The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 7: Prisons and Hospitals.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

The sick-rate was high. The barracks could accommodate less than half the prisoners sent here and tents were used by the remainder well on into the winter, though the weather became intensely cold. On December 4, 1864, the inspecting officer reports that both meat and flour were bad and that 1166 of the prisoners had not even one blanket. The cold winds seemed especially severe upon the prisoners from the Gulf States, who, thinly clad and poorly nourished, were especially susceptible to pneumonia. The death-record furnished the commissary-general of prisoners shows for the winter of 1864– 65 an average death-rate of five per cent. a month.

The next class, that in which tents were used for shelter, includes but two prisons, City Point in Maryland, and Belle Isle, in the James River, near Richmond. The former was established August 1, 1863, on a low peninsula where the Potomac joins the Chesapeake Bay. No barracks were erected, but tents were used instead. There seems at all times to have been a sufficiency of these for shelter, though they were sometimes crowded. The prison was the largest in the North, and at times nearly twenty thousand were in confinement. The water at first came from wells only a few feet deep, but was, however, so strongly impregnated with iron and alkaline salts, that a boat was ordered to bring fresh water, though for a considerable time the trips were irregular. Opportunity for bathing was afforded, but in winter the air was cold and damp, and the ground upon which most of the men lay was also damp. The commandant was changed several times, and conditions were never entirely satisfactory to the medical officers. As at Fort Delaware, negro troops formed a part of the guard.

Belle Isle was an island in the James River, near Richmond, used after 1862 for the confinement of non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. The drainage was generally good;