On June 14^th another 44 officers came in from the Army of the Potomac according to Foote.  A couple days later he “hears” that some officers that were taken from Camp Oglethorpe recently (see June 10^th entry) were taken to Charleston. Unbeknownst to Foote, some six weeks later he would sent to Charleston as well; what would be his fourth location as a prisoner of war to the Confederacy.

The days passed by monotonously, drawing rations, bathing, cooking, sickly, better, shaving, more prisoners coming in, and then the drab sameness was broken on Sunday June 27^th: “An officer escaped last night. Excitement today, the Reb Officers discovered several tunnels that our men had been digging. The Rebs were informed of the whereabouts of them by one of our own Officers.” Camp Oglethorpe would become well-known for the large number of successful escapes by Union prisoners due to an elaborate tunnel system.   It is very interesting that a turncoat Union officer among the ranks was the apparent snitch with regards to the tunnel system being dug by the Union soldiers. The traitor had no doubt traded precious favors or privileges for the intelligence.

It only took Foote five days of being in Camp Oglethorpe before he mentions being sick in his diary.  Many of the men suffered from chronic diseases like dysentery and scurvy due to poor sanitation and diet.   His sickness escalated to an unremittant fever within days.

By late May, the Union prisoner population began swelling due to casualties in the Army of the Potomac engaged in Grant’s Overland Campaign.  Foote mentions Generals Truman Seymour and Alexander Shaler coming in on Tuesday, May 24^th.  By the 25^th of May Foote reported feeling better in terms of his fever but he acquired an eye infection on the 29^th that caused some painful inflammation.

The prison was wedged between railroad tracks and the Ocmulgee River in Macon. The actual Oglethorpe site itself was enclosed by a rough stockade of some 15-20 acres.  When Foote arrived there in mid May 1864 he found living quarters consisting of sheds or stalls constructed from materials within the stockade.

Successful formal exchanges resulted in hundreds of Union officers evacuating Oglethorpe in 1863, but the exchange system would infamously breakdown soon after, and the ranks of most Civil War prisons were swollen way past maximum capacity in the summer and fall of 1864.

By the summer of 1864, the Officer-population at Oglethorpe was extended to over 2,300 men. Shelter by then was barely adequate.  Rations for the prisoners consisted of beans, cornmeal, and rice.  Due to local area Union cavalry raids, most prisoners were moved from Oglethorpe in July 1864, which is why Foote was moved at the end of the month (28^th).

William W. Glazier

A fellow comrade-Union soldier, Williard W. Glazier, Company E, 2nd NY Cavalry regiment served in several Confederate prisons as well. In fact, Glazier’s prison experiences nearly mirrored those of Morris Cooper Foote’s and we are very fortunate that Glazier’s succeeded in telling his story in book format and published this memoir in 1866.

Glazier adds the following detail about soldiers – including Foote – who arrived in Camp Oglethorpe (Macon) in mid May 1864.

We reached Macon at eight o’clock on the evening of May seventeenth, 1864.

Two long files of sneaking, stay-at-home Georgia militia extended from the cars to the Prison Pen, and between them we were marched into Camp Oglethorpe.

On our arrival at the front gate whom should we find bu the veritable Major Thomas P. Turner, fiend incarnate, from Libby Prison. This human monster stood at the gate to count us as we passed in. To his great chagrin forty-seven of our original number were missing, all of whom had escaped from the cars. He drew us up in line, and informed us of the prison regulations, especially that any man would be shot who approached the “dead line.”

The Prison Pen takes its name from General Oglethorpe, an early settler of Georgia. It is about eighty rods east of the city, and covers an area of a little more than two acres. The enclosure is surrounded by a stockade fence about fifteen feet high, near the top of which projects a platform whereon the sentinels are stationed. Within the stockade, and at a distance of fifteen feet from it, is the dead line, extending entirely around the camp. This consists of an ordinary picket-fence three and a half feet high. . . . . Camp Oglethorpe was made expressly for our reception, and had never before been occupied.

As the Union POWs reached Macon in mid May, Foote says they were packed 50-60 per railroad car. The tight quarters also brought it’s own challenges. Foote was robbed of all his Confederate money while in transit aboard the train on May 15^th.

It took a couple days to reach the place where Camp Oglethorpe was set up, getting there on Tuesday the 17^th of May. Foote’s diary says that they were “put in an open yard without shelter, one building for [the] sick & two for Generals and Staff. . . . all of the Plymouth Officers came in the yard today.” When Foote arrived at Oglethorpe there were roughly some 2,300 Union officers imprisoned.

Camp Oglethorpe was in operation from 1861 through 1864.  It had a maximum capacity of 600 but saw its peak reach a threshold of nearly 2,000 Union souls.  This prison was a converted fairgrounds facility.  In May 1864 some 1,500 Union officers were taken prisoner in Camp Oglethorpe, doubtless many from the capture and Battle of Plymouth the month before.

The Civil War in the West

Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi

By Earl J. Hess

Approx. 424 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 39 halftones, 1 map, notes, bibl., index

Littlefield History of the Civil War Era

ISBN  978-0-8078-3542-5

ISBN  978-0-8078-7231-4

The Western theater of the Civil War, rich in agricultural resources and manpower and home to a large number of slaves, stretched 600 miles north to south and 450 miles east to west from the Appalachians to the Mississippi. If the South lost the West, there would be little hope of preserving the Confederacy. Earl J. Hess’s comprehensive study of how Federal forces conquered and held the West examines the geographical difficulties of conducting campaigns in a vast land, as well as the toll irregular warfare took on soldiers and civilians alike. Hess balances a thorough knowledge of the battle lines with a deep understanding of what was happening within the occupied territories.

In addition to a mastery of logistics, Union victory hinged on making use of black manpower and developing policies for controlling constant unrest while winning campaigns. Effective use of technology, superior resource management, and an aggressive confidence went hand in hand with Federal success on the battlefield. In the end, Confederates did not have the manpower, supplies, transportation potential, or leadership to counter Union initiatives in this critical arena.

About the Author

Earl J. Hess is Stewart W. McClelland Chair in history at Lincoln Memorial University and has written many books on Civil War history, including In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat.