I'm John Batchel with Professor Fitzbrunditch. His book is a fate worse than hell,

American prisoners of the Civil War.

The backup of prisoners of war grows very quickly through 64. A point lookout, the union concentration will

eventually have 20,000. I made a quick note here, maybe more. Andersonville will eventually have

tens of thousands more, and they're always coming in,

their trains arriving every day. Box cars filled with human beings. Remind you of something? Yes,

indeed, they made no provision for these transportations. They would take days. They didn't feed them.

They didn't worry about water or latrine services, nothing. Total abuse by the Confederacy.

But that it's not just at Andersonville, a young man named Isaac Gaskins. He is a combatant for the

union. He's in the union uniform. And his unit is chosen as one of the combat aggressions, the Battle of the Crater.

It's very famous in the siege of Petersburg and Richmond in the summer of 64.

It leads to a massacre because the Confederacy recovers and shoots down into the crater

that was created by an enormous explosion.

But Gaskins lives, and he's taken prisoner to Danville, I believe is the name of the prison.

The striking thing here is when his captors realize he's an African American or a former enslaved persons, they abuse him badly. And this is illustrative of the

abuse of all of the combatants. At Fort Pillow, they were massacred. They all knew about this,

but they were routinely massacred in battle. But when they're not in battle, the Confederacy actually

decided they all had masters,

and if they couldn't find their masters to return them, they would turn them into slaves.

Do I say that correctly, Professor?

Yes.

So, Isaac Gaskins was a young man who had been enslaved in the West who had escaped and been worked for a union officer in the West.

...