1 in 7 Civil War POWs Died in Prison Camps

Being engaged in warfare brings a higher level of hazard to any person, both military and civilian, and those involved, particularly soldiers, know that the risks when entering combat can be death or severe injury. Today, men and women serving in the armed forces are prepared for the event where they may be taken as prisoners of war, which often comes with its own set of horrors. But during the Civil War, it was a horror of a different sort.

Being taken as a prisoner of war was nearly as life-threatening as the battlefield, with contagious illnesses spreading like wildfire in unsanitary prison camps. While the exact number of how many prisoners who died in Civil War stockades may never be known, it's estimated that of the 400,000 soldiers taken prisoner in Northern and Southern prisons between 1861 and 1865, 56,000 died. (About 26,000 died in Union custody.)

With little knowledge of how diseases spread and fewer tools to combat the ailments, doctors could do little to help the prisoners. Contagious ailments such as typhoid, measles, and dysentery infected prisoners at a high rate, leading to what would now in many cases be preventable deaths. (Today, many preventable deaths still occur, like the recent outbreak of Listeria linked to deli meats.)

To compile a list of the top causes of death for Civil War soldiers in prison camps, 24/7 Tempo reviewed reports by consumer data site Statista, which drew on Library of Congress and Oxford University Press information about Union prisons during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. (These are the most devastating battles in U.S. history.)

Early in the war, Confederate and Union armies swapped prisoners in equal numbers and of equivalent rank. Yet the exchanges were contentious from the start, as both sides argued over the exact numbers. When Black soldiers joined the Union troops, Confederate commanders refused to exchange Black soldiers for white combatants.

In 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant halted the prisoner exchanges as he and the Union believed Confederate soldiers would return to the battlefield and prolong the war. Consequently, prison camps teamed with prisoners who perished in great numbers as disease took a ghastly toll.

• POW Camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 133

An inflammation of the airways leading to the lungs, bronchitis is caused by the same virus that causes the flu. The virus spreads through close contact with others via coughing, touching, or coming in contact with an object harboring the virus. A crowded prison camp with few sanitary measures would be a perfect breeding ground for the disease.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 252

Many soldiers entered prison camps wounded after battle. Without prompt and proper medical care, they succumbed to their wounds, as medical supplies and other items were diverted to the front lines.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 351

Before the Civil War, armies recognized the importance of supplying their soldiers with fresh fruits and vegetables to prevent scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. Congress passed a law before the war that would provide desiccated vegetables – a compressed mixture of string beans, turnips, carrots, beets, and onions – to soldiers.

But soldiers found the taste unpleasant and refused to eat the rations. In prison camps, even the vegetable mixture, much less fresh produce, was mostly unavailable, and prisoners suffered from scurvy symptoms such as bleeding gums, loose teeth, and bleeding under the skin – sometimes to the point of death.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 1,026

About 20% of all prisoner patients were treated for malaria, a disease borne by mosquitos. However, physicians at the time believed malaria was transmitted via swamp fumes, the breath of infected men, or camp excrement, so were unable to take preventative measures.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 1,109

Crowded, unsanitary conditions led to massive typhoid and typhus fever infections among prisoners. Bacterial diseases, both infected soldiers through poorly maintained latrines that contaminated food and water. Symptoms included fever, a general feeling of malaise, and red skin lesions.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 1,729

One common illness that claimed Confederate lives was gangrene, a disease that kills healthy tissue, typically due to a bacterial infection or lack of blood flow to the tissue. Battle wounds are particularly vulnerable to gangrene.

If a limb was severely damaged by a .58 minie ball, common ammunition during the war, the only recourse to prevent gangrene was amputation. According to an article in "Clinical Infectious Diseases," 60% of Civil War soldiers suffering from gangrene died.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 3,453

Smallpox was a deadly disease during the Revolutionary War, killing three out of 10 Continental soldiers, but due to the availability of the smallpox vaccine in the 19th century, it was less of a problem for Civil War soldiers. However, other infectious diseases like measles, scarlet fever, and erysipelas (bacterial skin infection) were more prevalent.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 5,042

One of the most common causes of death during the Civil War was pleurisy, an inflammation of the lungs caused by pneumonia. Doctors at the time didn't know how such infections spread and were powerless to stop them (antibiotics weren't invented until 1928).

It has been often reported that Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson died of "pleuro-pneumonia," another name for pleurisy, after being shot during the Battle of Chancellorsville, but modern scholarship says that his death was more likely due to a pulmonary embolism.

• POW camp: Union
• Confederate deaths: 5,965

The leading cause of prisoner deaths in Civil War prison encampments was diarrhea and dysentery, which ran rampant. Poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water led to an epidemic of bowel diseases. So common was diarrhea – and dysentery, which is bloody diarrhea – among the troops it became jokingly known as the "Virginia Quickstep" or the "Tennessee Trots," proving that severe cases of diarrhea could be fatal and wasn't much to joke about.