Northern prison camps were brutal. For example, in Elmira, 1/4 of every person who was ever imprisoned in it died, and it was only used for 1 year. Elmira was also overfilled, holding around twice as many people as it was designed to hold. There was also a lack of vegetables, causing mass scurvy breakouts. For example, John R. King recalls, "There were nearly 30,000 prisoners at Elmira one time; sometimes less and sometimes more. During the winter those who came from the South felt the cold exceedingly and died from pneumonia. Our clothes poor. The pants I had when arriving at Elmira were in such a bad condition that for a long time I wore nothing but my underwear."
Southern prison camps were in some cases, worse than Northern prison camps, and none were pleasant. For example, in Andersonville, only a hospital was provided; no barracks were built. It was built to hold 10,000, but at a certain point, held up to 33,000 men. In its 13-month lifespan, more than 13,000 people were killed; the highest ratio of death of any prison camp during the civil war.