Warning: This blog post contains some disturbing pictures. One of these in particular is very graphic, and may merit special caution.
I grew up on prisoner-of-war movies – like “Stalag 17,” “The Great Escape,” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” They are particularly popular when depicting World War II, or certain other wars of the twentieth century. But relatively little has been said about American prisoners of war in prior conflicts. For example, little has been said about POWs in the American Revolution and the Civil War. Thus, I wanted to fill in some of the gaps here, and talk about our “POWs” (or “Prisoners Of War”) in some of these other periods. I should note that most of these periods were before the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions. Thus, modern rules and laws about the treatment of POWs did not yet apply in some of these periods. The stories of captured Americans, and those that we captured for ourselves, will tell us much about who we were as a people – and who we are today.
Background on prior prisoner stories, and the forgotten “French and Indian War”
Relatively little information is readily available about those who were captured in the French and Indian War, which was part of the worldwide “Seven Years’ War.” At the time that I write this, Wikipedia currently lacks a page on this subject. But they do have a page on “Prisoner of war” (better as “Prisoner[s] of war”) more generally. This interesting page notes that “Early historical narratives of captured European settlers, including perspectives of literate women captured by the indigenous peoples of North America, exist in some number. The writings of Mary Rowlandson, captured in the chaotic fighting of King Philip's War, are an example. Such narratives enjoyed some popularity, spawning a genre of the captivity narrative, and had lasting influence on the body of early American literature, most notably through the legacy of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Some Native Americans continued to capture Europeans and use them both as labourers and bargaining chips into the 19th century; see for example John R. Jewitt, a sailor who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest coast from 1802 to 1805.” (see source) We also know that George Washington, then a British soldier, was once captured by the French in the “French and Indian War.” Thus, for a brief period, he was a British prisoner of war on the American frontier. The United States did not yet exist, but he would later become the first president of the United States. Thus, he was also the first American president who had been a prisoner of war. At this time, there has only been one other, as I will describe shortly. But relatively little information is readily available about the other prisoners of war in the Seven Years’ War, or in the “French and Indian War” portion of that conflict. Ironically, George Washington would later fight alongside French soldiers (and against British soldiers) in the American Revolution. These included his close friend, the “Marquis de Lafayette.” (More on the Marquis de Lafayette in another post.)
George Washington, who had once been a British prisoner of the French
Our Revolution’s code of honor, with an anecdote about Andrew Jackson’s 1781 capture
The era had a specific code of honor regarding surrendering to the enemy. This was simply that surrender could sometimes be considered honorable, but only if you had done your best to resist the enemy before you surrendered. This is in contrast to the bushido codes of the Japanese samurai, which preferred suicide to surrender (as I discuss in this link). By contrast, Europeans believed that, when there is no hope of fighting back, it can be honorable to surrender to the enemy. This code existed before the creation of the United States, and was brought by the Europeans to their various colonies in the Americas. When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, both sides were believers in the validity of this code. Soon, the American colonies were declaring their independence from Great Britain in 1776. The United States military was now that of a separate nation. Many prisoners were thus captured in this war. But as this Wikipedia page notes, “care and supplies for captives were expected to be provided by their own combatants or private resources.” (Source: Their page on “Prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War”) Wikipedia does have such a page. One prisoner to be taken in this conflict was the future president Andrew Jackson. He was captured by the British in 1781, along with his brother Robert. Both subsequently became malnourished, and contracted smallpox. They were eventually released in a prisoner exchange, but Robert Jackson died of disease shortly after returning home. Andrew Jackson himself, fortunately, was nursed back to health by other family members. But the death of his brother Robert contributed to Andrew Jackson’s lifelong hatred of the British. So did the loss of their brother Hugh in an earlier battle with the British. Andrew Jackson would carry this hatred with him into the later War of 1812. (More on that later in this post.) In absolute numbers, many twentieth-century conflicts killed more Americans than did the American Revolution. But as a percentage of the population, 1% of the American population died in the American Revolutionary War. Only the Civil War would ever have a higher death rate, as a percentage of the American population. That is, the American Revolution had an even higher American death rate than World War II.
Young Andrew Jackson defends himself against a British officer, American Revolutionary War
Prisoners of war during the American Revolution, and how the two sides treated them
During the American Revolution, many of the American prisoners were kept on British prison ships. These were infamous for their mortality rates. Others were sent to prison camps on the East River. These likewise had high mortality rates. In fairness, some of these death rates were instead due to disease, which was the biggest killer in all of our earliest wars. Those in captivity had a higher death rate from disease than those that remained to fight on the battlefield. Some American prisoners were actually forced to do hard labor, often in other parts of the world. For example, some were forced to work in the coal mines in Nova Scotia, Canada. Some of these prisoners later joined the Royal Navy to secure their freedom – a testament to the bitterness of their servitude. This is a dark (and usually-forgotten) chapter in the American Revolution. During this war, the “Patriot” side (as it is now known) captured British, Loyalist, and the Hessian (or German) soldiers. Some of these prisoners had to be marched across the wilderness when captured, although I should note that it was not a “death march.” They were just being moved from one place to another. The Hessian soldiers were the most well-behaved when they were captured, because they were born in the German states, where obedience was expected. Thus, the Americans usually chose to exchange the other prisoners before they exchanged the Hessian ones. But the Americans hated the captured British soldiers, and especially hated the American Loyalists. Some of the American states treated their captured enemies as criminals, rather than enemy combatants. In general, though, the Patriots treated their prisoners of war with greater kindness than did those on the British side. George Washington (who, again, had been a British prisoner of war of the French) asked that enemy prisoners, including the British, be “treat[ed] … with humanity.”
Interior of the British prison ship Jersey
How POWs were treated in the War of 1812, and in the 1840s war with Mexico
Now I will return to quoting an aforementioned Wikipedia page. This interesting page says that “The extensive period of conflict during the American Revolutionary War and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815), followed by the Anglo-American War of 1812, led to the emergence of a cartel system for the exchange of prisoners, even while the belligerents were at war. A cartel was usually arranged by the respective armed service for the exchange of like-ranked personnel. The aim was to achieve a reduction in the number of prisoners held, while at the same time alleviating shortages of skilled personnel in the home country.” (Source: Their general page on “Prisoner of war,” better as “Prisoner[s] of war”) However, relatively little information is readily available about prisoners of war in the American “War of 1812” (actually fought from 1812 to 1815). There is no Wikipedia page focused on this particular subject, or on prisoners of war in the larger Napoleonic Wars of which they were a part. By this conflict, Andrew Jackson was fighting as a general in the War of 1812, and had come far from being an American prisoner of war in his early days. However, it seems safe to say that in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, prisoners on both sides fared somewhat badly. The Mexican government was already that of a brutal dictatorship, and thus treated its prisoners badly. Similarly, soldiers of the United States were rather racist against the soldiers from Mexico, which may have affected their treatment of Mexican prisoners. Nonetheless, there is no Wikipedia page focused on prisoners of war in the Mexican-American War, so it is hard to know this for certain.
General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, who had been a British prisoner in 1781
The prisoner exchange system of the Civil War, and how it was eventually altered
By the American Civil War, prisoners were often “paroled,” or allowed to be returned to their homes. This was on the condition that they promised no longer to fight – a promise that, surprisingly, was usually kept. Earlier in the war (which started in 1861), there were prisoner exchanges under the “Dix-Hill Cartel” (an agreement between the two sides) in 1862. But, as the war went on, this vicious civil war became increasingly ugly. Eventually, 2% of the prewar United States population would die in the conflict. The North’s death rate was likewise 2%, but the South’s death rate was a full 3%. Nothing like either side’s death rate has ever again been seen in our history, before or since. This created massive logistical problems in burying the dead, as seen in Ric Burns’ documentary film “Death and the Civil War.” But it also led to Confederate soldiers engaging in an infamous revenge massacre at Fort Pillow, mostly of African American soldiers fighting for the Union. Obviously, the Confederate soldiers were violently racist against African Americans – even moreso than were the Northern Whites. This would eventually lead the Confederacy to demand lopsided prisoner exchanges from the North. To quote a Wikipedia page, “The exchange system collapsed in 1863 because the Confederacy refused to treat Black prisoners the same as Whites. They said they were probably ex-slaves and belonged to their masters, not to the Union Army.[footnote] The South needed the exchanges much more than the North did, because of the severe manpower shortage in the Confederacy. In 1864 Ulysses [S.] Grant, noting the ‘prisoner gap’ (Union camps held far more prisoners than Confederate camps), decided that the growing prisoner gap gave him a decided military advantage. He therefore opposed wholesale exchanges until the end was in sight. Around 5,600 Confederates were allowed to join the Union Army. Known as ‘galvanized Yankees’ these troops were stationed in the West facing Native Americans.[footnote]” (Source: Their page on “American Civil War prison camps”) Yes, such a page does exist. Presumably, this was because the Confederates’ racism against the native peoples made it easier for them to fight against the Indians – whom they despised almost as much as the opposing Yankees.
General William Tecumseh Sherman
Sherman’s March to the Sea, the Andersonville prison camp, and its 1865 liberation
This same page notes that “Prisoner exchanges resumed early in 1865, just before the war's end, with the Confederates sending 17,000 prisoners North while receiving 24,000 men.[footnote] On April 23, after the war ended, the riverboat Sultana was taking 1900 ex-prisoners North on the Mississippi River when it exploded, killing about 1500 of them.” (see source) The mortality rates in prison camps on both sides were pretty much the same. At the Northern-run Elmira prison camp in New York State, 25% of the prisoners died – the worst rate for a Northern-run prison camp. But the very worst of this war was the Southern-run Andersonville prison camp in Georgia, where 28% of the prisoners died. In fact, those who died in prisons accounted for 10% of all Civil War fatalities. In fairness to both sides, some of this was instead due to disease, which still remained a major killer in the Civil War. But the camps were still noted for their extraordinary mortality rates, especially in these two camps. In 1864, the Northern general William Tecumseh Sherman led his troops through Georgia (and, later, South Carolina), in a campaign later called “Sherman’s March to the Sea.” In this march, he deliberately made war against civilians, by burning houses and other buildings. He destroyed crops, and anything that the enemy could use – noting that the South’s war efforts couldn’t get along without these things. In 1865, his troops then liberated the Andersonville prison camp. Like the related images from the Holocaust, the images from these prison camps still shock us today, even all these years later. When someone complained to President Abraham Lincoln about the conduct of Sherman’s March, Lincoln simply responded by showing them a picture of an emaciated (and recently-liberated) prisoner from Andersonville, with only a few words spoken. This was a powerful response, and was hard to reply to.
An Andersonville survivor, barely alive in Georgia on his release in 1865
The subsequent trial of Andersonville commandant Henry Wirz for war crimes
There were relatively few war crimes trials held after the Civil War. The most prominent ones are those for Abraham Lincoln’s surviving assassins, which were the infamous co-conspirators of John Wilkes Booth. (Booth himself had died in an earlier firefight with federal troops in 1865.) But the commandant of Andersonville, the Swiss-born German-speaking commandant Henry Wirz, was among the few to be tried for war crimes after this war. He was sentenced to death, and eventually executed in 1865. This showed the outrage of the Northern public over Andersonville, which was understandable. There were relatively few Americans captured, in the subsequent Spanish-American War of 1898. Again, relatively little information is readily available on prisoners of war in the Spanish-American War. There is no Wikipedia page on the subject. But we know that the Americans actually treated the enemy combatants from the Spanish-American War with respect, even if their reasons for starting the war against Spain were poor (and they obviously were).
Execution of Henry Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville prison camp in Georgia
How the Germans treated captured Americans in the two World Wars
There is actually a page on prisoners of war in World War One – although none specifically on captured Americans, or those in the American-run camps. In fact, there is no Wikipedia page on American prisoners of war at all – not even a general one. Captured Americans in the First World War were usually sent to camps in Germany, which was close to the Western Front. They were held in these camps with some other Allied POWs – such as British, Romanian, and Russian soldiers. Surprisingly, the Kaiser’s Germany actually treated American prisoners fairly well in this conflict, and our mortality rates in these camps were fairly low in comparison with prior conflicts. The United States likewise treated the captured Germans with respect – even moreso, as it turned out. Adolf Hitler’s Germany was notoriously cruel to captured Soviet soldiers – and, of course, to the Jews victimized by the Holocaust. But, surprisingly, he ordered that the American prisoners be treated with respect. Apparently, the American soldiers were usually considered “Aryan” enough for the Nazis to treat them with respect – a surprising side effect of Nazi racial teachings. Although we know that Hitler also considered the United States to be “corrupted” by Black and Jewish elements (obviously an unfortunate view), the Germans were far kinder to captured Americans than were the Imperial Japanese – although, again, the Germans were harsher to the Soviets and the Jews. And, obviously, we were kinder to the captured Germans. However, the Japanese would often pretend to surrender, only to throw grenades at their would-be captors. Thus, the Americans understandably took to shooting most of the Japanese instead, although those Japanese soldiers that were captured … were treated quite fairly.
American POWs at German prison camp Rastatt – Germany, 1918 (during the Great War)
How Imperial Japan, communist China, North Korea, and Vietnam treated our POWs
The Japanese viewed suicide to be preferable to surrender. Thus, they viewed surrender as deeply dishonorable, which had unfortunate consequences for their treatment of Allied prisoners. More than one in four of those Americans to be held by the Japanese … would subsequently die in captivity. Likewise, those captured in the Korean War were very cruelly treated. Both the North Koreans and their communist Chinese allies hated the unfortunate American soldiers. The word “brainwash” comes from this war, and is a literal translation of a phrase from Chinese. American prisoners in the Vietnam War were also treated very harshly. The North Vietnamese, and their “Viet Cong” allies, were extraordinarily cruel to captured Americans – in places like the “Hanoi Hilton.” But it would be beyond the scope of this blog post to cover these twentieth-century conflicts, or the stories of those who were captured in them. Suffice it to say that Japanese militarism, as well as the communism of Asia, were responsible for staggering war crimes against American prisoners of war. The status of prisoners of war in Vietnam played a role in prolonging the Vietnam War, beyond what it otherwise would have been. Americans didn’t want to leave their prisoners behind in communist captivity, any longer than they had to. However, the captured communists were mostly treated well by the Americans in Korea and Vietnam, even though there was still ongoing racism against people from Asia. (And, to some extent, there still is today.)
American POW bound and killed by the North Koreans – Korean War, 1950
The Hanoi Hilton (in the Vietnam War), in a 1970 aerial surveillance photo
Conclusion: One hopes that there will continue to be needed progress in this area
The treatment of prisoners of war remains an ongoing source of controversy today. Thus, it has been the subject of some major international laws. At various times and places, there have been Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions about war crimes, among other agreements. These have sought to make life easier for prisoners of war, and other non-combatants. But not all modern nations have signed these agreements, and many of those who signed them have since failed to honor them (no surprise there). One thus hopes that there will be continuing and needed progress in this particular area, and that these agreements will be more frequently honored in the future. That is, I hope that war will be made less cruel for non-combatants. I acknowledge that war must sometimes still be waged against civilians – as in the case of the World War II bombing, or of Sherman’s much-maligned “March to the Sea.” This march did much to weaken the Southern war efforts, and thus played an underappreciated role in the defeat of the Confederacy – and, thus, the end of chattel slavery in this country. But I hope that the horrors of war will one day be visited more exclusively on the participants, and that prisoners of war (and other non-combatants) will be treated somewhat better in the future. This seems like a realistic hope, and one that I will venture to wish for.
“We cannot change the hearts of those people, but we can make war so terrible … [and] make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.”
– Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, during the American Civil War
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