Infamous Alton Military Prison - Alton Military Prison in Alton, Illinois.Our ancestor, James K. Horn, Confederate Soldier, was incarcerated, diedand buried here.

Perhaps the most tragic chapter in American history was written in militaryprisons, of the North as well as the South, during the American Civil War. Theywere the immediate and inevitable aftermath of battle, battle which was followedby the mighty emotional impact of victory or defeat. Prison life was, at its best,dull, dirty, pestilential monotony; and at its worst, unmitigated misery relievedonly by physical calamity, and often death.The beginning of conflict on April 12, 1861 found neither North nor Southprepared for war. They were even less prepared to care for prisoners of war, ofwhich, from beginning to end, not counting the surrender of Confederate armiesin the field in April and May of 1865, there were well over 400,000.As the war progressed numerous prisons, large and small, came into being. Mostnotorious in the South were Libby and Andersonville, whose names becamesynonyms for human misery, brutality, and bestiality. They had their less well-known but equally wretched counterparts in the North. Indeed, the highestmortality rate recorded for any military prison was at Camp Douglas in Chicago,where, in February, 1863, 387 deaths occurred in a group of 3,884, or almost tenpercent. Neither Libby nor Andersonville ever reached this incidence rate.The total prisoner-of-war picture, based on official records of the Federalgovernment, was 211,411 Federal soldiers captured; 16,668 pardoned on thefield; 30,218 died in prison, which is about 15.5 percent. These sources show462,634 Confederates captured; 247,769 pardoned on the field; 26,000 died inprison, which is an incidence of about 12.1 percent. This difference in death ratescould have come about because of lack of so many essentials in the South -food, medicine, clothing, fuel, doctors, and nursing care for the sick, all of whichwere comparatively abundant in the North. However, though food and care wereabundant in one prison in the North, disease and inhumane conditions wereresponsible for the deaths of many Confederate soldiers, some of whom camefrom the Ozarks region of Southwestern Missouri.

ALTON PRISON

The Alton prison, built in 1831, was the first Illinois Penitentiary and the firstbuilding funded by public money in the State. The initial building, which was aneat stone structure, contained 24 cells and was ready for occupancy in 1833. Itwas a long, low fortress that stood near the Mississippi River, measuring nearly100 yards on a side and its 30 foot high walls were broken only by occasional

narrow, paneless windows. The prison in its day was considered a humanitarianone, following a system known as "congregated", as opposed to the brutalsolitary system which was then generally in vogue. It was at this same time thatthe Legislature amended the criminal code by abolishing whipping, the stocks,and the pillory as punishment for crimes, and substituted confinement at hardlabor. Prisoners at Alton wore striped uniforms and had one side of their headshaved for identification. They labored in silence by day and were confinedseparately by night.

Alton Prison

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Dorothea Dix led a prison reformmovement across the country, and Alton prison was one of her targets. Badlylocated in a low area too near the river, the site undrained and ungraded, itbecame the center of a violent controversy that eventually ended in a legislativeinvestigation and the construction of a new prison upstate at Joliet. In 1847, Dixproposed the abandonment of Alton Prison because of its unsanitary conditions.As a result, by June 1860, all of its inmates had been transferred to the newpenitentiary near Chicago. Although abandoned by the State, the grim old wallsof Alton were destined to again be populated before long. Soon after theoutbreak of the Civil War, it became a military prison and many thousands wereconfined there, many of them young soldiers in their teens.

ALTON MILITARY PRISON

The Federal prison at Alton, Illinois became one of the largest military prisons inthe St. Louis area. It received its first military prisoners February 9, 1862. Theywere transferred there from Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis, which was locatedon the northwest corner of Eighth and Gratiot. In 36 months during which officialreports were made, 11,764 Confederate prisoners passed through Alton's gateswith an average of 1,261 housed there in any given month. Hunger, scurvy, andanemia were the lot of all the prisoners. However, Alton had no food shortage.The rich farmlands of surrounding regions had already made the city asimportant a produce and livestock center as St. Louis.Col. Jesse Hildebrand of the 77th Ohio, the prison commander, was respectedby his superiors as a ruthless "secesh" hater. In one incident, a heavy rain turnedthe dusty prison yard into a swamp. Shortly after the rain had subsided, a strongwind blew the Union flag off its pole and into the mud. Two dozen raggedinmates rushed out of the cellblock and began to trample the flag in the mud,singing "Dixie" as they did so. A prison sentry heard them and shot one of thedemonstrators through the head. The rest fled. Col. Hildebrand ordered all mealsstopped for a week in retaliation.The ranking Confederate officer in the prison was Col. Ebenezer Magoffin.Magoffin, whose brother, Beriah, was governor of Kentucky, was described asone of the most colorful figures in the prison. He had been captured at a minorbattle in Missouri. He had killed three men and escaped twice before he wasfinally caught hiding in a warehouse in St. Louis and sent to Alton.On July 25, 1862, shortly after midnight, 35 civilian-clothed Confederateprisoners, led by Col. Ebenezer Magoffin, climbed out of a tunnel under theprison wall and scattered into the neighborhood around Fourth Street. Someimmediately headed for Jerseyville, and the homes of some Southernsympathizers. Others made for the river front to catch a train to Cairo. All but twoof the escapees made it to safety. Those two were caught that very evening.

SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC

On October 15, 1862 Private Henry Farmey of Poindexter's Missouri regimentwas brought to the prison, apparently bringing with him the dreaded diseasesmallpox. He died on December 18, 1862, the first of an untold number of victimsof that disease. The poor records which plagued the commanders in that waralso prevent historians from drawing accurate conclusions regarding thesmallpox epidemic; however, overcrowding and lack of sanitary facilities soonculminated in one of the worst smallpox epidemics ever to occur in southernIllinois. The disease raged for weeks, uncontrolled for want of prison doctors.Prisoners died at the rate of six to ten daily. Between the time of its opening andits closing in May, 1865, it has been estimated that disease claimed between