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So
Far From Dixie: Confederates in Yankee Prisons
So Far from Dixie is the gripping tale of five men who
were sent to New York's infamous POW camp, Elmira, and survived to
document their stories. Berry Benson promised that he would escape
the prison under honorable circumstances. Anthony Keiley charmed
Union authorities into giving him a job at Elmira—and later became
mayor of Richmond, Virginia. John King refused to build coffins for
his fellow prisoners. Marcus Toney stubbornly stayed in prison until
long after the war had ended. And Frank Wilkeson, a young Union army
volunteer, ended up enduring the same humiliating punishment meted
out to the prisoners he was guarding—and escaping from Elmira under
threat of court martial.
"Helmira" was only the most infamous of dozens of Northern “bastilles” where
hunger, exposure, brutality, and disease were endemic. It is hard
to account for the fact that Yankee prisons remain such a well-kept
secret, while houses of horror like Andersonville and Libby Prison
are the stuff of national legend. In sum, 26,000 Rebels died in what
was called "Yankee captivity"—six times the number of
Confederate dead listed for the battle of Gettysburg; twice that
for the dead of Antietam, Chickamauga, Chancellorsville, Seven Days,
Shiloh, and Second Manassas combined. Their story has been
almost as neglected as the camps they died in.
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