Elmira Prison Elmira Prison was a prisoner - of - war camp constructed by the Union Army in Elmira , New York , during the American Civil War to house captive Confederate soldiers . The site was selected partially due to its proximity to the Erie Railway and the Northern Central Railway , which criss - crossed in the midst of the city , making it a prime location for a Union Army training and muster point early in the Civil War . Most of the Union installation , known as Camp Rathbun , fell into disuse as the war progressed , but the camp ' s " Barracks # 3 " were converted into a military prison in the summer of 1864 . The prison camp , in use from July 6 , 1864 , until the autumn of 1865 , was dubbed " Hellmira " by its inmates . Towner ' s history of 1892 and maps from the period indicate the camp occupied an area running about west and approximately the same distance south of a location a couple of hundred feet west of Hoffman Street and about 35 feet south of Water Street , bordered on the south by Foster ' s Pond , on the north bank of the Chemung River . During the 15 months the site was used as a prisoner of war camp more than 12 , 100 Confederate soldiers were incarcerated there ; of these , nearly 25 % ( 2 , 963 ) died from a combination of malnutrition , continued exposure to harsh winter weather , and disease from the poor sanitary conditions on Foster ' s Pond combined with a lack of medical care . The camp ' s dead were prepared for burial and laid to rest by the sexton , an ex - slave named John W . Jones , at what is now Woodlawn National Cemetery . At the end of the war , each prisoner was required to take a loyalty oath and given a train ticket home . The last prisoner left the camp on September 27 , 1865 . The camp was then closed , demolished and converted to farm land . Woodlawn Cemetery , about north of the original prison camp site ( bounded by West Hill , Bancroft , Davis , and Mary streets ) , was designated a National Cemetery in 1877 . The prison camp site is a residential area today , and few of the city ' s residents are aware that the prison camp ever existed . However , there is a memorial at the site today . Prison conditions . Like many prison camps built hastily in the Civil War to deal with the demands created by the capture of enemy soldiers , Elmira suffered from poor health conditions and poor planning early on . The Camp was originally designed as a training barracks . Camp Rathbun , as originally designed , could support up to two thousand soldiers . As the years passed and Camp Rathbun was used less and less as a training facility , plans to turn it into a prison camp were made . On May 2 , 1864 , Lieutenant Colonel Seth Eastman , the officer in charge of Camp Rathbun at the time , reported to Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas that twenty barracks had been constructed and that this , in addition to repairs on old barracks , allowed Elmira to support up to 6 , 000 troops . On May 19 , 1864 , Eastman was informed via letter from Commissary General William Hoffman that he was to " set apart the barracks on the Chemung River at Elmira as a depot for prisoners of war . " He was also informed that the prison might be needed within ten days and that it might have to welcome 8 , 000 or up to 10 , 000 prisoners . According to Eastman ' s calculations , the camp could only hold half that properly . While the barracks were well kept , they could only house four thousand men , and perhaps another thousand could be kept in tents . In addition to that , Eastman reported that the kitchens could only feed five thousand a day and the mess room could only seat fifteen hundred men at once . To top all of this off , there were no hospital facilities in the camp ; the soldiers instead relied on facilities in the town . Still , Eastman was told to be prepared to receive prisoners , and from the beginning it would seem that the camp was destined to be overcrowded . This led to many charges that the prison camp was designed from the beginning to be not a prison , but a death camp . The first Commandant of the Camp was Major Henry V . Colt of the 104th New York Volunteers . Colt was given charge over the prisoners because of an inability to serve in the field , a characteristic that many in his position in similar prison camps shared with him . A man of relatively even temperament , Colt was able to achieve what few officers in the war were able to in that he was liked by both Union and Confederate soldiers . He received his first prisoners on July 6 , 1864 , when 400 prisoners arrived at the camp . Though Colt was a fair man , and liked well enough by most of his prisoners , he was a man who took his duty seriously as commandant . The best evidence for this can be viewed in the case of Washington B . Traweek . Traweek was a Confederate soldier who made an escape attempt from the prison along with a few other soldiers , all of them members of the Jefferson Davis Artillery Company . The escape plan involved digging a tunnel from a neighboring tent underneath the fence and into town . Later , when a series of hospitals was to be built for the camp , the prisoners involved in Traweek ' s plot decided to transfer their tunnel to go underneath the hospital , and started work on a new tunnel . Others had a similar idea , and this resulted in the tunnels being discovered . However , the first tunnel had not been discovered , so Traweek and his men returned to work on that tunnel . The next day , Traweek was called before Major Colt . Colt inquired as to where Traweek ' s tunnel was , and who had been tunneling with him . When Traweek refused to tell , Colt ordered him into a sweatbox and presided over his questioning , willing to go to extreme measures to find and persecute the tunnelers . Traweek held fast however , and Colt was forced to release him . Traweek and his companions eventually escaped . Five days after the camp opened , Surgeon Charles T . Alexander was ordered to inspect the Camp at Colonel Hoffman ' s request . Alexander found two major problems with the camp that he detailed in his report . The first was that of the camp ' s sanitary conditions . The sinks near Foster ' s Pond contained stagnant water , and he feared if they were not cleaned , they might " become offensive and a source of disease . " He recommended the construction of new sinks . Hoffman did not heed these warnings . The other problem that Alexander identified was that of the hospitals . While the camp now had a hospital , in the form of a tent , it did not have an assigned surgeon and instead relied on the services of William C . Wey , a local civilian . Alexander also thought the notion of using a tent as a hospital within the prison was inappropriate , and therefore should be rectified . Hoffman allowed for three pavilion wards to be planned at Alexander ' s suggestion . While Hoffman was open to suggestions on how to improve his prisons , he was notoriously cheap , and he was also a major proponent of retaliation should the war take a sour turn , and reduced rations to the prisoners . As a result , many prisoners in the Elmira Camp were malnourished , a state of being that harmed many of them , especially during the extreme heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter . Another major problem that points to Hoffman ' s policy of retaliation was the construction of winter housing for the prisoners . During most of their stay , a significant portion of the prisoners in Elmira lived in tents , as there was only room for 6 , 000 prisoners in the barracks , while there were 10 , 000 prisoners . And while there was a large work force at the camp , due to the prisoner population , work on winter housing did not start until October when the cold New York nights had started to pervade the camp . The late start resulted in the deaths of hundreds of prisoners as the construction continued into the winter months . In addition to the poor conditions of the weather , winter construction was also delayed by a lack of lumber . In November , it was also reported that the existing barracks were experiencing trouble as well , with roofs falling into disrepair and being unfit to stand the winter weather . Even in late November and early December , there were reports of over 2 , 000 Confederates sleeping in tents , and a Christmas inspection said that 900 were still in tents . It was not until October 27 , 1864 that work finally began on the draining system that Charles T . Alexander had suggested . By then , the cold weather of November and December kept this project from being completed in a timely manner , and it was not completed until January 1 of the following year . In the meantime , hundreds of Confederate prisoners were subjected to stagnant and unclean water , and many became ill simply because of a lack of clean drinking water . It was during this winter that the tangible signs of Hoffman ' s reduced rationing began to take their toll on the prisoners , as prisoners were reduced to eating rats in place of the food they would normally get . Indeed , rats became a currency in the trade system of the prisoners for other supplies . The propaganda of the Union went to great pains to make sure that the details of Hoffman ' s retaliations were covered up . The " New York Herald " denied any mistreatment of prisoners in Elmira , calling the reports a " pure fabrication . " To the " Herald " , all rations at Elmira were sufficient and , though it admitted the unusually high incidence of illness in the camp , the newspaper said that the sickness was " beyond the control of the authorities . . . there is no lack of medical attendance or supplies . " Indeed , this propaganda was so powerful that the belief that the Elmira prison camp was a humane alternative to Andersonville still prevailed in some circles of thought . In a meeting in 1892 , John T . Davidson , a captain of the guard detail at Camp Chemung , blamed the high mortality rate on the changing weather , water , and manner of living . He also conceded that the horrors of prison - camp life were numerous , and a condition that all men should hope to avoid . But , he said , " none of these things can apply , with a shadow of truth , to the prison camp at Elmira . " However , by the end of the Civil War it could not be disputed that Elmira had taken a considerable toll on the prisoners who came through its doors . They dubbed the camp " Hellmira , " and the mortality rate of about 25 percent was near that of Andersonville ( about 29 percent ) . In popular culture . Miserable conditions for the prisoners in the camp are depicted in the 1982 miniseries " The Blue and the Gray " . Tourists , for a fee , are able to gawk at the captives from a viewing stand . Vincent was captured and brought to Elmira Prison in " With Lee in Virginia "