. Salisbury is a good example of the effect of overcrowding had on prison camps. In 1861 the population was low. The death rate was around 2%.In 1865 when a lot of prisoners came the death creased 28%. Alton federal prison camp was originally a civilian criminal prison and also had a lot of overcrowding.Even though the prisons had some protection from elements bad summers and winters weakened the immune system.Diseases such as smallpox and rubelle sweep through Alton prison killing hundreds. One of the outbreaks took 300 of the men during the winter of 1862.Out of the 11,764 confederates that went to alton federal prison no fewer than 1,500 died as a result to the