The archaeology of prisoner of war camps during the American Civil War reveals much about the culture of the war, all the way down to the beginning of why POW camps were created. While there was originally a POW exchange system, when the Union army deployed African American troops into battle, the Confederate army refused to continue the trade system, instead enslaving all captured African American troops, and POW camps needed to be built to hold the growing numbers of captives (Partridge 19).
Johnson’s Island Prison- from http://johnsonsisland.org/
The interest in the archaeological field in these and similar sites is that they were sites of heavy and consistent use for a relatively very short period of time. Additionally, since they were sites of wartime behavior, it is possible to see the behavior of prisoners while in violent and oppressive situations, as well as captors, in an environment where violent and oppressive actions are accepted (McNutt 690).
One such site is that of the Johnson’s Island Civil War Military Prison, where archaeologists investigated the sinks (latrines) as a great source of information about the growth of the camp, as well as the treatment of prisoners. Using maps from different years, archaeologists were able to see when new latrines were created to replace old ones, sometimes to the exact day, and find that latrines were replaced roughly every five months, and then covered with soil from the new latrine and capped with clay. Not only were the latrines used for discarding of human waste, but also for disposal of contraband materials and secondary refuse, including use as a site to burn things like clothing before being capped off and ceased to be used (Bush 69).
Map of the prison compound– latrines marked as “sinks” (Bush 66)
Prisoners used these sinks as well to plan escapes, showing resistance from the confederate soldiers held there. Tunnels were found, as well as Union buttons that may have been used as a disguise for escaped prisoners (Bush 71). In terms of survival, many prisoners turned to finding their own meat, including rats, fish, birds, and one dog, evidenced by the faunal remains (remains of animals) found in the latrines (Bush 72), as the retrieval of supplemental rations was technically contraband.
The takeaways from these findings in the latrine, which are far more vast than this blog post can cover, is that archaeology is a fantastic source of information for research of Prisoners of War and their treatment, resistance, and survival in prison camps.
For more information about POW camps in the civil war, please visit:
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-prison-camps
https://www.britannica.com/video/195089/lot-military-prisoners-American-Civil-War-Andersonville
https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/npsprisons.htm
Reference List
Bush, David R.
2000 Interpreting the Latrines of the Johnson’s Island Civil War Military Prison. Historical Archaeology. Volume 34 (No. 1): 62-78
McNutt, Ryan K.
2019 The archaeology of military prisons from the American Civil War: globalization, resistance and masculinity. World Archaeology. Volume 51 (No. 5): 689-708
Partridge, Colin H.
Fall 2019 Preserving the Memory of those Perilous Times: Archaeology of a Civil War Prison in Blackshear, Georgia. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2027.
How can archaeology, in instances like this, help us understand inequalities of the past and use that information to interpret inequalities of the present?
Under these circumstances, the POW camp which I talked about was used to hold confederate soldiers. Since the different sides of the civil war obviously had different thoughts on equality, especially racially. However, pressing situations can show the true nature of both sides of war, and we can see the use of violent force and inappropriate actions demonstrated by the artifacts left behind, even by the Union army, which we might have previously thought of as the “good side.” There are more nuances in the inequalities on both sides than we may initially see on the surface.