The following letter was written by Benjamin James Alexander Coopwood (1834-1925) while being held at prisoner at Rock Island, Illinois, in late February 1865. He wrote the letter to his wife, Lucy (Sivley) Coopwood (1841-1884); the couple were married on 26 July 1860.

Benjamin enlisted at Tupelo, Mississippi, on 30 June 1862 to serve three years in Co. E, 37th Mississippi Infantry. This company subsequently became Co. E, 34th Mississippi Infantry. Despite some illness in the fall of 1862, Benjamin was with his regiment through most of the winter and the spring of 1863 until he was sent to the hospital on 16 July 1863 by order of the Brigade Surgeon. He had recovered and rejoined his regiment in time to participate in the Battle of Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga on 25 November 1863 but was taken prisoner at Ringgold two days later as Bragg’s army retreated into Georgia. He was forwarded to Louisville, Kentucky, most likely by way of Nashville, where he was processed and sent to the Confederate prison at Rock Island, Illinois. He entered the prison on a cold, blustery day in early January 1864. He remained there 14 months before bing transferred to City Point, Virginia, to be exchanged. His military record describes him as standing 5′ 8″ tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. He gave Desoto county, Mississippi, as his place of residence.

Benjamin was among the first of the Confederate prisoners to enter the Rock Island Prison which did not receive its first prisoners until early December 1863. Out of the 12,400 men confined during Rock Island’s 20-month operation, 1,964 prisoners and 171 guards died from disease. This was a death rate of about 16% of the total population.

The prison consisted of 84 barracks surrounded by a rough board fence. It was described by their builder as “put up in the roughest and cheapest manner, mere shanties, with no fine work about them.” Each barrack was to be 100-feet long, 22-feet wide, and 12-feet high with 12 windows, 2 doors, and 2 roof ventilators. At the west end of the barrack was a kitchen or cookhouse that was 18-feet long. The remaining part of the barrack was to be the sleeping/living quarters for the prisoners. Each barrack would have 60 double bunks and would house 120 prisoners. The barracks were built anywhere from 1 foot to 3 feet above ground.

The fence surrounding the prison was to be 12-feet high with a boarded walkway along the outside, 4-feet from the top, with guard boxes spaced out every 100 feet. Double-gate sally ports were built on the east and west ends of the prison and were the only openings into the prison. Guardhouses were built outside of the fence at each gate.  In early 1864, a few barracks in the southwest corner of the prison were turned into the hospital barracks. Also, some “pesthouses” were built to house prisoners who got smallpox. [Source: Rock Island Prisoner of War Camp]

According to regulations, Benjamin’s letter was limited to one side of a single sheet of paper as all correspondence was examined to be certain that no military intelligence was being communicated. It would have been conveyed across enemy lines by way of a flag-of-truce mail exchange which sometimes took several weeks to arrange. This copy of Benjamin’s letter was made available to me for transcription and posting on Spared & Shared by Amanda Keating, his great-great-granddaughter. She is uncertain where the original letter resides.

Transcription

Rock Island, Illinois
Barracks 47
February 26th 1865

My dear wife,

I have been looking for a letter from you for two months but it seems that each mail comes and fails to bring me any glad tidings from you & the last letter from you caused me to be very anxious to hear from you since judging from your letter that you were very low spirited & right in the first place, let me tell you that I never felt more rejoiced in all my life than I am now for I do believe that I will soon be back on Dixie’s sweet soil, breathing the sweet soft air, & the best of all, that I will soon be on my way home to see you and our sweet little daughter—God bless her. Lucy, you cannot contemplate near and distant ideas of my feelings at the hope of seeing you once more. Joy, oh how sweet, to contemplate upon the happiness there will be felt with us when we meet. But from your letter, from the neighborhood it seemed that all are having a very gay time & I heard that Miss Johnson is married, but I do not know who to. Let me know in your next. Also that you are having some very interesting parties & I hope to find you the same. Yes, I want to see that same bright vision of beauty in you that I saw when we parted, but instead of that sweet sad countenance, I hope to see that bright, sparkling vision of beauty that you presented to me in 1860—the happiest year of all my life. I want you to keep a look out out for me for when I am exchanged, I am coming home to stay with you & my love to mother, mamy, pappy. I will now come to a close hoping that we may son meet. Your true husband, — Ben Coopwood