Eli S.
Glover
Pvt. Co. F 1st Regiment Alabama Artillery
My great-great-grandfather
Captured at Ft. Morgan
![[Cover photo] Fort Morgan today.](73covercl.jpg)
(Fort Morgan State Historic Site)
Eli S. Glover joined the 27th Alabama Volunteers August 21, 1863 in Henry County, Al. and then transferred to Co. F 1st Regiment Alabama Artillery. Eli was captured at Fort Morgan, Alabama on August 23, 1864. He was taken to New Orleans, La. and was put aboard a ship bound for New York City on Sept. 27, 1864. When he arrived in New York City he was put aboard a train for Elmira "Hellmira", NY. He was received at Elmira "Hellmira" on Oct. 8, 1864.
Elmira was the most secured of all the Northern prison of war camps.
His being shipped to Elmira did not make much sense because they were shipping prisoners out of Elmira. Eli arrived on October 8, 1864 the day after 10 prisoners escaped. The day of his arrival by all accounts was the day the men were discovered to be missing. It had to be a bad omen to see all these men starving and to be received the very day the escape was discovered. Conditions were already horrible at Elmira, this break was the worse thing to happen to the prisoners who remained. One escapee related years later he had encountered an old lady and she said 200 men had escaped and she hoped they made it "poor things are starving to death" (more later)
Eli died in Elmira "Hellmira" on Feb. 16, 1865, and the report says he died from Chronic Bronchitis and that his belongings were buried with him. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery at Elmira "Hellmira" grave number 2215, records at the National Archives indicated that he was in grave number 2220 but the cemetery said the correct grave site is 2215. The cemetery is now a National Cemetery. It is written upon the paper in the log book that Eli S. Glover died of Chronic Bronchitis, the truth is the prisoners of Elmira "Hellmira" were starved, poisoned, deprived of proper medical treatment and murdered.
1st Alabama Artillery Battalion
The 1st Alabama Artillery Battalion, Companies
"A"-"F", was recruited in Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, and Eufaula, part
of the "Army of Alabama," and it was organized about the 1st of February 1861,
at Fort Morgan. In the spring, the command was transferred to the Confederate government
as "regulars". Stationed at Fort Morgan and its dependencies, the battalion
attained a high degree of discipline, insomuch that Union Gen'l Granger pronounced it the
most perfect body of either army. Detachments of it manned the heavy artillery at Forts
Gaines and Powell and rendered effective service. During the terrific bombardment of Fort
Morgan, August, 1864, the battalion, "moved by no weak fears," handled the guns
until they were all knocked out of position, losing 150 k and w of about 500 engaged. The
men were taken to Elmira, New York, where fully half died of smallpox (officers were taken
to Fort Warren.) A small detachment, not captured, continued the fight at Spanish Fort and
Fort Blakely. A small number moved to Choctaw Bluff in March 1865 and were included in the
surrender of the Dept. of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana.
Field and staff officers: Lt. Cols. Robert C. Forsyth (Mobile; resigned); James T. Gee
(Dallas; captured, Fort Morgan); Majors S. S. Tucker (Vermont; died in service); James T.
Gee (promoted); J. M. Cary (Barbour; captured, Fort Morgan).
Armaments: Co. "A", two 6-lb. Smoothbores (on 31 Oct 1861)
Elmira "Hellmira" Prison
Almost 25 percent of the 12,123 Confederate soldiers who entered the 40 acre prisoner of war camp at Elmira, N. Y. died. This death rate was more than double the average death rate in other Northern prison camps, and only 2 percent less than the death rare at infamous Southern prison at Andersonville, Ga. The deaths at Elmira were caused by diseases brought on by terrible living conditions and starvation, conditions deliberately caused by the vindictive U. S. commissary-general of prisons, Col. William Hoffman. The conditions were inexcusable; the North had more than enough food and materials for its armies, population, and prisoners.
A stockade was built around an unused Union army training camp to create Elmira "Hellmira" Prison in June 1864. The prison contained 35 barracks and was intended to house as many as 5,000 prisoners. On July 6 the first 400 arrived, and by the end of the month there were more than 4,400 prisoners, with more on the way. By the end of August almost 10,000 men were confined there, many of them sleeping in the open in tattered clothes and without blankets.
On August 18, in retaliation for the conditions in Southern prison camps, Colonel Hoffman ordered that rations for the prisoners be reduced to bread and water. The over crowded conditions ensured that any disease introduced to the malnourished population would spread rapidly. Without meat and vegetables, the prisoners quickly succumbed to scurvy, with 1, 870 cased reported by September 11. The scurvy was followed by an epidemic of diarrhea, then pneumonia and smallpox. By the end of the year, 1,264 prisoners had died, and survivors had nicknamed the prison "Hellmira". The winter was bitterly cold, but when Southern families sent clothes for the prisoners, Hoffman would allow only items that were gray to be distributed. Clothes in other color were burned while the sons and husbands for whom they were intended literally froze to death. By the end of the war, 2,973 Elmira prisoners had died.
Before resigning to avoid court martial for his criminal treatment of sick prisoners, the chief surgeon at Elmira was overheard to boast that he had killed more Rebs than any Union soldier.
The Elmira Article was written by Stephen T. Foster
There is no movie of war crimes committed at Elmira, only those of us, that our fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles and cousins, died at the hands of criminals in Northern POW camps have risen to speak out and let the stilled voices of "Hellmira" be heard.
Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that's still
To learn more about the murder, starvation and other war crimes that our Southron soldiers were subjected to just click on the links below.
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Elmira living history |
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Civil War Prison Elmira |
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Civil War Prison Point Lookout |
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