Prison Life Among the Rebels: Recollections of a Union Chaplain - Softcover

Henry S. White

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0873384040 ISBN 13: 9780873384049

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 1990

Synopsis

Henry S. White, a chaplain attached to the Fifth Rhode Island heavy Artillery, was captured in May 1864 and remained a prisoner of war until the following September.  After his release he wrote a series of letters to Zion’s Herald, a New England Methodist newspaper, in which he described in vivid detail his capture and transportation to Andersonville and then to the officers’ prison in Macon.

The letters reveal White’s eye for detail and his keen interest in the state of affairs in the south.  He drew pointed comparisons between the officers and men of the two armies, and recounted the terrible lot of the prisoner of war.

“As a chaplain White was spared the worst horrors of Confederate prison life, but his experiences in Rebel custody...were harrowing enough.  Teen-aged sentries gleefully shot prisoners on the slightest provocation, or none at all, as the quickest way to earn a promotion.  Half-naked men driven insane by hunger, lack of shelter, and atrocious sanitary conditions pleaded with guards to put them out of their misery.  White spent only a day at Andersonville, yet his description of that earthly hell is thorough, concise, and very chilling.”―American Heritage

About this title

From Library Journal

Few chaplains were incarcerated during the Civil War and even fewer recorded their experiences. White, attached to the Fifth Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, was captured in May 1864 and remained a prisoner of war for five months. After his release he wrote a series of letters to Zion's Herald , a New England Methodist newspaper, in which he described in detail his capture and transportation to the infamous Andersonville and then to the officer's prison in Macon. The 18 letters published here discuss, besides prison conditions, the author's views on slavery, the war, the Confederacy, and theology. Significant portions of White's account have appeared previously in the Georgia Historical Quarterly and Civil War History , undermining the volume's value for specialists. The introduction, epilog, and index are very brief, weakening the importance of the letters. Only for libraries with extensive and specialized Civil War collections.
- Jason H. Silverman, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Union Army chaplain Henry S. White was shuffled among Confederate prisons from May to September 1864. After his release, he descibed his experiences in 18 letters, published in Zion's Herald , a Methodist newspaper in New England. White's anti-Southern biases are an integral part of the account. He tells his Northern audience that his captors are godless tyrants, that they steal from the POWs and that their armies have only the loosest kind of discipline. Confederate currency is "bogus," Southern women are "saucy," and "impudent" children yell out, "O, see the blue bellies." Yet he also recalls lively political debates between captives and guards, musing that it may not have been prudent to argue with "men who were full of fire and armed to the teeth." Also related are the horrors of incarceration: inadequate water supplies, constant battle with vermin, obsession with the scarce rations. Jervey is professor of history at Radford University in Virginia.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0873384040
• ISBN 13: 9780873384049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112
• Editor: Edward D. Jervey