In the first years of the war, there had been a
prisoner exchange system, and most prisons lay empty. Confederate mistreatment and enslavement of Black Union soldiers in 1863 disrupted this system; by April 1864 it had been completely suspended, and prisons quickly became overcrowded. Space had recently opened up in Elmira after the departure of six companies of the
179th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Commissary General of Prisoners
William Hoffman was informed of this, and on May 19 he sent word to Eastman 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 accommodate 8,000 or up to 10,000 prisoners. According to Eastman's calculations, the camp could hold only half that properly. In addition, Eastman reported that the kitchens could feed only 5,000 a day and the mess room could seat only 1,500 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. It was not until October 27 that work finally began on the drainage system, but the cold weather kept this project from being completed until January 1. In the meantime, prisoners were subjected to stagnant and unclean water, and sickness soon prevailed throughout the camp. As a result, many prisoners were malnourished, which compounded the hardships they had to face (especially during the extreme summer heat and winter cold). In December, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Moore was placed as commandant of the camp after Major Colt had returned to action. The winter of 1864–65 was lethally cold. Twice the temperature dropped to -18 °F and a major February storm dumped over two feet of snow. This was a shock to many Southerners who had never experienced such cold temperatures. Hoffman's reduced rationing began to take its toll on the prisoners, as they were reduced to eating rats. Indeed, rats became a currency in the trade system of the prisoners for other supplies.
Burial of the dead in Elmira The bodies of the deceased were prepared for burial at the camp and transferred to
Woodlawn Cemetery approximately 1.5 miles north of the camp site. The coffins would then have a jar containing the name of the person and any information he was willing to share placed inside, and then be laid to rest side by side in a long burial trench. Wooden grave markers were erected in the pattern of soldiers lining up for inspection. The man who was put in charge of overseeing the burials was
John W. Jones, the local
sexton and an ex-slave. Jones was respectable in his duties and kept such precise records that only 7 out of the nearly 3,000 men buried there are unknown. He carefully cataloged and stored any valuables that were in possession of the prisoners at the time of their death, and later shipped them to their families. After the war, several men were exhumed and transferred home, but most families chose not to have their loved ones moved due to the honorable way in which they were buried. In 1907, the deteriorating wooden grave markers were replaced with marble headstones inscribed with the soldier's name, regiment, and grave number. In 1911, remains of both Union and Confederate victims of the Shohola train wreck were exhumed from the site of the accident and interred at Woodlawn In 1937, the
United Daughters of the Confederacy had a monument erected in the section. The monument depicts a figure of a Confederate soldier overlooking the entire length of the section. The epitaph reads:
IN MEMORY OF THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS IN THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES WHO DIED IN ELMIRA PRISON AND LIE BURIED HERE – ERECTED BY THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY NOVEMBER 6, 1937 ==Aftermath==