Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons

McElroy, John, 1846-1929Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.1
Word count
1.1M words
Chapters
109

Tags

English Originals Documentary LiteratureMilitary Military PrisonCivil WarHistorical TestimonyPrisoner of War CampWar ReportageSurvival StruggleHumanity TestEye WitnessDocumentary NarrativeSuffering Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons by John McElroyAuthor: McElroy, John, 1846-1929,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book is John McElroy's memoir of his own experience as a prisoner at Andersonville during the American Civil War. Writing from an insider's perspective, the author records hunger, disease, overcrowding, death, and the breakdown of order with dense detail, giving the account strong immediacy and testimonial value. It is not only a personal record of prison camp life but also reflects issues such as rear-area administration in the later war years, prisoner exchange mechanisms, and the human condition. Readers should treat it as the testimony of a witness shaped by emotion and stance rather than a systematic military history; its indictment of the Confederate authorities is pronounced and should be checked against other sources. It suits readers of Civil War history and prisoner-of-war history, writers of memoir, and anyone interested in the human situation under extreme conditions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Learn the basic background of Andersonville and Civil War prisoner exchange before reading the main text.
  2. Distinguish firsthand detail from the author's evaluative accusations, and mark them briefly.
  3. Read in sections and keep notes to avoid prolonged immersion in dense scenes of suffering.
  4. Read alongside Northern prison camps or other prisoner memoirs for a comparative perspective.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book a fictional story or a true memoir? It is a memoir written by John McElroy based on his own imprisonment, a work of nonfiction narrative. The people and events are based on firsthand experience, but the account carries personal memory, emotion, and stance, and should be checked against other sources.
Is the content too heavy? The book describes hunger, disease, death, and overcrowding at length, and its tone is grim. Readers sensitive to such content may read it in sections or consult background material first; those who only want an overview of the prison camp system may prefer a general survey.
Is it suitable for Civil War research? It can be used as eyewitness testimony and research material, but not as a comprehensive military history on its own. The author's indictment of the Confederate authorities is pronounced, so cross-check with material on prisoner exchange mechanisms, logistics, and other perspectives.

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About the author

McElroy, John, 1846-1929 Author

John McElroy (McElroy, John, 1846–1929) was an author known chiefly for works on the American Civil War. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life cannot be verified. The library holds 17 of his works, the more representative including Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons and its Volumes 1 to 4, as well as The Struggle for Missouri and Books 1 and 2 of the Si Klegg series. These works draw mainly on Civil War military prisons, regional campaigns, and soldiers' lives, with narratives that lean toward firsthand observation and documentary accounts and carry a strong flavor of historical recollection. The Andersonville material is substantial and presented in several volumes, offering source value for understanding the conditions of prisoners of war at the time, while The Struggle for Missouri focuses on the regional contest during the Civil War. Overall, his writings preserve part of the historical memory of the Civil War era in a documentary style and are suitable for readers interested in that period.