Rock Island Prison
Treatment of Confederate POW's at the Illinois Internment Camp
Rock Island Prison was situated on a U.S. Government owned island on the Mississippi River, between the cities of Rock Island and Moline, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. The twenty-five acre camp was surrounded by a sixteen foot high plankboard fence containing eighty-four 100' x 22' barracks with a capacity of 120 men each, for a total of 10,080. Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ordered that barracks "should be put up in the roughest and cheapest manner, mere shanties..."
Small Pox
The prison opened on December 3, 1863. The first Confederate prisoners, captured at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, TN, were greeted by temperatures of 32 degrees below zero and two feet of snow. Prisoner Charles Wright wrote of the intense cold that winter, observing that some were without blankets or shoes, huddling around stoves in the barracks at night trying to sleep.
On top of the cold, small pox and sickness broke out. No hospital building was planned or constructed for Rock Island. The sick mingled with the healthy, further spreading disease. At the end of January 1864, 635 POW's out of 8,000 were sick, with 325 dead. In February, Medical Inspector Augustus Clark ordered specific barracks to be designated as hospitals and pesthouses built outside the prison. Still, by mid-March, 1,555 were sick out of 7,260 prisoners, 420 of those with small pox.
Rations
Ironically, to save money to build a new hospital, the prison cut rations. Wright noticed the change after June 1, 1864. The prison's official circular established rations per day of 16 oz of bread, 10 oz of salt beef, and a third article of food- beans, peas, or hominy. The actual ration Wright reported were 12 oz of bread, 4.5 oz of salt pork, and no third article of food. The bread was brick hard and the meat had an offensive odor.
This drove the prisoners to eat rats, mice, and dogs. On some days, acording to Wright's journal of the time, the prisoners went without food . The officers of the prison denied these charges of reduced rations. In fact, Rock Island was unique among Civil War prisons in that each company of prisoners received rations in bulk every ten days, with the prisoners responsible for individual distribution. However, according to Wright, the bread wagon was supposed to come daily. It didn't.
Tunneling
Wright claimed that guards from the parapit around the perimeter of the prison indiscriminately shot prisoners. In his diary, Wright noted POW's being shot while going to the "sink" to relieve themselves. They were even shot inside or around their barracks. The prisoners noticed an increase in shootings after a Confederate success on the battlefield. The firing was so common, according to Wright, that prisoners took no notice of it unless it occurred on his side of the camp.
To escape this horror, the prisoner had several options. One was to take the Union oath. These individuals were separated from the rest and given better rations and care. They even had the chance to enlist in the U.S. Army Frontier Service or the U.S. Navy. Another option was to escape by tunneling out of the prison. Forty-one POW's were successful in escaping. Many more failed, like on June 14, 1864 when ten prisoners escaped via a tunnel from a barrack. Nine were captured while one drowned in the Mississippi.
Was Rock Island the "Andersonville of the North?" Andersonville certainly influenced Rock Island Commandant, Colonel Andrew Johnston, "...had I the power, strict retaliation would be practiced by me." But the proof may be in the prison death rates: Andersonville 30%; Elmira NY 25%; Rock Island 16%.
Sources
civilwarhome.com/andersonville.htm
Walker, James L., Rock Island Illinois Prison, Bits of Blue and Gray.com, 2003.
Wright, Charles, Rock Island Prison 1864-65, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol 1, March 1876.
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