Changing Sides: Union Prisoners of War Who Joined the Confederate Army
Autor Patrick H. Garrowen Limba Engleză Hardback – 10 dec 2020
Though the scholarship on the Civil War is vast, Changing Sides represents the first entry to investigate Union POWs who fought for the Confederacy, filling a significant gap in the historiography of Civil War incarceration. To provide context, Patrick Garrow traces the history of the practice of recruiting troops from enemy POWs, noting the influence of the mostly immigrant San Patricios in the Mexican-American War. The author goes on to describe Confederate prisons, where conditions often provided ample incentive to change sides. Garrow’s original archival research in an array of archival records, along with his archaeological excavation of the Confederate guard camp at Florence, South Carolina, in 2006, provide a wealth of data on the lives of these POWs, not only as they experienced imprisonment and being “galvanized” to the other side, but also what happened to them after the war was over.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781621906179
ISBN-10: 1621906175
Pagini: 304
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.58 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: University of Tennessee Press
Colecția Univ Tennessee Press
ISBN-10: 1621906175
Pagini: 304
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.58 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: University of Tennessee Press
Colecția Univ Tennessee Press
Notă biografică
PATRICK GARROW is a professional archaeologist whose career spanned more than 50 years. He has authored or edited numerous site reports and monographs, including The Chieftains Excavations, 1969–1971. His scholarship has appeared in American Antiquity and numerous other peer-reviewed journals and books.
Extras
There are very few unexplored topics concerning the history of the American Civil War. Thousands, and probably tens of thousands, of volumes and articles are in print about the war, but not one deals with the Union prisoners of war who joined the Confederate Army in more than a superficial manner. Two published volumes focus on men who changed sides during the war, and both of those focus on Confederate prisoners of war. Dee Brown's classic work Galvanized Yankees deals with six regiments raised almost entirely from Union prisons and sent to the western frontier to protect settlers from American Indian attacks during the Civil War. Four companies of a single regiment were composed in part of Union prisoners of war who had joined the Confederate Army. Those men, captured in arms at Egypt Station, joined the 5th United States Volunteer Infantry. Brown devoted a single chapter to Union prisoners of war who changed sides.
The term "galvanized Yankees" historically described men from both armies who changed sides during the war. "Galvanized" is a term used to describe a base metal that is coated with zinc to prevent corrosion. "Galvanized" soldiers were thus men not made up of true, incorruptible metal. The term "galvanized Yankees" in this study only refers to Confederate prisoners of war who joined the Union Army. The historically incorrect term "galvanized Confederates" refers to Union prisoners of war who joined the Confederate Army. This volume uses the term "galvanized Confederates" in the same way Dee Brown did in his book Galvanized Yankees in order to avoid the confusion that using the same term for both groups would create. The term "enlisted Federals" also refers to galvanized Confederates in some instances.
The idea of men changing sides to fight for the enemy was nothing new to the senior command of either the Union or Confederate armies. The officers had sorted themselves into one side or the other as the war began, but they shared the lesson of the San Patricios, learned during the Mexican War. Most of the senior command of both sides had fought in the Mexican War and had the opportunity to observe the effectiveness of the San Patricio Battalion. It is sufficient to point out at this point that they were an artillery battalion made up largely of deserters from the American Army that became one of the most effective fighting units the Mexicans had to oppose the American invasion. The San Patricios were primarily Irish Catholic immigrants subjected to severe persecution by nativist American officers. The position taken by Confederate leaders late in the war—that it was appropriate to recruit Union prisoners of war, and more specifically that the recruits should be foreign-born—may have been derived in part from their experience with the San Patricios.
The official recruitment of galvanized Yankees began a year before the recruitment of galvanized Confederates. Unofficial recruitment of galvanized Yankees started even earlier when Col. Mulligan of the 23rd Illinois Infantry recruited prisoners from Camp Douglas to fill losses from his own regiment. Mulligan left camp with the new recruits despite the disapproval of the War Department.5 Galvanized Yankees from northern prisons filled out at least two regiments in experiments that failed because of desertions.6 One guard unit recruited at Fort Delaware from among the prisoners was successful and served until the end of the war. It is not the purpose of the current research to identify and discuss every Federal unit that included galvanized Yankees. It is clear that recruitment of Confederate prisoners of war went beyond the six regiments sent to the western frontier.
Confederate officials did not consider recruitment of Union prisoners of war until late in 1864. That may have been due to the hatred most southerners felt for the north and northerners and the belief that Yankees were inferior to southerners in almost every way. That belief, which originated years before the war, held that Yankees were cowards and morally unfit barbarians who could not replace the superior fighting men of the south.8 The initial recruitments resulted from both the need for additional manpower, which had become critical by late 1864, and the large numbers of prisoners who expressed a desire to change sides. Those men were mainly collected at Florence Prison and organized into what became the Brooks Battalion. The rest stayed in Charleston and joined commands defending the city. The Brooks Battalion did not have enough officers to ensure adequate command and control or sufficient training, and the soldiers of the battalion attempted to mutiny while part of the Savannah defenses. It was no surprise that the Brooks Battalion failed.9
Four hundred prisoners enlisted in Confederate units around Charleston. The 47th Georgia Infantry and Captain Daniell's Battery were two units identified during the current research that received some of those men. The hundred men sent to the 47th Georgia were returned to prison because of their high desertion rate, and the 60 men sent to Captain Daniell's Battery simply melted away after playing their role in the defense of Savannah. The prisoners allocated to commands around Charleston proved to be a failed experiment.10
The Confederate government eventually authorized several individuals to enlist prisoners and form new commands. The 1st Foreign Battalion, which became the Tucker Regiment, was a pioneer regiment under the command of Col. Julius Tucker. That regiment, held together by draconian discipline, survived in reduced form until the end of the war. The 2nd Foreign Battalion, renamed the 8th Confederate Infantry, the most well trained galvanized unit, largely met its end at an April 1865 battle at Salisbury. The men of that battalion arrived at Salisbury after the battle was already lost, but fought well in a losing cause.11
Col. John O'Neill raised as many as a thousand men to fill out depleted regiments in the Bates Division of the Army of Tennessee under an authorization from Gen. John Bell Hood. Most of those men went west in December 1864 to join the Army of Tennessee, but over 250 were captured under arms at Egypt Station during a raid through Mississippi led by General Benjamin Grierson. Most of the captured men joined the 5th United States Infantry from prison. Over half of those men deserted during their term of service from April 1864 to October 1865. The 5th United States Volunteer Infantry was part of the Union experiment that sent six regiments made up mostly of galvanized Yankees to the western frontier to protect the frontier from warring American Indian tribes. That experiment was generally a success, although the desertion rate among the galvanized Confederates in the 5th was very high.12
Col. John O'Neill made the last serious attempt to enlist Union prisoners for the Confederate Army in January and February 1865. He was successful in recruiting men at Andersonville Prison, but it was too late in the war for his recruits to be used to any real effect. Those men appear to have melted away as the war ended.13
The galvanized Confederate units doubtless included many deserters, thugs, bounty jumpers, and other unsavory types. Those units also contained men who enlisted as a means of saving their lives or their sanity. Civil War prisons in both the North and South were deathtraps, where large numbers of men died of untreated or poorly treated wounds, malnutrition, dietary diseases such as scurvy, rampant epidemic or endemic diseases, inadequate medical care, exposure, or nothing more than deep despair. Prisons in the North offered shelter, which the open pens of the South did not, but those shelters were not adequate to protect the men from severe winter conditions. Sanitary conditions were at best inadequate and at worst nonexistent, and in many cases there was no safe drinking water. Those conditions were coupled with the failure of the exchange system at a time when battles on all fronts were flooding prisons with new prisoners. Enlisting in the army of the former enemy offered a way out for men who were out of options. It is not surprising that both sides found fertile ground for recruiting and so many men changed sides.
The term "galvanized Yankees" historically described men from both armies who changed sides during the war. "Galvanized" is a term used to describe a base metal that is coated with zinc to prevent corrosion. "Galvanized" soldiers were thus men not made up of true, incorruptible metal. The term "galvanized Yankees" in this study only refers to Confederate prisoners of war who joined the Union Army. The historically incorrect term "galvanized Confederates" refers to Union prisoners of war who joined the Confederate Army. This volume uses the term "galvanized Confederates" in the same way Dee Brown did in his book Galvanized Yankees in order to avoid the confusion that using the same term for both groups would create. The term "enlisted Federals" also refers to galvanized Confederates in some instances.
The idea of men changing sides to fight for the enemy was nothing new to the senior command of either the Union or Confederate armies. The officers had sorted themselves into one side or the other as the war began, but they shared the lesson of the San Patricios, learned during the Mexican War. Most of the senior command of both sides had fought in the Mexican War and had the opportunity to observe the effectiveness of the San Patricio Battalion. It is sufficient to point out at this point that they were an artillery battalion made up largely of deserters from the American Army that became one of the most effective fighting units the Mexicans had to oppose the American invasion. The San Patricios were primarily Irish Catholic immigrants subjected to severe persecution by nativist American officers. The position taken by Confederate leaders late in the war—that it was appropriate to recruit Union prisoners of war, and more specifically that the recruits should be foreign-born—may have been derived in part from their experience with the San Patricios.
The official recruitment of galvanized Yankees began a year before the recruitment of galvanized Confederates. Unofficial recruitment of galvanized Yankees started even earlier when Col. Mulligan of the 23rd Illinois Infantry recruited prisoners from Camp Douglas to fill losses from his own regiment. Mulligan left camp with the new recruits despite the disapproval of the War Department.5 Galvanized Yankees from northern prisons filled out at least two regiments in experiments that failed because of desertions.6 One guard unit recruited at Fort Delaware from among the prisoners was successful and served until the end of the war. It is not the purpose of the current research to identify and discuss every Federal unit that included galvanized Yankees. It is clear that recruitment of Confederate prisoners of war went beyond the six regiments sent to the western frontier.
Confederate officials did not consider recruitment of Union prisoners of war until late in 1864. That may have been due to the hatred most southerners felt for the north and northerners and the belief that Yankees were inferior to southerners in almost every way. That belief, which originated years before the war, held that Yankees were cowards and morally unfit barbarians who could not replace the superior fighting men of the south.8 The initial recruitments resulted from both the need for additional manpower, which had become critical by late 1864, and the large numbers of prisoners who expressed a desire to change sides. Those men were mainly collected at Florence Prison and organized into what became the Brooks Battalion. The rest stayed in Charleston and joined commands defending the city. The Brooks Battalion did not have enough officers to ensure adequate command and control or sufficient training, and the soldiers of the battalion attempted to mutiny while part of the Savannah defenses. It was no surprise that the Brooks Battalion failed.9
Four hundred prisoners enlisted in Confederate units around Charleston. The 47th Georgia Infantry and Captain Daniell's Battery were two units identified during the current research that received some of those men. The hundred men sent to the 47th Georgia were returned to prison because of their high desertion rate, and the 60 men sent to Captain Daniell's Battery simply melted away after playing their role in the defense of Savannah. The prisoners allocated to commands around Charleston proved to be a failed experiment.10
The Confederate government eventually authorized several individuals to enlist prisoners and form new commands. The 1st Foreign Battalion, which became the Tucker Regiment, was a pioneer regiment under the command of Col. Julius Tucker. That regiment, held together by draconian discipline, survived in reduced form until the end of the war. The 2nd Foreign Battalion, renamed the 8th Confederate Infantry, the most well trained galvanized unit, largely met its end at an April 1865 battle at Salisbury. The men of that battalion arrived at Salisbury after the battle was already lost, but fought well in a losing cause.11
Col. John O'Neill raised as many as a thousand men to fill out depleted regiments in the Bates Division of the Army of Tennessee under an authorization from Gen. John Bell Hood. Most of those men went west in December 1864 to join the Army of Tennessee, but over 250 were captured under arms at Egypt Station during a raid through Mississippi led by General Benjamin Grierson. Most of the captured men joined the 5th United States Infantry from prison. Over half of those men deserted during their term of service from April 1864 to October 1865. The 5th United States Volunteer Infantry was part of the Union experiment that sent six regiments made up mostly of galvanized Yankees to the western frontier to protect the frontier from warring American Indian tribes. That experiment was generally a success, although the desertion rate among the galvanized Confederates in the 5th was very high.12
Col. John O'Neill made the last serious attempt to enlist Union prisoners for the Confederate Army in January and February 1865. He was successful in recruiting men at Andersonville Prison, but it was too late in the war for his recruits to be used to any real effect. Those men appear to have melted away as the war ended.13
The galvanized Confederate units doubtless included many deserters, thugs, bounty jumpers, and other unsavory types. Those units also contained men who enlisted as a means of saving their lives or their sanity. Civil War prisons in both the North and South were deathtraps, where large numbers of men died of untreated or poorly treated wounds, malnutrition, dietary diseases such as scurvy, rampant epidemic or endemic diseases, inadequate medical care, exposure, or nothing more than deep despair. Prisons in the North offered shelter, which the open pens of the South did not, but those shelters were not adequate to protect the men from severe winter conditions. Sanitary conditions were at best inadequate and at worst nonexistent, and in many cases there was no safe drinking water. Those conditions were coupled with the failure of the exchange system at a time when battles on all fronts were flooding prisons with new prisoners. Enlisting in the army of the former enemy offered a way out for men who were out of options. It is not surprising that both sides found fertile ground for recruiting and so many men changed sides.
Recenzii
Changing Sidesis a study of several thousand Union prisoners of war who agreed to change sides and join the Confederate Army in the final months of the Civil War. Patrick Garrow also examines the motivationof Confederate officials who tried to recruit Union prisoners of war, characterizing the activity as a desperate act to fill the depleted ranks of Southern armies.Changing Sidesis a well-researched book that utilizes a variety of published andunpublished primary sources to examine a neglected topic.
—The North Carolina Historical Review