Elmira Prison

Elmira Prison was a prisoner-of-war camp constructed by the Union Army in Elmira, New York, during the American Civil War to house captive Confederate soldiers.

The site was selected partially due to its proximity to the Erie and New York Railroads, which criss-crossed in the midst of the city, making it a prime location for an Army training and muster point early in the Civil War. A great deal of the 30-acre Union installation, known as Camp Rathbun, fell into disuse as the war progressed, and the camp's "Barracks #3" were converted into a Civil War prison camp in the summer of 1864. The camp, in use from June 6, 1864, until the fall of 1865, was dubbed "Hellmira" by its inmates. Towner's history of 1892 and maps from the period indicate the camp occupied a somewhat irregular parallelogram, running about 1000 feet west and approximately the same distance south of a location a couple of hundred feet west of Hoffman Street (Foster Avenue?) and Winsor Avenue, bordered on the south by Foster's Pond more or less, on the north bank of the Chemung River. [Towner, "History of the Valley and County of Chemung".]

In the months the site was used as a camp, 12,123 Confederate soldiers were incarcerated; of these, 2,963 died during their stay from a combination of malnutrition, prolonged exposure to brutal winter weather, and disease directly attributable to the dismal sanitary conditions on Foster's Pond and lack of medical care. The camp's dead were prepared for burial and laid to rest by the sexton at Woodlawn National Cemetery, ex-slave John W. Jones. At the end of the war, each prisoner was given a loyalty oath and given a train ticket back home; the last prisoner left the camp on September 27, 1865. The camp was closed, demolished and converted to farm land. [ [Horigan, "Death Camp of the North."]

Woodlawn cemetery, about 2 miles north of the original prison camp site (bounded by West Hill, Bancroft, Davis, and Mary streets), was designated a National Cemetery in 1877. The prison camp site is a residential area today, and few of the city's residents are aware that the prison camp ever existed, however, there is a memorial at the site today.

References

* Horigan, Michael, "Death Camp of the North: The Elmira Civil War Prison Camp". Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2002. ISBN 0811714322.
* Towner, Ausburn, "Our County and its People - A History of the Valley and County of Chemung." D. Mason & Co., Pub., 1892.

External links

* [http://www.chemunghistory.com/pages/prisoncamp.html Elmira Prison Camp]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/elmiraprison/ Elmira Prison Camp Library]