The horror of Elmira is that many of the conditions which caused the deaths were deliberately determined by the U.S. Commissary-General of Prisoners, Colonel William Hoffman. At one point, freezing prisoners had to watch as all of the non-gray clothing sent by relatives to relieve their suffering was piled into a mound and burned. Unbelievably, the Union surgeon at Elmira, Major F. L. Sanger is alleged to have once claimed that he was responsible for more Confederate deaths than any Union officer in the field. He was simply a brute, as we found when we learned the whole truth about him from his own people. If he had not avoided court martial by resigning his position it is unlikely that even a military commission would have found it possible to screen his brutality to the sick.
War is violent and horrible.
When people have been removed from combat, as have prisoners of war, continued violence is inexcusable. The picture below comes from the cemetery at Elmira, but its neat rows of tombstones look little different than those of Andersonville. In death there is a profound equality, and it is tragic that so many thousands of soldiers whose war should have ended when they laid down their arms never lived to return home to their families. Still, there are two positive facts which deserve mention in this admittedly superficial discussion of a complex subject. On a more serious note, there was an amazing miracle which transpired at Andersonville.