Air Date: 101405
Subject: Lonnie R. Speer: The Dark Side of the War
Books: Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War & War of Vengeance: Act of Retaliation Against Civil War POWs
Guest: Lonnie R. Speer
Summary: Lonnie Speer, author of Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War and War of Vengeance: Act of Retaliation Against Civil War POWs, reveals some harsh realities of the war.
Brett’s Summary: Former Policeman Lonnie Speer notes at the beginning of the interview that he can identify to some extent with the men sent to POW camps during the Civil War. Speer spends the first portion of the hour speaking about the conditions in Union and Confederate prisons, noting the Northern prisons were as bad as their Southern counterparts. I found it surprising that some people in communities which hosted Confederate POWs denied to some extent what took place there, but Speer says he found just these sorts of denials from some quarters. The second portion of the hour saw Speer cover some of the atrocities committed against prisoners of war, including the Shelton Laurel Massacre. Speer mentioned he was working on a new book about atrocities against African-American prisoners and that it should come out some time in late 2006.
Civil War Talk Radio airs most Fridays at 12 PM Pacific on World Talk Radio Studio A. Host Gerry Prokopowicz, the History Chair at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, interviews a guest each week and discusses their interest in the Civil War. Most interviews center around a book or books if the guest is an author. Other guests over the years have included public Historians such as park rangers and museum curators,wargamers, bloggers, and even a member of an American Civil War Round Table located in London, England.
In this series of blog entries, I will be posting air dates, subjects, and guests, and if I have time, I’ll provide a brief summary of the program. You can find all of the past episodes I’ve entered into the blog by clicking on the Civil War Talk Radio category. Each program should appear either on or near the date it was first broadcast.
Check out Brett’s list of the Top 10 Civil War Blogs!
Read many Civil War Book Reviews here at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog!
Check out Beyond the Crater: The Petersburg Campaign Online for the latest on the Siege of Petersburg!
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