The Great Escapes of the American Civil War: The History of the Most Daring Prisoner Breakouts during America’s Deadliest Conflict

Summary

During the Civil War, armies took many soldiers captive, but they also captured some civilians as well, such as sutlers, nurses, teamsters, and other service personnel. In addition, both the Union and the Confederacy imprisoned deserters, sympathizers with the enemy, traitors, and draft dodgers. The numbers cited vary somewhat, and often, precise numbers should be regarded with caution because the official numbers do not account for everyone. One somewhat authoritative total is that Confederates confined 7,092 Union officers and 179,091 enlisted men in prison camps, along with 1,962 civilians, for a total of 188,145 (Stack 3). By comparison, the Union captured 35,782 officers, 426,852 enlisted men, and 13,535 Confederate civilians, but this total is misleading because it includes the troops that surrendered when the war ended, including the commands of Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Richard Taylor, and Edmund Kirby Smith. Almost all the troops who surrendered at the end of the war were immediately paroled and allowed to go home. A commonly cited estimate is that 215,000 Confederate and 195,000 Union soldiers were prisoners of war in one of the various prison camp facilities. There were 32 sizable Confederate camps during the war, half of them in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

Of the Union prisoners, 2,696 escaped from prison, and 3,170 others joined the Confederate armies. Of the Confederates, 2,098 escaped, and 5,432 joined the Union forces. 94,000 Union troops were paroled, and 248,599 Confederates were also released on parole (Stack 4).That said, the number of escapees cited are best regarded as estimates rather than exact totals - record-keeping was accurate in some places and inaccurate in others, and as the Confederacy was in its last months, chaotic conditions prevailed.