Diane Janowski

In Their Honor - Soldiers of the Confederacy - the Elmira Prison Camp Diane Janowski

Michel Fortlouis, a young Confederate soldier, weary of war, was captured by Union troops at Clinton, Louisiana, thirty miles from his home of New Roads. It was August 1864, in the last year of the War Between the States. Corporal Fortlouis was shipped north to the Union Prison Camp at Elmira, New York, where he died of pneumonia within ten days of his arrival. More than 12,000 young Southern men passed through the camp. Nearly 3,000 died. In their Honor - Soldiers of the Confederacy - The Elmira Prison Camp respectfully remembers these men and boys, and tells their stories. Research by the author has brought awareness of the soldiers' relationships - brothers, fathers and sons, cousins and friends. Descendants of the soldiers have contributed harrowing stories of survival or despair. They were captured together. Some made it home. In their Honor includes narratives from prisoners' families, and a complete revised list of the Confederate dead at Woodlawn National Cemetery.