"Out of the Mouth of Hell"

Many Civil War prisoners, Confederate and Federal, came to feel that a quick death from a bullet would have been better than slowly starving in a cold, crowded, filthy prison. The hope of freedom was sometimes the only thing that kept a prisoner alive and he tried every way possible to escape.

Here are histories of 27 of the most significant locations used to hold soldiers captured on the battlefield as well as political prisoners suspected of disloyalty. They focus especially on the desperate and courageous attempts to gain freedom. Federal and Confederate facilities are each organized alphabetically. Facts about each prison include when it was established, type of facility, location, number and kind of prisoners held, known escapes, and other available data. The histories are rich with detailed accounts of escapes and of conditions inside the prisons.