I need help from a knowlegeable Civil War buff or historian.
I recently uncovered documents about my CW ancestor in the form of a journal and some letters. In his letter to a friend, my ancestor describes his capture at 2nd Bull Run and subsequent transfer to Ohio, which is the puzzling part.
It would seem that while a prisoner, he was living with a family in Ohio, which was a Union state. He never went to one of the prison camps. His account has him being marched with a group of prisoners to Gainesville, then to Point of Rocks (MD), then on to Cumberland and finally to Columbus, where he stayed until his release in a prisoner exchange in early 1863.
Did some sort of parole program exist? Was this common during the war? All one hears about are the snake pits like Andersonville and Salisbury. Direction to a site that talks about the type of situation my ancestor found himself it would be greatly appreciated.
It was called “parole”. If you were captured and then paroled, your name was recorded and you could not fight until an enemy was captured and paroled. this was called “exchange.” If you were a major general and were captured, you could be exchanged for several hundred captured privates. If you broke parole and went back into uniform before being exchanged, you could legally be executed if captured.
That John Wayne move “The Horse Soldiers” was based on an actual raid into Mississippi by Union Calvalry. Even though outnumbered and always on the run, they still took prisoners, and put them on parole. This was almost as beneficial to their cause as the destructiopn they did on the raid.
This saved everyone the trouble of guarding, transporting and feeding prisoners. But it ignored the possibility that you could aid the war effort some other way. It also prolonged the war, so Grant stopped it when he assumed command. So even though Henry Wirz was hanged for what happened under his commandancy at the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, it was as much the Union’s fault for consigning its captured men to a system that couldn’t care for them.
Interesting stuff and thanks. Do you know of a site that speaks to the issue? It would appear that my ancestor was fortunate to be captured before the program was terminated.
I remember reading about official prisoner exchange rates. A general was worth 46 privates, etc. Hell of a concept!