Pvt. Henry G. Adams served in the Fifty-sixth Georgia Volunteer Infantry. He enlisted in May 1862, which suggests that he was a reluctant volunteer who wished to avoid the draft. He was twenty-eight years old when he was captured at the battle of Champion Hill, Mississippi, in May 1863. The Union army sent him first to Camp Morton, Indiana. From there, he went to Fort Delaware, arriving in June. He was exchanged on the Fourth of July - the same day that Vicksburg fell. The exchange did him little good; the Confederate army immediately placed him in a hospital in Richmond, where he was diagnosed as having “Phtyisis Pulmonatis.” Still, he was thought to be well enough to travel - on August 2, he was given a forty-five-day furlough, presumably to go home and recuperate. He did reach home - according to Adams family stories, he walked - where he died of pneumonia on September 13, 1863. He left behind a widow, three sons, and one daughter. He was my great-great-grandfather.

During the Civil War, approximately 195,000 Union soldiers and 215,000 Confederates spent some time in enemy hands. Over 56,000 soldiers died in captivity - roughly 30,000 Union soldiers and 26,000 Confederates. The systems for keeping prisoners developed by the Union and the Confederacy were subject to much controversy during the war. Their failures, particularly their failures to maintain the health of the inmates, were the source of grief, bitterness, and recriminations. Supporters of both the Union and the Confederacy pointed to the wounds inflicted by the other side, while denying those inflicted by their own. Men of good will on both sides covered up the truth, and the debate lasted far longer than did the Confederacy itself. The issue of prisoners aroused as much passion as any other aspect of the Civil War, and more than most.