Elmira Prison Camp | Path Through History | WSKG
ELMIRA PRISON CAMP | Chemung County
After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1861, the country erupted into Civil War and Elmira became an integral part of the North’s war effort. At first, railroad lines that crisscrossed the area brought raw recruits to train at Camp Rathbun located within the city.
As the war raged on, Camp Rathbun fell into disuse and in July 1864, a part of its 30 acres was converted into a prison to house the increasing numbers of Confederate prisoners of war. Between the summer of 1864 and the fall of 1865, Elmira Prison Camp housed more than 12,000 southern prisoners. Conditions were atrocious, and about one out of every four prisoners would perish from a variety of causes.
Many of the Confederate dead are buried in nearby Woodlawn National Cemetery. After the war, the camp was closed and dismantled, and while much of the camp has disappeared from the landscape, its importance continues to make it part of New York’s Path Through History.
Photos Courtesy of:
The Chemung County Historical Society
Links:
Path Through History:
WSKG’s Path Through History:
Chemung County History Museum:
Christopher Block transferred to Elmira Correctional Facility
Christopher Block transferred to Elmira Correctional Facility
Elmira Prison Camp remodel final 1
Final Project for US history to 1877
Confederates in the Cemetery: Federal Benefits & Stewardship
Confederates in the Cemetery: Federal Benefits & Stewardship
The federal government established the first national cemeteries during and immediately after the Civil War to provide honorable final resting places for soldiers who died in defense of the Union. However, it was also responsible for the burial of Confederate soldiers who died while being held as prisoners of war (POW). In some cases Confederate POWs were buried in designated sections of what would become national cemeteries, such as Finn’s Point, NJ, and Woodlawn NY; elsewhere, grounds were created specifically solely for Confederates, as at Rock Island and Camp Chase Confederate cemeteries.
Today the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration (NCA), oversees nine Confederate cemeteries associated with POW camps, in addition to burials strewn throughout more than two dozen national cemeteries. Three national cemeteries—all located in states that ceded from the Union—contain the graves of Confederate soldiers who died during the war but not as prisoners, and Confederate veterans who died as recently as the 1940s.
More than thirty monuments associated with Southern sacrifice are located in these national and Confederate cemeteries. Some, erected by the federal government in the first half of the twentieth century, function as “group” grave markers; other memorial monuments were erected by Confederate heritage groups.
Federal policies that led to the acquisition, marking and care of these Confederate burial places reflect a spirit of national healing that was fueled, in part, by the common experience of the Spanish-American War (1898-99). Government stewardship of Confederate burials and cemeteries began in earnest at the end of the nineteenth century with the reburial of Confederate remains scattered throughout Arlington National Cemetery into a single section, with each grave marked by a new headstone designed with a pointed or peaked top. New legislation enacted early in the twentieth century established the Commission for Marking Graves of Confederate Dead, which from 1906 to 1916 operated to document all burials of Confederate POWs in states that remained loyal to the Union and marked the graves with the “Arlington-style” headstone. The passage of time between the war’s end and the commission’s charter resulted in the loss of information about many burials, so a group memorial was erected at some cemeteries. Several sites are marked by monumental obelisk memorials, such as those at cemeteries in Alton, IL, and Point Lookout, MD. Legislation passed in 1914 and 1929 authorized the government to furnish headstones for Confederate graves in all national cemeteries and in “city, town, and village cemeteries.”
In 1973, eighty-two national cemeteries and thirty-two soldiers’ lots—including Confederate sites—were transferred from the U.S. Army to what became NCA. NCA also took responsibility for providing “government headstones or markers at the expense of the United States for the unmarked graves of…Soldiers of the Union and Confederate Armies of the Civil War (38 USC § 2306)” who are buried worldwide. Ceremonial activities associated with recognizing the Confederacy is very limited; for example, the use of Confederate flags in memorial programs are confined to NCA cemeteries where Confederates are interred.
The Confederate legacy can be a contentious subject, and renewed interest in memorialization continues to challenge NCA with its limited authority to provide federal burial benefits for those who served the Confederacy in the Civil War.
This presentation is based on an ongoing study initiated by NCA and undertaken by Cultural Resource Associates Inc. of eighteen NCA cemeteries that contain significant numbers of Confederate interments and monuments. NCA is slated to publish the study, and will be installing interpretive wayside signage at all its Confederate sites to tell the varied stories of these places. Today NCA manages more than 131 national cemeteries and thirty-three soldiers’ lots.
ERNIE DAVIS - WikiVidi Documentary
Ernest Davis was an American football player, a halfback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1961 and was its first African-American winner. Davis played college football for Syracuse University and was the first pick in the 1962 NFL Draft. Selected by the Washington Redskins of the National Football League in December 1961, he was then almost immediately traded to the Cleveland Browns and issued number 45. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 1962, and died less than a year later at age 23, without ever playing in a professional game. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979, and was the subject of the 2008 Universal Pictures film The Express, based on the non-fiction book Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express, by Robert C. Gallagher....
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Shortcuts to chapters:
00:01:11: Early life
00:02:07: College career
00:07:40: Professional football career
00:11:27: Death
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Licensed under Creative Commons.
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Officer attacked in Elmira Correctional Facility
An officer is recovering from a broken nose after being attacked by a 22-year-old inmate at the Elmira Correctional Facility.
Stonewall Civil War Cemetery - Griffin, GA
Just thought I would do a video to show this Civil War Cemetery in my town. There's 500 Confederate soldiers buried there and one Union soldier. I'm not the best videographer so sue me. lol. No I don't think the south will raise again or anything like that. I just like history even though I'm horrible with dates! lol!
New York in the American Civil War | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
New York in the American Civil War
00:01:24 1 Military recruitment
00:04:22 2 Supporting the war effort
00:06:08 3 Wartime politics
00:09:44 3.1 Lingering effects of the New York Draft Riots
00:10:55 4 Military actions
00:13:06 5 New York City
00:14:19 5.1 Draft Riots
00:15:54 6 Notable leaders from New York
00:16:58 7 Memorialization
00:19:26 8 See also
00:19:53 9 Further reading
00:21:04 10 Notes
00:21:13 11 External links
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The state of New York during the American Civil War was a major influence in national politics, the Union war effort, and the media coverage of the war. New York was the most populous state in the Union during the Civil War, and provided more troops to the Union Army than any other state, as well as several significant military commanders and leaders.The Empire State was politically divided, with a significant peace movement, particularly in the mid- to late-war years, as well as being a strong bastion of Radical Republicans who favored harsh treatment of the rebelling Confederate States of America. New York provided a key member of the Lincoln Administration, as well as several important voices on Capitol Hill.
The press and media of the state, heavily concentrated in New York City, influenced not only state politics and the public's view on the war, but helped shape and mold national opinion as well. Important periodicals based in New York included The New York Times, New York Tribune, Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and others. German-born illustrator Thomas Nast was among the early political cartoonists.In the decades after the war ended, numerous memorials and monuments were erected across the Empire State to commemorate specific regiments, units, and officers associated with the war effort. Several archives and repositories, as well as historical societies, hold archives and collections of relics and artifacts.
Driving directions with Street View on Google Maps
Now you can use Street View when getting driving directions on Google Maps.
Mark Twain | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Mark Twain
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Mark Twain (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called The Great American Novel.
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. His humorous story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published in 1865, based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention and was even translated into French. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, but he invested in ventures that lost most of it—notably the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but he eventually overcame his financial troubles with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers. He chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, even after he had no legal responsibility to do so.
Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well; he died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the greatest humorist this country has produced, and William Faulkner called him the father of American literature.