Randy,
As I said in my original post, "Check with Hugh Simmons" he is the expert on Fort Delaware. Also I do not research prisons, I only look for graves of the men who served in the 7th Miss., who may have died in prison. That being the case, I will make an honest effort try to respond point by point.

1st: Did not know Andersonville had the higher death rate. Are you talking about percentages, or numbers? Compared to what, Fort Delaware? Again "Check with Hugh Simmons."

2nd: Why should the South have released prisoners? Grant pushed to have the parole - exchange system suspended, and it was. Also the North could have released it prisoners too. In Elmira, New York the blankets and supplies were withheld in the dead of winter, the men were forced to stand outside in the snow.

3rd: No prison was built to house as many prisoners as they received.

4th: Starvation was a cause of death in Northern camps also. So was torture. What was the death rate of the Confederate guards at Andersonville? I bet you will be surprised to find out.

5th: I cannot say when the prison system came into being. You will just have to ask a more knowledge person that me. As I said I have read some of these stories but never researched the subject. I would bet that the Union mistreatment began way before Gettysburg though. Also I am not sure the Union prisoners at Andersonville would have been released because of Gettysburg.

6th: I agree, I do think it is a shame all those men had to die. I hope now they rest in peace. I never stated the South did nothing wrong. I romanticize nothing, I do try to find the facts and present the truth. If suffering, murder and torture are facts, why hide them? You might say the South's dirty little secret is in the open, why not the secrets of the North?

7th: You cannot presume anything about me, you don't know me. I did have several ancestors who fought and died for the South. I wish to honor their memory. Whitewash? What on earth are you talking about? I believe the story of Andersonville has been fully told.

8th: I am a native Mississippian, my family has been in Mississippi (territory) since about 1780. I have two notebooks full of records of men who are kin two me, all fought for the South. I can trace lineage into several Union units, but these men are to distant kin to fully research. I have other cousins doing that.

George