The "Immortal Six Hundred" and the failure of the Civil War POW exchange process /

"Compounding the devastating tragedy of the Civil War was the failure of the warring parties to consistently maintain a system for the effective exchange of prisoners of war, rather than imprisoning combatants for the duration. This failure added at least 56,000 deaths to those accumulating on...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Schmutz, John F., 1947- (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2025]
Subjects:
Description
Summary:"Compounding the devastating tragedy of the Civil War was the failure of the warring parties to consistently maintain a system for the effective exchange of prisoners of war, rather than imprisoning combatants for the duration. This failure added at least 56,000 deaths to those accumulating on the battlefield and caused the untold suffering of many thousands more. This book focuses on 600 Confederate officers, made prisoners of war, who were dispatched to Charleston Harbor to act as human shields, and were subsequently imprisoned elsewhere and deliberately starved nearly to death. These actions were the result of the breakdown of the exchange cartel, as well as the "retaliation" policies promoted by the Secretary of War and the Lincoln administration."--
Physical Description:301 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9781476691541
1476691541