VII. PRISONS AND PRISONERS OF WAR

Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, near Chicago, Ill. This photograph was taken soon after the camp became a compound for prisoners.

The Civil War was the first time that the nation had to contend with large numbers of war prisoners. As might be expected, therefore, policies and treatment varied greatly—and oftentimes sadly.

During the war the Confederates captured about 211,000 Federal soldiers. Of this number, 16,000 agreed to battlefield paroles—signed promises that they would not bear arms again. Conversely, Federal forces took some 215,000 Confederates as prisoners. At various times throughout the war, both sides made efforts to establish a workable program of prisoner exchange. (A ratio of exchange once existed whereby forty privates equalled one major-general.) However, owing to misunderstandings, violations of terms, and Grant’s determination late in the war to bring the South to its knees at all costs, prisoner exchange was slight and sporadic.

The most notorious Southern prisons were: Libby and Castle Thunder, which were converted warehouses in Richmond; Belle Isle in the James River; “Camp Sorghum” at Columbia, S. C.; and Camp Sumter at Andersonville, Ga. Among the worst of the Northern compounds were: Elmira Prison Camp in southwestern New York State; Point Lookout, on the Chesapeake Bay; Johnson’s Island, in Lake Erie a few miles offshore from Ohio; Camp Douglas, near Chicago; and Rock Island Prison Camp, Illinois.

Writing of these compounds in general, one historian has observed: “The prisons of the Civil War were of a considerable variety in structure and general make-up and for the most part consisted oftemporary structures or old unused buildings not originally intended to confine prisoners. Most of them, judged by present-day standards of sanitation and safety, would have been condemned as uninhabitable.”

This is an artist’s conception of the horrors of life in Andersonville. The hastily built camp spread over 26 acres.

AHarper’s Weeklyartist sketched an orderly and clean Elmira Prison that was a far cry from actual conditions. For a modest sum, curious townspeople were permitted to mount observation towers and view the prisoners.

Small wonder that great suffering existed in most prison camps, both North and South. In the nine-month history of the huge prison at Andersonville, Ga., a total of 45,613 Federals were jammed into a Stockade containing one polluted stream of water, few shelters, less food, and no sanitation. Over 12,900 prisoners died of disease, exposure, and starvation at Andersonville. Confederate authorities maintained that Federal prisoners in Andersonville received the same slim food ration as did their guards, and that the whole South suffered badly for want of medicines.

Only captured Federal officers were confined in Libby Prison. Several escapes, and innumerable charges of inhuman treatment, marked this compound’s four-year history.

The North’s prison camp at Elmira, N. Y., had many similarities to Andersonville. This Federal compound existed for a year. During that time, 2,963 of 12,123 Confederate prisoners died from various causes. In the twenty-month life of Rock Island Prison Camp, 1,960 of 12,400 Southern inmates succumbed to exposure and disease. At six remote tobacco warehouses in Danville, Virginia, 1,400 of 7,000 Federal prisoners died of smallpox, malnutrition, and intestinal disorders in the space of a year.

In all, the Chief of the U. S. Record and Pension Office reported in 1903, 25,976 Confederates and 30,218 Federals died in Civil War prisons.

It is difficult still to give an accurate and impartial summary of Civil War prisons. Conflicting facts, lost records, and bitter feelings hamper attempts to arrive at a just verdict. But perhaps Prof. James Ford Rhodes was not far from the truth when he stated: “All things considered the statistics show no reason why the North should reproach the South [about atrocious prison conditions]. If we add to one side of the account the refusal to exchange the prisoners and the greater resources, and to the other the distress of the Confederacy, the balance struck will not be far from even. Certain it is that no deliberate intention existed either in Richmond or Washington to inflict suffering on captives more than inevitably accompanied their confinement.”

The Confederate Commissary General Of Prisons was Gen. John H. Winder of Maryland.

Winder’s Federal counterpart, Gen. William H. Hoffman of New York, likewise was accused of many atrocities.

About forty-eight different types and sizes of cannons were used in the Civil War. Identifying a particular weapon thus requires knowing such facts as the name of the gun, howitzer, rifle or mortar; whether it was a smoothbore (without rifling in the barrel) or a rifled gun (with barrel groovings), etc.

The two most popular cannons in the Civil War were the 12-pounder Napoleon smoothbore howitzer and the 10-pounder Parrott rifled field gun.

The Napoleon weighed about 1,200 pounds, fired a 12-pound spherical shell with a time fuse, and was very effective up to a range of 1,500 yards. The Parrott rifle—identifiable by a reinforced barrel seat—weighed 900 pounds. At a maximum range elevation of 12°, this piece was accurate to 3,000-3,500 yards (1¾-2 miles).

A Negro soldier stands guard over a Napoleon gun at Grant’s City Point, Va., supply-base. The Napoleon is attached to its caisson, which carried ammunition.

The Federals also made extensive use of mortars. Because of the ability of these squat, heavy weapons to lob large shells a great distance by high-angle fire, mortars were ideal for siege operations.

Artillerists used various types of shells, depending upon the action in which they were engaged. Solid shot was good for battering a fortification or for striking an enemy column in flank. Explosive shells and “spherical case” blanketed an area with what is known today as shrapnel. Canister, a shell filled with lead balls about the size of plums, was deadly for close action up to 300 yards. Somewhat similar to canister was grape shot. This type of shell, filled with balls the size of oranges, was effective to 700 yards. Yet grape shot was rarely used in land warfare.

The basic artillery unit was known as a battery. It normally consisted of 4-6 guns commanded by a captain. In battle, batteries normally supported infantry divisions.

A popular field piece among Confederates was the 12-pounder, breech-loading Whitworth gun. Made in England, these weapons fired a solid shot accurately to a range of 5 miles.

During the conflict of the 1860’s the North experimented with and used many new types of field weapons, including the machine gun and such cannons as Rodmans, Columbiads, and Dahlgrens. Despite the large variety, however, the Napoleons and Parrotts remained the “old reliables” to gunners on both sides.

Mortars were very effective during bombardments or siege operations. The most famous of these squat, heavy weapons was the “Dictator” (shown above). Used during Grant’s 1864 siege of Petersburg, this mortar fired a 200-pound ball at distances over 2 miles.

The weapon most used by Civil War infantrymen was known officially as the United States Rifle Musket, Model 1861. Soldiers popularly called it the “Springfield”, since the Springfield, Mass., arsenal manufactured a majority of these guns.

The Springfield was a percussion-cap, muzzle-loading weapon, caliber .58, and weighed 9¾ pounds. The Springfield’s effective range was 500 yards, although it could deliver a ball twice that distance. It fired a soft lead Minie bullet—known then as now as the “minnie ball.” In all, over 670,000 Springfields were manufactured during the Civil War. They cost the government about $19 each.

The Springfield musket, not including its 18-inch bayonet, was 58½ inches in length. Contrary to popular belief, Civil War soldiers rarely used bayonets in battle.

Very popular among soldiers on both sides was the English Enfield Rifle Musket, Model 1853. About 820,000 of these rifles were purchased by North and South. The Enfield weighed 9 pounds, 3 ounces, had a caliber of .577, and was deadly up to 800 yards. It fired a bullet similar to the Minie projectile.

Great strides were made at this time in breechloaders. These weapons fired ready-made bullets, a series of which were inserted at one time in the rear of the barrel. Breechloaders could fire faster and more accurately than the single-shot, muzzle-loading Springfield or Enfield. The Spencer Repeating Carbine, first patented in 1860, was a seven-shot repeater that weighed 8¼ pounds and had an effective range of 2,000 yards. The Spencer was capable of 15 shots per minute—three times the firepower of the Springfield. Another popular carbine among Federal soldiers was the 15-shot Henry repeater, which was a .42-caliber, rimfire carbine of extraordinary accuracy. About 10,000 of these weapons saw service in the Civil War. This gun was the forerunner of the modern Winchester carbine. Unfortunately for the North, red tape and political conservatism by its leaders prohibited the wide and prompt adoption of the repeating rifle.

The principal hand gun for cavalry and infantry officers was the Colt Army Revolver, Model 1860. Over 100,000 of these six-shot, .44-caliber revolvers were manufactured during the war. This same gun, in .36 caliber, was also made for the U. S. Navy. In addition, some twenty other types of pistols were used by soldiers of blue and gray.

In 1836 twenty-two-year-old Samuel Colt patented and produced the first of his famous handguns. The .44 caliber 1860 model, shown above, was known officially as the New Model Army Pistol.

This damaged wetplate, made in June, 1863, shows the 17th New York Battery drawn up in line near Washington, D. C.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) were born in Kentucky only a few miles apart. Lincoln educated himself, eventually settled in Illinois, and became a highly successful frontier attorney.

Davis graduated from West Point, became a wealthy Mississippi planter, and served successively as Secretary of War and U. S. senator. Both men were tall and of striking appearance; both married strong-willed women.

The destiny of Civil War America lay largely in the hands of four men: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses Simpson Grant, and Robert Edward Lee. Since an abundance of printed works exists on the lives and careers of these leaders, given here are but a few generalities concerning each.

In many respects, Lincoln long seemed mysteriously complex. But those who knew the man quickly dropped any impression that Lincoln was crude or provincial. “He is the best of us all,” his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, once stated. The solemn-looking Lincoln was a deeply earnest chief executive who devoted his last four years to reuniting a shattered nation that he loved dearly and to raising the nation to a higher moral and spiritual level. He was kind, genial, compassionate, and religious (though he attended church without joining any denomination).

Lincoln possessed several ingredients of greatness. He had a deep love of humanity, a keen understanding of men, and a fantastic patience with the generals and politicians who tried him by their lack of strength and capacity. He was also a man of total integrityand deep humility. As a patriot he believed firmly that “this government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Not once in those years of passion did he express the slightest hatred for the Union’s enemies. In his second inaugural address, delivered a month before his death in 1865, Lincoln closed by stating: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us continue the work we are in ... [and] do all that may achieve a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

On July 7, 1865, four persons convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of Lincoln were hanged at the Washington Arsenal. Among the four was Mrs. Mary Surratt (second from left), the first woman in America to be executed for a capital offense.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, deserves better treatment than history has accorded him. The years have not been kind to his memory for two reasons: 1) he led the losing side; 2) when compared to his Northern counterpart, Lincoln, Davis left much to be desired in both personality and statesmanship. Unlike Lincoln, Davis was handsome, well-educated, and experienced in political and military affairs. However, he lacked administrative skill. He tried to do all of the government’s work—and he was a slow worker. Worst of all, Davis was never able to gain the affection of his people in a degree remotely approaching the love heaped on Lincoln by the North.

Yet Davis did his best in an impossible job. He was harassed and criticized by jealous governors, independent generals, an apathetic vice-president, and a Confederate Congress more noted for constant arguing than for constructive activity. Ever-present from without was an enemy that heavily outweighed the South in resources.

The Confederate “White House” in Richmond stands at the end of East Clay Street. President Davis and his family lived in this imposing three-storied home throughout the four years of war. The home is now a noted museum.

Davis was in a sense doomed to failure from the start, but his devotion to the South never wavered. In spite of many physical handicaps, he demonstrated throughout his life honesty, courage, fortitude, and a firmness in the right ashesaw the right. In sectional terms, he may be adjudged one of the true patriots in American history.

Military analysts often assert that U. S. Grant was “the first of the modern generals” and that Robert E. Lee was “the last of the old-fashioned generals.” What this implies is that two able field commanders fought one another differently: Grant introducing all-out, total war, Lee relying on a 500-year-old concept of limited warfare.

Certainly Grant was original in much of his strategy. To him a single victory meant very little. The long-range result of a continual hammering was the important factor. “The art of war is simple enough,” he once stated. “Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him hard as you can, and keep moving on.” Grant’s aggression, therefore, became attrition—that is, a skillful, systematic grinding down of the South’s whole capacity to fight. War under Grant became modern war: all-inclusive and brutal. He meant it that way, for he always thought of war as a cruel, bloody business to be ended as quickly as possible.

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was born in Ohio, entered the Civil War from Illinois, and spent his last years in New York. He served two terms as 18th President of the U. S. Grant completed his memoirs only a week before his death from throat cancer.

Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) was the son of Virginia’s Revolutionary War hero, “Lighthorse Harry” Lee. Following a distinguished army career, Lee became president of impoverished Washington College (now Washington and Lee University).

This short, unimpressive looking general succeeded where others had failed because he had the willingness to give an order and the strength to see it carried out. He did not use the lightning tactics of Napoleon or Lee. Yet he had the determination and stubbornness to keep plodding after the enemy. He was thus a soldier of the mold of Frederick the Great and the Duke of Wellington. Perhaps Lincoln bestsummed up Grant when he answered criticisms of the general with the observation: “I can’t spare this man. He fights.”

Robert E. Lee has two historical handicaps: 1) he fought against the Union; and 2) he is the only American general who ever lost a war. Yet practically everyone who studies the life of this devoted Virginian soon agrees with Sir Winston Churchill, who termed Lee “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived, and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war.”

Lee is most remembered for an almost flawless character. He did not believe in slavery, but his heart and birthright were in Virginia. Therefore, he turned down command of all U. S. forces in 1861 and offered his services to his native state. As an army commander Lee usually displayed great boldness in action, an ingenious capacity for choosing the right field positions, and an uncanny ability to anticipate his opponent’s next move. With faith in his own judgment and in the fighting quality of his army, Lee would then devise his strategy. Confederate politics forced Lee to fight for the most part on the defensive, and many writers attribute the Southern nation’s long life to Lee’s genius in combating an enemy that sometimes greatly outnumbered him.

Lee’s chief weaknesses as a general were his depthless humility and courtesy. Too often he entrusted to his principal lieutenants decisions he himself should have made. He seemed always to assume that everyone around him would strive for victory as earnestly and as completely as he did. Much of this devotion to principle did rub off on his army. One of Lee’s sharpest critics eventually admitted: “Few generals have been able to animate an army as [Lee’s] self-sacrificing idealism animated the Army of Northern Virginia.... What this bootless, ragged, half-starved army accomplished is one of the miracles of history.”

The average Civil War soldier was a farm boy between 18 and 30 years of age. He possessed little formal education; and by modern-day standards, his military training was superficial. He was more fighter than soldier, and he tended to scoff at military discipline and other formalities of army service.

Posing for photographs to send home to loved ones was a favorite pastime of Civil War soldiers. Typical servicemen of that period were, from left to right: Pvt. George A. Stryker of New York, Pvt. John W. Branch of the 12th Tennessee (C.S.A.), and Pvt. Philip Carper of the 35th Virginia Cavalry.

Several factors prompted his voluntary entrance into the army. Intense patriotism, the determination to fight for one’s particular cause, the enticement of enlistment bounties, or the simple love of adventure were all strong inducements. Many men, however, were drafted into service when both sides resorted to conscription in 1862.

In that same year the North began organizing regiments of ex-slaves. The first Negro regiment to perform conspicuous service was Col. Robert Gould Shaw’s 54th Massachusetts, which suffered heavy losses in a July 18, 1863, assault on Fort Wagner, S. C. In all, about 186,000 Negroes became Federal soldiers. They served under white officers and often suffered discrimination in such matters as pay and bounties. Yet they proved courageous fighters in several of the battles in which they participated.

Conversely, Confederate officials were slow to use slaves as Southern soldiers. Many feared an uprising once the Negroes were given arms; others opposed the use of slaves as soldiers on grounds that the Negro was ill-prepared for such high responsibility. Not until March,1865, when the war was almost over, did the Confederate government authorize the formation of Negro regiments. While some units were mustered into service, none were sent into combat.

To become a soldier, a man normally joined a military company being raised in his own locality. This company then went to a state training camp and joined similar units preparing for war. At the completion of basic training, ten companies were banded together as a regiment and mustered into national service. Orders came soon thereafter assigning the regiment to duty in the field.

Confederate winter quarters near Centreville, Va. The huts were constructed of logs, mud, and wood slabs.

The Federal private received $13 per month and a clothing allowance of $42 annually. Customarily, his uniform was dark blue and consisted of a kepi (a cap that slants toward the front), heavy wool coat, and lighter colored trousers. His prescribed equipment included rifle, ammunition, knapsack, blanket, haversack, canteen, bayonet, and cartridge box. The Federal lived mostly in a tent, cooked his meals with his messmates, and was personally responsible for the good condition of his equipment.

His Confederate counterpart was not so well provided. In addition to his musket, he normally carried a blanket slung over one shoulder, canteen, knife, and cartridge box. Gray was the color of the official Confederate uniform. However, few of the soldiers were uniformly clad after the first months of service. Many wore instead clothing taken from dead or captured Federals, or made at home and dyed in a solution of walnut hulls. The home-dyed uniform was light brown, or “butternut”, in color. Few tents existed in Confederate armies. Southern soldiers thus became accustomed to camping in the open. The Confederate private received $11 monthly until 1864, when his pay was raised to $18 because of widespread Southern inflation.

Photographer Timothy O’Sullivan captured this scene near Rappahannock Station, Va., in March, 1864. In the foreground is a sutler’s tent. The fence marks the stockade of the 50th New York Engineers.

The Federal soldier received much better rationsthan did the Confederate. His bread was a thick cracker called “hardtack”, and many jokes were made over its toughness. The Union soldier also received meat, dried vegetables, coffee, sugar, and salt. The Confederate soldier, unable to get coffee because of the blockade, learned to use beans, rye, parched corn, and even acorns as substitutes. Rarely did Southern troops have ample food. Personal accounts by Confederates often reveal pitiful instances of widespread malnutrition in the ranks.

For recreation, each soldier was left to his own devices. Letter-writing, reading, singing, card-playing, and sleeping were the favorite pastimes of troops in camp. In winter men on both sides constructed huts of logs and mud, or piled dirt against the sides of their tents as insulation from the cold. Reveille normally sounded at 5 a.m. in summer and 6 a.m. in winter. “Taps”, a melody first played in 1862, generally came between 10 and 11 p.m.

Fighting in the Civil War was generally savage, and guerrillas on both sides often killed in cold blood. Yet when opposing armies were camped close to one another, it was not at all uncommon for blue and gray pickets to establish informal truces, swap newspapers, tobacco, and coffee, and even to camp together. Sometimes this fraternization might last through an entire winter. Even in battle, many soldiers on both sides displayed great compassion—even to the extent of risking their lives in order to help a stricken foe. Sergeant Richard Kirkland of South Carolina was so overcome at the mounting Federal casualties during the battle of Fredericksburg that he crawled out upon the battlefield and voluntarily gave aid to dozens of wounded Northerners.

Noted Civil War artist Edwin Forbes sketched this scene of Federal and Confederate pickets between the lines swapping tobacco and coffee during a truce only they have declared.

Yet army life of the 1860’s had many and severe hardships. Improper diet and insanitary conditions often prostrated half of a unit’s membership. Since filth abounded in every army, a soldier who did not have his share of lice and fleas was a rare exception. Moreover, the fact that a majority of the soldiers were from rural communities made them very susceptible to such “city sicknesses” as measles, chicken pox, and small pox. The death rate from these diseases were very high. In the Federal armies, sickness and disease accounted for 7 of every 10 deaths. One authority has estimated that among the Confederatesthree men perished from disease for every man killed in battle. Small wonder that a Civil War soldier once wrote his family from camp: “It scares a man to death to get sick down here.”

Soldiers suffered too because of the limited medical knowledge of that day. Blood transfusions, X-rays, antibiotics, sterilization, vitamins, vaccines, wonder drugs all came after the Civil War. No assured treatment existed for typhoid fever, yellow fever, measles, or pneumonia, and great uncertainty prevailed over the proper way to stop a hemorrhage. Most bone fractures, and all wounds of the joint, meant amputation. In the Korean conflict of the 1950’s the chances of surviving a wound were 50-1; in the Civil War the chances were only 7-1.

That men of blue and gray endured these miseries is proof enough of their amazing capacity for hardships. Of greater importance to our American heritage, however, was their courage and devotion to duty. It shone forth on each side, and in every battle. Bell Irvin Wiley has commented:

“The Civil War was in large degree a soldier’s war. In that war the determination, self-sufficiency, and endurance of the individual in the ranks were of utmost importance. Officer casualties were heavy, and in the hurly-burly of combat those who survived often were able to exercise little control over their units. In the crucial, climactic stages of battle the common soldiers were to a large extent on their own, and it was often their courage and tenacity, individual and collective, that ultimately decided the contest.... For it was these men and their kind whose strength was the bedrock of their respective causes and whose greatness made their war one of the most inspiring in the history of embattled humanity.”

Co. G, 93rd New York Infantry, posed for this photograph at Bealeton, Va., in August, 1863. Note the drummer boy near the left of the bottom row.

Confederate troops on the march, as seen by Southern artist Allen C. Redwood.

The National Cemetery at Alexandria, Va., was one of the first government-maintained cemeteries established during the Civil War.

Perhaps it was necessary for brother to fight brother to determine the course in history our nation would take. Tragedy often walks with greatness; it required a terrible war before America could continue with confidence down the road of progress. The Civil War was the watershed—both a beginning and an end—in our history, and many legacies of that war keep it ever-present in our thoughts.

The Civil War lives in battle names now so much a part of our heritage: Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Stone’s River, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Atlanta, the Wilderness, and the Crater. These grounds, drenched in human blood, are as sacred as our most revered cemeteries.

—It lives in the crosses that mark the final resting places for thousands of American patriots. Most of these soldiers died in the flower of youth. We shall never know what contributions their numbers might have made to politics, literature, the sciences, the arts—to American life in general. In this respect was the conflict of the 1860’s a great calamity.

Acclaimed by many as the best likeness of “Stonewall” Jackson, this equestrian statue is on the grounds of the Manassas National Military Park.

—It lives in the many statues and monuments erected across our land. These stone images stand as silent sentries of our past. They are reminders of the cost of what today belongs to all Americans.

—It lives in the Congressional Medal of Honor, given birth by that war, and in Memorial Day, which sprang from the heartache caused by that war.

—It lives in the American Red Cross, whose origins date from Clara Barton and her tender nursing of wounded Federal soldiers.

—It lives in the songs given popularity by men of blue and gray: “Dixie,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Lorena,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Maryland, My Maryland,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” “Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground,” “Home, Sweet Home,” and many others.

This 1862 Army Model was the first Congressional Medal of Honor ever struck. The present Medal is quite different from its predecessor.

—It lives in the extinction of slavery, which Robert E. Lee once termed a heavy impediment to the whole Southern people.

—It lives in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution, which promise equality without racial limitations.

—It lives most of all in the unity of the American people. Until 1860 it was customary to say “the United States are”. After 1865 it was more correct to say “the United States is”. Today we acknowledge this change by a phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance: “... one nation, under God, indivisible....”

The Civil War did preserve the old Union with all of its virtues and all of its defects. But at the same time, as Lincoln and others hoped, the war gave birth to something better: a new Union, stronger and more enduring. The idea of secession ended forever with the Southern Confederacy; the oneness of modern America became reality with Appomattox and Durham Station.

Therefore, one cannot and should not forget the tragedy, courage, and lessons of the Civil War. If we would overlook the 1860’s that endowed us with unity, we must also ignore the 1770’s that brought us freedom. For unity and freedom are the bedrocks on which America rests—just as they are our hopes for the years yet to come.

(1) Could the Civil War have been avoided? If so, how? If not, why not?

(2) What concrete goals was each side trying to attain in that war?

(3) How did North and South differ in way of life?

(4) List, in parallel columns, the viewpoints of each side on such important issues as slavery, states’ rights, nationalism, etc.

(5) In what ways was the Civil War unlike any other war?

(6) What different military strategy might the North have employed?

(7) What different military strategy might the South have employed?

(8) What do you consider as the climactic moment of the war?

(9) Compare the structure and personnel of the two respective governments.

(10) What effect did the war have on homefronts North and South?

(11) What five wartime inventions do you consider most important?

(12) Prepare short reports on medicine, religion, slavery, and women in the war.

(13) Compare Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, both as men and as presidents.

(14) Compare soldiers of the 1860’s with modern “GI’s.”

(15) Could the South have won the Civil War? Prove your answer.

(16) Who is your favorite Civil War figure? Why?

(17) Discuss the best book you have read on the Civil War from the standpoint of information, readability, and interest.

(18) Exactly what national questions did the Civil War solve?

(19) How did Northerner, Southerner, and Negro each benefit from the war?

(20) What problems, present in the Civil War, remain unsolved today?

Soldiers preparing for action.

(Established by Public Law 85-305)

OFFICERS AND MEMBERS

Ex Officio

Honorable John F. KennedyPresident of the United States

Honorable Lyndon B. JohnsonVice President of the United States

Honorable John W. McCormackSpeaker of the House of Representatives

Officers

Dr. Allan NevinsChairman

Congressman Fred SchwengelVice Chairman

Executive Committee

Dr. Bell I. Wiley,ChairmanMr. Alvin L. AubinoeMr. W. Norman Fitzgerald, Jr.Mr. Conrad L. WirthSenator Ralph Yarborough

Members

Senator Clinton P. AndersonMrs. Consuelo N. BaileyCongressman Emilio DaddarioMr. Bruce CattonDr. Avery O. CravenHon. Roy K. DavenportCongressman Carl ElliottCongressman George A. GoodlingDr. John A. KroutDr. John W. Masland, Jr.Dr. David C. MearnsMr. Aksel NielsenMr. William S. PaleySenator Hugh ScottSenator John G. Tower

Cover image.

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