Excerpt from A Soldier's Story: Prison Life and Other Incidents in the War of 1861-'65 I have been requested to write some incidents, experiences and observations of prison life during the war of 1861-'65. After thirty-eight or thirty-nine years it is somewhat difficult to recall anything like all that transpired in those dark days. Some people say it is time to stop talking about that war. Now, that would be a hard thing for those who lived in those days to do: stop talking about the war. The men, women and children at home had almost as hard a time as those at the front - not quite so dangerous, yet it required courage and true patriotism to stand in their places. Furthermore, it seems necessary, in order to keep history straight, that those who lived and participated in that part of our history should occasionally be heard from, otherwise those who write so much, who live north of the Mason and Dixon's line, would make our rising generation believe what is false. So I say to all such: "Nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present came to be what it is." Much has been written and said by our Northern friends as to the suffering of the Union soldiers in Southern prisons - Andersonville, Salisbury and other places - during that war. They draw an awful picture of their poor soldiers suffering and dying in Southern prisons. In some respects this was true. To be in prison of itself was bad enough, but to be there without proper food or medicine was very bad indeed. The South did not have the means, neither the medicine, but the prisoners in our care were put on the same footing as our own poor soldiers. The question is: Who was to blame for this state of things? The Confederate authorities made proposition after proposition for exchange of prisoners, but the Government at Washington positively declined. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The violent retaliation between sides in the American Civil War was perhaps most apparent in the taking of prisoners. Often, these retaliatory measures were enacted against the innocent-prisoners who were unfortunate enough to be in wrong place at the wrong time. Each chapter of this book undertakes to describe a specific event of retaliatory action. Lonnie Speer takes no sides as he points an accusing finger at both the Union and the Confederacy for their equal parts in treating the prisoners poorly. He explores this little-known wartime violence, focusing on the most notorious and well-documented cases of the practice.

"[Hardtack was] positively unsuitable fodder for anything that claims to be human...and I think it no exaggeration to say that any intelligent pig possessing the least spark of pride would have considered it a pure insult to have them put into his swill." (Wilbur Fisk, Civil War soldier). We know the uniforms they wore, the weapons they carried, and the battles they fought, but what did they eat and, of even greater curiosity, was it any good? Now, for the very first time, the food that fueled the armies of the North and the South and the soldiers' opinions of it--ranging from the sublime to just slime--is front and center in a biting, fascinating look at the Civil War as written by one of its most respected historians. There's even a comprehensive "cookbook" of actual recipes included for those intrepid enough to try a taste of the Civil War.

The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true ?hell on earth.? Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners? experiences in great detail and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders.

Miles O. Sherrill first published his "A Soldier's Story" in 1904 at the age of 63. He was a young Confederate soldier, and his war journal tells a timeless tale of fresh-faced enthusiasm and patriotism tempered over time by hard work, anguish, and the grueling horrors of warfare. Sherrill was shot and captured at the Spotsylvania Court House, had his leg amputated, and transferred to the Elmira Prison Camp. Special thanks those in both the North and South, for their dedication to preserving the historical integrity of the Elmira Prison Camp.