The story of the fate of the Fourth Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment prisoners of war from 1863 to 1864.
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About the book
Over the Dead Line of Belle Isle represents an in-depth study of the notorious Civil War prisoner of war camp on Belle Isle, Richmond, and represents the first comprehensive publication devoted to Belle Isle during the Civil War. The story is set in various Civil War locations, including Belle Isle, the warehouse district of East Richmond, the Gettysburg battlefield at Devil’s Den, the Andersonville POW camp in Georgia, and several historic cemeteries in the Richmond area. The book also adds a Maine connection by revealing those Fourth Maine Infantry Regiment soldiers who were captured at Gettysburg and imprisoned on Belle Isle, and what is known of their fate. This work draws heavily from the journals and diaries of prisoners on Belle Isle, their firsthand accounts of misery and suffering, and other historical references published in the 1800s during and after the war whose authors were participants in the conflict.
“This is a deeply researched and well-written study of a much-neglected subject—Civil War prison conditions, North and South, with a focus on the Confederacy’s most famous lockup, the notorious Belle Isle Prison Camp on the James River in Richmond, Virginia. The author personalizes his account by focusing on members of the 4th Maine Infantry, captured at Gettysburg, as well as the accounts penned by other veterans who managed to survive. Also included is a rich collection of photographs and images, period and modern. This excellent book should find a home in any serious Civil War collection or library, private as well as public.”
—MARC RAMSEY, Richmond Battlefields Association, author, The 7th South Carolina Cavalry: To the Defense of Richmond.
“Dr. Urquia has done an outstanding job of explaining the horrible conditions endured by Union prisoners of war in the Civil War prisons of Richmond and beyond. He has also done a remarkable job of finding the final resting spot of many of the 4th Maine’s Gettysburg POWs.”
—PETER P. DALTON, author, With Our Faces to the Foe: A History of the 4th Maine Infantry in the War of the Rebellion
“Urquia writes of history as a living experience—a kind of dialogue between the ghosts of the Civil War and our continuing struggle to make sense of the past.”
—PHIL JACKS, Professor Emeritus, George Washington University, author, The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought