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The fourteen contributors to this volume all have had experience in military prisons as psychologists, psychiatrists, penologists, educational advisors, or project officers for correction and for research. The importance of their subject can be realized by noting that when the nation is at war the military correctional and confinement system is larger than the entire federal prison system. Psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as students of criminology and penology, will find here much that is relevant to their professional work. But the question of the military prisoner will excite a broader interest. Every thoughtful person at some time confronts the problem of his responsibility for removing great numbers of men from normal civilian pursuits. Events during the last two years have created an urgent need to learn the facts of military imprisonment and the consequences of the widespread military service. This need is now met by publication of this book.
During the four years of the American Civil War, over 400,000 soldiers -- one in every seven who served in the Union and Confederate armies -- became prisoners of war. In northern and southern prisons alike, inmates suffered horrific treatment. Even healthy young soldiers often sickened and died within weeks of entering the stockades. In all, nearly 56,000 prisoners succumbed to overcrowding, exposure, poor sanitation, inadequate medical care, and starvation. Historians have generally blamed prison conditions and mortality rates on factors beyond the control of Union and Confederate command, but Charles W. Sanders, Jr., boldly challenges the conventional view and demonstrates that leaders on...