(Photo)
Belle Isle Prison on the James River
(Photo)
emanciated Union prisoner released from Belle Isle
Beautiful Belle Isle, in the James River
at
Richmond, became a Confederate prison
after 1st Bull
Run, confining Union noncommissioned
officers and
enlisted men. No barracks were erected;
Belle Isle
and the Union prison at Point Lookout,
MD., were
the only major Civil War prisons that
were made up
of
clusters of tents. Although Belle Isle
Prison was
intended to hold only 3,000 men, with
tents provided
to house that many, its population
swelled to
double that number and more. The islands
location in
the
rapids of the James River made escape
very
perilous. Many of the men who tried it
drowned
before
reaching safety.