Quoted:
"Every man that denied Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine, and when some poor emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a [b][i][u]Democrat[/u][/i][/b]."
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Hmmm. That sounds like some far-fetched idea of how Confederates treated Yankee prisoners concocted by the Northern Press.
Although Andersonville, near Americus, Georgia, had a death rate of 25% of its Yankee POWs, Camp Morton, near Indianapolis, Indiana, had a death rate of 28% of its Confederate POWs.
Hmmm. I wonder why Confederate POWs died at a higher rate in Indiana, while the Feds had plenty of food available, than the Yankee POWs died in Georgia, where there was no food to speak of?
Intentional mistreatment of POWs, I would suspect...
If you will note, the US Parks Service has a plaque at Andersonville that addresses the problem - the Confederate guards had the same designated ration as the Yankee POWs [u]inside[/u] the camp.
The only differences being that the Confederates were able to 'supplement' their rations with the game they could hunt near the prison camp, and the Yankees, unlike the Confederates, were not used to parched corn and fatback diets.
Too damn bad, eh?
Maybe Gen. Sherman, instead of Captain Wirz, should have been the war criminal hung after the war?
I mean, after all, he could have led his army directly to Andersonville to rescue his fellow Union soldiers, who were in such dire shape.
Instead, he determined to burn a path across Georgia that can still be traced to this day.
And burned foodstores, and crops, that were destined to feed not only the South, but the Yankee prisoners, as well.
Great. America's first home-grown war criminal!
BTW, when your doors are kicked open in the dead of night, and JBTs fill you homes with martial orders and demands, just think of them as Yankee soldiers coming to finish Lincoln's War and Sherman's March.
You won't be far from the truth.
Eric The(Unreconstructed)Hun[>]:)]