| Prisoner of War Camps |
| A new kind of Hell. |
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| A rare, surviving photo taken inside the Capital during The War, by a Southern photographer. The view looks northeast at the prisoner pen on Belle Isle. This infamous camp was severely overcrowded and the inmates suffered from the elements due to lack of any sort of shelter out on the island. Food and clothing were also extremely scarce, especially later in The War as Lee and his army continually routed the Union armies facing him, and the flow of POW's grew to a torrent. Compounding all of this was U.S. Grant's policy, in 1864, of halting prisoner exchanges, whereby troops being held by the two antagonist would be transfered back to their respective sides on a scale relative to their rank. The men on Belle Isle would feel this in incomprehensible ways. Richmond and the entire South were rapidly approaching a state of starvation by the end of hostilities. It's armies were subsisting on such scant rations that soldiers in the trenches of Petersburg would be lucky to receive a third of what was due them, and even this would not be provided daily. It was only natuaral then, that the last in the food chain is such desperate times would be those who had been fighting to subjugate the Rebels. Thus, unimaginable hunger, disease, and filth was the lot of these men who had come "On to Richmond" though not in the way intended by their leaders. |
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| Two more views of Belle Isle. The photo above shows the cannon trained upon the prisoner pen to prevent uprisings and escape by the Yankees held here. The picture to the right (another of the rare, wartime images from Richmond), shows Confederate guards stationed over the prisoner pen. Just visible in the center foregournd (to the left of the man in the frock coat) is the wheel and a swab of the gun shown above. |
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| Two of the other notorious prisons in Richmond during The War, Libbie and Castle Thunder. Both were located in Shockoe Valley, Downtown. While Libbie was used almost extensively for Union officers, Castle Thunder held these high-ranking Yankees, as well as political prisoners from around Virginia and the South. As was the case with the other facilities procured by the Confederate government in the city, both of these buildings were severely overcrowded. Added to that was a lack of provisions for heating and cooling the inmates, so they would be subject to the wide variations in temperature and humidity common to the region. In the photo to the left (a third in the series by Reese taken during the conflict) can be seen the Rebel guards formed along the street at present arms, as well as the Union prisoners hanging out of the open windows on the second and third stories. |
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| Belle Isle as it appears today. This photo is taken from about fifty yards north-east of the original picture above (the area is now covered by trees and undergrowth) showing the prisoners pen of the camp. Nothing reamins today of the POW camp, but just south of here are some of the walls of a iron works that was in operation during The War. |