Confederate Prisoners Waiting for the Railroad Train; Chattanooga, Tennessee; 1864

At the battle of Chattanooga the Army of the Cumberland under General Thomas assailed the field-works at the foot of Mission Ridge, November 25 1863, and captured them at the point of the bayonet. Then, without orders, the troops, eager to wipe out the memory of Chickamauga, pressed gallantly on up the ridge, heedless of the deadly fire belched into their very faces, and overran the works at the summit like a torrent, capturing thirty-five guns and prisoners wholesale. As this photograph was taken, some of the Confederate prisoners were standing at the railroad depot awaiting transportation to the prisons in the North. There such bodies were usually guarded by partially disabled soldiers organized as the Veteran Reserve Corps. They had more to eat than the Northern prisoners in the South, yet often less than the amount to which they were entitled by the army regulations. In the South, during the last years of the war, prisoners almost starved, while their guards fared little better. With all the resources of the North, Confederate prisoners often went hungry, because of the difficulty of organizing such a tremendous task and finding suitable officers to take charge. The Northern soldiers in the field frequently suffered from hunger for days at a time.