Portals to Hell: The Military Prisons of the Civil War (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The first prisoners taken in the Civil War were part of a work detail at Castle Pinckney in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor..." (more)
Key Phrases: depot prison, additional barracks, prison commandant, New York, Fort Delaware, Johnson's Island (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This is the first modern account of all Civil War military prisons. It includes escapes, women and black prisoners, exchange programs, games, food, vermin, illness, and death.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 1st edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811703347
• ISBN-13: 978-0811703345
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,016,349 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars History or Fiction, October 13, 2002

By	Sam Larke (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

A college professor once told us that history is 80% fiction and is a function of the agenda of either the writer or his sources. Is that the case here? I found the book very interesting but in the areas I am familiar with, far from reality. For example, I live near Fort Delaware and it is not in the middle of Delaware Bay. It is in the middle of the Delaware River. You would not need to be an expert swimmer to reach either the Pennsylvania or New Jersey shore as suggested in the book. An escapee would not have to "float for hours on the waves using the lights of Delaware City" to guide him. He could have easily floated in the gentle current the nine tenths of a mile to shore. He also used questionable sources. He uses an old tale from a former prisoner about a guard who took a hundred or more prisoners to a remote area and made them strip. Until the Corps of Engineers began to dump the sludge dredged from the shiping channel on the north end of the island after the war, the island was only about seventy acres and had buildings everywhere. Even though he says the prison is on an island, he has a prisoner at the end of the war being forced to walk fourteen miles to the nearest town to get a train because the evil guards wouldn't help him. The nearest town is again Delaware City and it is nine tenths of a mile across the river. It was a southern city and the gracious people would have been happy to help. The author also places Ft. Miflin, south of Phila, in the middle of the river. It is not. At the time it had a narrow channel between it and the mainland which is now gone. Of the thousands of prisoners at Ft. Delaware, his sources appear to only be those who had something to gain by their more colorful stories. They were selling books. I found so many inconsistencies in the areas I was familiar with that I was very skeptical about the remainder. After reading a subsequent review, I thought that I would clarify a few points. I did not go into everything originally to keep the review to one point. Read all history with care. The book, however, is accurate in showing that Ft. Delaware was a miserable place to be. In the summer, it is a hot, humid, terrible place. In the winter, with the winds whipping up from the bay, life would again be intolerable. This book is an anthology of all the civil war prison camps. As such, there are both time and space constraints. All history is a story and must be read with some skepticism. I thought the reviewers before me were far too enthusiastic about this book's accuracy. This particular book, based upon other books and research, does lean more to the sensational. Some of the primary sources did have axes to grind, particularly Mr. Rivenbark. Besides writing a book, Rivenbark lectured after the war. His stories got more "interesting" as time passed. This book is not balanced but it was interesting and a basic start for further reading on a particular prison.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars AN INTERESTING BUT FLAWED BOOK, June 16, 2003

By	Louis P Perez (Delaware City, DE, USA) - See all my reviews

This book took on the monumental task of looking at every Civil War prison. Unfortunately, it fell victim to that very attempt. By trying to do too much, it failed to show the true context in which these prisons existed. While even the best of these camps were terrible places, they were terrible for everyone. The guards lived in the same filth and a good number of them also died. This book tends to label someone and then move on. The book, Unlikely Allies, by Dale Fetzer goes into much more detail about Ft. Delaware and shows the commander to have been a much more complex character. Elmira, Deathcamp of the North shows the intrinsic horror of the camps that is not shown in this more slanted approach. Things were bad enough without taking them out of context. The smallpox epidemic that killed nearly one quarter of theose who died at Ft. Delaware, ravaged the entire mid Atlantic region. The prisoners, however, had no place to run. The epidemic stopped when the commander had the prisoners and guards vaccinated. The food was terrible but so was the food the troops had in the field. Thumb screws were a nasty, but typical, military punishment. I am sure there were atrocities and some of them are in the book but this book does use primary sources for some acts where only one soldier seems to have ever reported the event. It was worth reading and the pictures are good but it throws truth, myth, legend and downright fabrication together as if it were the gospel. Read with care.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Was your ancestor a Civil War prisoner? Then read this book, July 26, 1998

By A Customer

A well written and well organized study of Civil War prisons, North and South. The layman will enjoy the ease of prose and scholars will appreciate the authors meticulous documentation. A major strength of the book comes from the many firsthand accounts from prisoners and keepers. It is a good read from cover to cover plus the organization allows easy reference to specific prisons and time periods. It contains 32 pages of excellent pictures of the camps and men.