The transcribed lists are from a Gratiot Street Prison ledger.
They represent only a portion of the thousands of people who passed through the
St. Louis prisons. Only a few
of the ledgers contained descriptions of the people.
The names are in the order they were received at the prison
starting in August of 1863. You can search for a particular individual by using
your browser's "find" function under "edit". Transcription
errors when deciphering old handwritten documents are always a problem so try alternate
spellings. A hyperlink on a name will take you to more information about that
person.
You will see from these listings that a considerable number of
"citz,"--citizens--people we would now call civilians, were taken to Gratiot.
Often these will contain a comment in the remarks column about them having been
sent there by order of "PMG" or "P M Genl". This means by
order of the Provost Marshal General. Missouri was under martial law and the
Provost Marshals had near absolute power. All legal processes and civil rights
we think of as normal in the USA were gone, replaced by the will--or whim--of
the Provost Marshals. Some Provost Marshals were decent, skilled men trying to
do a good job as they saw it (which could be pretty vicious in itself). Some,
along with their cohorts in the Federal police, were opportunists who appear as
powerful people only for the span of the war years before sinking again into
obscurity. A major role these people served in Missouri was the confiscation of
private property. Citizens were arrested without charges and imprisoned for as
long as the authorities saw fit. Many of those listed as citizens were certainly
aiding the Rebels. Some, however, were targets opportunity for property
seizures.
Also falling within the citizen category are the spies, mail
carriers, and saboteurs. Many of these were legitimate members of the CSA
military, however they never listed this connection or any rank they may have
held.
You'll also see Federal soldiers listed. Those who committed
offenses from drunkenness to theft to murder were imprisoned along with the
Confederate soldiers they had been guarding.
These lists represent only a portion of the thousands of
people--men, women, and even children--who passed through Gratiot Street Prison.
Some abbreviations they used:
Geo-George
Jas-James
Jno or Jn-John
Jos-Joseph
Wm-William
Robt-Robert
Thos-Thomas
M S P - Myrtle Street Prison (administratively part of Gratiot)
Alton is in Alton, Illinois, 25 miles up the river from St. Louis. It was a penitentiary converted
for military use and was under the control of the St. Louis Provost
Marshals.
|
From the webmasters of Civil War St. Louis...
Noted Guerrillas and, the extremely rare,
A Terrible Quintette
on a searchable CD-ROM:
Click here for more
information and to order
|
