[Civil War]: [Spears, Isaac]:

$950 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

STATE OF NEW YORK. BUREAU OF MILITARY RECORD. COL L.L. DOTY, CHIEF OF BUREAU, OFFICE OF WAR PRISONERS' DIVISION [caption title]. A partially-printed questionnaire issued by New York's Office of War Prisoners' Division in an attempt to gather intelligence on the treatment of Union prisoners in the Confederacy, filled out in manuscript by a noncommissioned officer held in the notorious Andersonville and Florence prisons in 1864. Built in 1864 in an effort to increase both security and access to food for prisoners of the Confederate Army, Andersonville quickly deteriorated into squalor. Of the forty-five thousand soldiers imprisoned there, thirteen thousand died from either malnutrition, poor sanitation, mistreatment, or exposure. Florence was little better, with nearly three of the eighteen thousand prisoners meeting a similar fate. In this document, issued by the State of New York's Bureau of Military Record to "procure a detailed account of the treatment of Union Soldiers form this State, in rebel prisons, and a record of the deaths in said prisons," Sergeant Isaac Spears of the 13th New York Infantry (later 140th) reports on his experiences with chilling frankness.In his own words, Spears was captured "June 17th 1864 on a Midnight Charge. Kept in Petersburgh 3 days then went to Andersonville Ga. & kept there till Sept 12 went to Florence S.C. until Feb 28, then was released." The questions on this form relate to various aspects of the prisoners' treatment, including food, me

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