From: "Elijah S. Coleman", escoleman@comcast.net
Date: July 22, 2009

Gentlemen,

This is one cover-up that we Southerners should expect.    On a recent trip my wife Cheryl and I took through New York State,  I wanted to see the torture orientated Yankee prison hell hole called Elmira.  Thousands of our solders were denied sustainable food, clothing, and shelter in freezing weather, deliberately.

We are all aware of the Yankee mentality as these hypocrites play up the deaths in the South at Andersonville
to the huge spectacle it has now become as a major Northern propaganda site, with it’s own slanted movie of
the name "Andersonville"..    The truth is that it was the Lincoln regime that refused to exchange prisoners, and
that Sherman had no one in front of him in Macon to stop his freeing of these prisoners if he cared to send a
few of his hired killers and looters to Andersonville.   These prisoners were extremely angered that they were
not worth freeing by the Lincoln leadership, especially with the starving conditions throughout Georgia after
Sherman burned the crops.

When I saw the Elmira, N. Y. sign, I pulled over to look at my map about 10 PM.  Then a city police car
stopped by our side and asked what we were doing.   I told him I was looking for the famous Elmira Prison
Camp where thousands of Confederates were interred.    He said that I would probably not be able to find
a small sign at the site and that there is nothing else left.   We followed his directions for about 30 minutes
in a residential neighborhood until we finally saw a tiny sign by the sidewalk in front of a house.   A picture
of the sign and one of the street are attached.    Gentlemen, they have completely covered up their atrocities
and have built houses on this historical site.   We could expect no less from the shameless Yankee.

Lincoln’s men sold tickets to the public to see the Southern prisoners being tortured as described below.

(Civil War Prisons)
Edited by William B. Hesseltine
There is an article by James I. Robertson, The Scourge of Elmira
James Hoffman of the 10th Virginia insisted to his death that Surgeon-in-Chief E L Sanger boasted. (I have killed more Rebs than any soldier at the front)  Sanger resigned to avoid court martial for his criminal treatment of sick Confederate prisoners.

The Chief Surgeon of camp Elmira was overheard to boast, before resigning to avoid court martial, he had killed more rebels than any Union soldier. Bottom line & there was 3,866 more Confederate soldiers who died in Union prisons than Union soldiers in Confederate prisons.

Official U.S. Policy on Confederate POWs:

"Rebel prisoners in our hands are to be subjected to a treatment finding its parallels only in the conduct of savage tribes and resulting in the death of  multitudes by the slow but designed process of starvation and by mortal diseases occasioned by insufficient and unhealthy food and wanton exposure of their persons to the inclemency of the weather."

Preamble to the H.R. 97, passed by both Houses

www.rense.com/general32/confed.htm talks about the Elmira Prison in much greater detail.

Elijah S. Coleman    
Georgian