Thousands of men were captured on both sides during May 1864, but—after the Fort Pillow Massacre—prisoner exchanges had been suspended. As a result, many Northern men went to suffer in Southern prisons and vice versa. One of the most interesting comments on the Northern prisoners was made by Mary Chesnut, still living on the Chesnut family plantation in South Carolina.

“In all these years I have seen no Yankees,” she wrote on May 8, 1864. “All the prisoners, well or wounded, have been Germans, Scotch regiments, Irish regiments, most German, however.”