Talk:Elmira Prison

In Popular Culture

The game Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has one of the characters, Ray McCall, saying that he was an escapee from this prison.

Vmaldia (talk) 16:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Questionable source

About half the footnotes currently cite Michael Horigan's book, which doesn't seem to be an objective history. For example, on page 85 the author cites Stanton's proposal for retaliation against Confederate abuses, but the connection between this proposal and events at Elmira is simply assumed rather than being established by any sort of evidence.

On the following page, Horgan writes: "The stark reality is this: Stanton and Hoffman wished to put forward a policy of retaliation; there is no documented objection to this idea from President Abraham Lincoln." Sure, but to establish that Lincoln approved and implemented the proposal, Horgan needs to present positive evidence, not merely point to the lack of negative evidence. Implementing Stanton's policy would require communications between Union military officiers as well as diplomatic communications with the Confederacy, and much of this would be put into writing. In contrast, if Lincoln decided to reject Stanton's proposal, he could easily tell Stanton in person, creating no paper trail. So the absence of evidence concerning the fate of Stanton's proposal suggests that Lincoln killed the proposal, not that he approved it.

Furthermore, Stanton's proposal called for retaliation against Confederate officers, whereas Elmira held enlisted men. This means that implementing Stanton's proposal would not affect prisoners at Elmira. Horgan doesn't even attempt to address this obvious point.

Lest the reader think that the forgoing is an isolated instance, let me mention Horgan's assertion on page 77 that, "It is difficult to argue that Stanton, Hoffman, Halleck, Taylor, and Barnes did not realize to a moral certainty that a reduction in rations would be devastating." This is shifting the burden of proof. Horgan is discussing Hoffman's proposal that, "the ration as now issued to prisoners of war may be considerably reduced without depriving them of the food necessary to keep them in health" (emphasis added). If Horgan believes that Hoffman's proposal shouldn't be taken at face value, the burden of proof is on him.

Kalmquist (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Few of the residents are aware of the Camp?

I really think this needs to be backed up by a citation. It certainly doesn't accord with my anecdotal experience. Dumuzid (talk) 03:46, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

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