“Perhaps historians have largely failed to investigate military prisons and prisoners because these subjects have always been the most controversial aspect of the Civil War. Traditionally scholars have focused on battles and leaders, parties and political figures, although some have dealt with the common soldier, the home front, diplomacy, and the economic impact of the war. More recently, a handful of new social historians have taken a belated interest in the war, but their studies deal almost exclusively with the roles of women and African Americans. Prisoners of war continue to be neglected by military historians (having been removed from the battlefield) and by social historians (as being too closely related to military history), just as they were neglected, and sometimes seemingly forgotten, by their respective governments and captors.” -Michael B. Chesson is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and editor of The Journal of a Civil War Surgeon among other publications.