This text is part of:
[40] Mississippi. All correspondence in regard to prisoners passed through his hands, and whatever uniformity there was in the conditions in Federal prisons was largely due to this fact, as he established rules for the guidance of the commandants, and provided for an elaborate system of inspections and reports. The rules, unfortunately, were not interpreted uniformly by the officers in charge, and he was hampered in administration by political influences. The Confederacy created no such office until November 21, 1864, when General Winder was appointed. After his death in February, 1865, General G. J. Pillow served for a few days, and was then succeeded by General Daniel Ruggles. In the last days of the Confederacy it was too late to reduce chaotic conditions to order. When prisoners were kept chiefly in Richmond, General Winder had command, and had an undefined supervision over those outside. When the greater number of prisoners was sent South, he was placed in command of the prisons in Georgia and Alabama, July 26, 1864, while General W. M. Gardner was given charge of prisons in Virginia and the Carolinas. The latter officer was partially disabled and was never able to assert his authority, on account of friction with local military commanders. Citizens suspected of disloyalty to the Confederacy were confined in Richmond chiefly in the ‘ Negro Jail,’ so called, usually known as Castle Godwin, and after this building was given up, were transferred to Castle Thunder. The prison at Salisbury, North Carolina, sheltered a number of this class, though later it was filled to overflowing with prisoners of war. The provost-marshals kept others under this charge in prisons scattered over the Confederacy. Citizens charged with disloyalty in the North were confined in various places. The Old Capitol, Fort Lafayette, Fort Warren, and dozens of other places were used for this purpose. At the end of the war, Jefferson Davis was confined in Fortress Monroe, but this had been too near the lines during
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.