Camp Asylum, A Civil War Prisoner of War Camp

By Susan F. Craft
    

Archeology dig site showing where a tent was with a small
fireplace/oven, and the ditch that was dug around it.

     The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology recently completed research and a dig at the site of Camp Asylum, a Union POW camp on the grounds of the SC State Hospital, originally called “The Lunatic Asylum” in Columbia, SC.

A sifter for sorting through

dirt for artifacts.

     Over 1,000 Union officers were imprisoned in the camp from October 1864 until General Sherman’s troops attacked the city February 17, 1865. The officers had been held at camps in Richmond, Virginia, Macon, Georgia, then on to Savannah, and Charleston, before arriving in Columbia.
     Leading the dig was University of South Carolina archeologist Chester DePratter whose team of about a dozen members were allowed only four months to try to salvage the remains of the camp before development begins on the site.

Drawing of Camp Asylum

According to Depratter, when the prisoners were let in through the gates on December 12, 1864, most of them had a single blanket, or two at most, that they could use to wrap around themselves to keep warm. Their only option for shelter, for many of them, was to dig a hole in the ground. DePratter and his team looked for and uncovered the holes, called “shebangs.”

A "shebang" for two prisoners.

    









     Because the prisoners had few, if any, possessions, the team didn’t uncover many artifacts, which included uniform buttons, combs, coins, and pieces of cloth.

***

     Anecdote about Camp Asylum --
     Adjutant SMH Byers, an officer in the Fifth Iowa Infantry, escaped from the POW camp on the day General Sherman entered the city. He approached the general and handed him a piece of paper. That evening, as was Sherman’s custom, he emptied his pockets and took a closer look at the paper. It proved to be Sherman’s March to the Sea, which Byers composed while a prisoner at Camp Asylum. Sherman was so impressed, he attached Byers to his staff. Byers later became the United State consul to Switzerland. In various diaries several Columbia women recall being entertained by the Camp Asylum glee club, who sang Sherman’s March to the Sea as well as Dixie.

***

     My historical fiction, A Perfect Tempest, takes place during the six months of the prison camp. The heroine, Deborah Wingard, is the daughter of one of the asylum’s physicians. Deborah, who falls in love with the commandant of the camp, joins a spy ring to free one of the prisoners, her cousin’s fiancé. Here’s a short excerpt from the book where Deborah and her freed companion, Becca, are taking food to the guards and prisoners.

     Deborah helped load the food onto a mule-drawn cart, slipped a basket filled with biscuits onto her arm, and then she and Becca guided the mule down the hill. As they neared the camp, they heard singing and stopped to listen. Deborah hummed along with the voices that blended in perfect harmony.
     “What’s that tune they’re singing?” Becca asked.
     “It’s Stephen Foster’s ‘I Dream of Jeanie’. The glee club sounds better every time I hear them.”   
     “Yes. Those Yankee boys can sing all right. Sometimes, on real quiet nights I can hear them, and the sound is so sweet, it almost makes me cry.”

Susan F. Craft is the author of the award-winning Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile.

Meet Susan F. Craft

     Researching for my novels brings me the same excitement Alan Quartermain must have felt hunting for King Solomon's Mines (the Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr movie version is the one I like best).

     I've been known to spend an entire day in a library scribbling notes from someone's diary, spending a wallet of quarters making copies of maps and old newspapers, and trekking from one book or document to the next with a perseverance Lewis and Clark would have applauded. I enjoy the chase when one clue leads me from one historical treasure to the next. My website www.susanfcraft.com features research I’ve done over the past 20 years including some “gems” that surprised me.  Most of the posts on my personal blog Historical Fiction a Light in Time (http://historicalfictionalightintime.blogspot.com) also feature my research.  The website and blog are my way of sharing with authors looking for good, reliable information (mostly about the Revolutionary War, Colonial America, and the Civil War).

     I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. Somewhere in my attic I have a book, The Mystery of the Whistling Cave, which I wrote and bound myself when I was eight and enthralled with Nancy Drew.

     My latest novel, The Chamomile, released in 2011 by Ingalls Publishing Group, is a Revolutionary War romantic suspense, that takes place in Charleston, SC, during the two years the British occupied the city. It won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick, for best novel of the season.

     The Chamomile is the fourth book I’ve authored. The first two were SC State Library award-winning professional works in the field of mental health, and the third, self-published in 2006, is A Perfect Tempest, a historical fiction set in Columbia during the Civil War.

     One of the most exciting and fun writing projects I’ve ever done was to collaborate with the international Long Riders Guild, in particular, New York Times bestselling author, Doug Preston; author Jeremy James, known as “Great Britain’s poet of the saddle; and Long Riders Guild founder and author CuChullaine O’Reilly to compile A Writer's Guide to Horses.  The Guide provides authors comprehensive information about horses to assist them to accurately portray horses in their works. It is available on the website of the Long Riders' Guild Academic Foundation, www.lrgaf.org. 

     I have a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina. My 40-year career includes working for SC Educational Television, the SC Department of Mental Health, the SC College of Pharmacy, and currently for the SC Senate.

     I belong to the American Christian Fiction Writers, the Palmetto Christian Writers Network, the Historical Novel Society, the SC Writers Workshop, the SC Historical Society, the Robert Burns Society, the Colonial American Christian Writers, She Writes, Goodreads, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Steeler as a puppy. He's even cuter now.

     I married Rick, who was my high school sweetheart and now husband of 43 years. We live in South Carolina and have two adult children whom we adore and one grandchild who is my “bestest buddy.”  We also have a granddog, Steeler, a doxipoo who stole my heart the moment I saw him as a puppy.

     I gave my heart to Christ as a teenager and am an active member of my church, singing in the choir since I was ten.

     Like many people, I have a “bucket list.” So far, I have screamed my way down the Nantahala River whitewater rafting (although the screaming part was not on the list); I parasailed (breathtaking experience); I scheduled a hot air balloon ride, which, sadly, was cancelled due to bad weather (this greatly relieved my sister whom I had cajoled into going with me); and I recently fulfilled a lifelong dream to learn how to play the drums by joining the University of South Carolina New Horizons Band – the clarinet is next, I think, as the percussion instruments are too heavy to haul around. I want to visit at least ten national parks, take a mule ride through the Grand Canyon, ride a gondola in Venice, and visit a winery in Tuscany, Italy.

My giveaway will be a copy of The Chamomile, a packet of chamomile seeds, and a mobcap.