Confederate States of America Military Prisons

The original ledger from Richmond Prison, 1861–1862, the first Confederate prison for Union prisoners of war, signed and dated by the commandant of the prison, "Richmond, Jany 1862 | J. T. W. Hairston CSA | Lieut Comdg CS. Prison | Richmond, Va."; signed again at rear of ledger.



A ledger book of 288 numbered pages (8 1/2 x 5 3/8 in.; 214 x 143 mm), the pages letter-tabbed and blue-ruled, approximately 142 pages accomplished in a number of clerical hands, mostly with a letter-by-letter roster of Union prisoners listed in the precedence of their capture, each entry giving the prisoner's name, rank, company, and disposition (i.e., died, exchanged, released, transferred to another prison); following the prisoners whose last names begin with the letter Z is a separate page listing 19 men identified as "Negroes"; also with a fine handcolored, salt print photograph portrait of Hairston, armed and wearing his antebellum Mississippi militia uniform, mounted on the front free endpaper; an embelmatic, calligraphic title-page signed "From Charles L. Chapman A Federal Prisoner of War. Captured at the Battle of 'Cross Lanes.' Western Virginia, Aug 24th 1861"; text of "The Prisoners' Song, Written expressly for the Richmond Prison Association by Captain Isaac W. Hart," the text with a hand-drawn "seal of the association" with the motto "Bite and be Damned"; a page of Pitman shorthand "Written by A. J. McCleary a Federal prisoner-of-War captured at Leesburg Oct. 21st 1861 and confined in Ligon's Tobacco Warehouse Richmond Va." (transcription of shorthand available on request); 10 pages of autographs of Union prisoners, presumably all members of the Richmond Prison Association, headed by the signature of Alfred Ely, a United States Congressman from Rochester, New York, captured at Bull Run; a few pages of post-War notes; a bit of marginal discoloration and occasional fraying. Standard 19th-century ledger binding of red and brown morocco, marbled endpapers and edges; extremities quited rubbed, inner hinges reinforced.

This ledger lists approximately 3,140 of the earliest Union prisoners of war. They were confined at Liggon's Tobacco Warehouse in Richmond, and the prisoner's contributions to this official Confederate record demonstrate that the depredations that would visit Civil War prisons in both the North and South did not yet exist in the first year of the conflict. See William H. Jeffrey, Richmond Prisons 1861–1862, compiled from the Original Records kept by the Confederate Government (St. Johnsbury, NY, 1893). A copy of Jeffrey's book accompanies the ledger.

James Thomas Watt Hairston was a cousin of J.E.B. Stuart and served on his staff after his tenure as commandant of the Confederate prison at Richmond.