Military Prisons of the Civil War

A Fresh Analysis of the First Large-Scale Imprisonment of Soldiers in Wartime and Its Failures In Military Prisons of the Civil War: A Comparative Analysis historic preservationist David L. Keller consulted official records, newspaper reports, first-person accounts from prisoners, and other primary source material in order to understand why imprisonment during the Civil War failed on both sides. His research identifies five factors shared among both Union and Confederate prisons that led to so many deaths, including the lack of a strategic plan on either side for handling prisoners, inadequate plans for holding prisoners for long periods of time, and poor selection and training of camp command and guards.