Imagine a bleak autumn day in 1861, as the Civil War raged, and a crowded steamer crawled through Boston Harbor. Aboard were hundreds of weary Confederate prisoners of war, hoping for relief but instead facing a desolate military prison: Fort Warren. Their journey from New York had been brutal, packed beyond capacity, with little food or comfort. This wasn’t just another chapter in America’s deadliest conflict; it was a desperate moment for men thrust into unimaginable hardship, far from home, facing cold, hunger, and an uncertain future within a Union fortress.
But amidst this dire scene, a remarkable story of human compassion began to unfold. Despite the deep divisions of war, ordinary Bostonians and one extraordinary Union commander, Colonel Justin Dimmick, chose humanity over animosity. This is the inspiring tale of how a community responded to the suffering of their enemies, transforming a grim prison into a place where kindness unexpectedly blossomed. Discover the forgotten Civil War hero whose unwavering commitment to dignity offered a powerful message of hope, even in the darkest hours of Our American Stories.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 2: As the autumn dust cloaked Boston’s island-studded Harbor, the beak in a top Boston Light started to glow. The beams radiating from the lighthouse sparkled in the eyes of the men huddled aboard the steamer State of Maine as it crept toward the military prison at Fort Warren, an island garrison near the harbor’s outer edge. Just as it had been to generations of tempest-tossed mariners, the postcard-perfect lighthouse was a welcome site to the nearly eight hundred tired and hungry Confederate prisoners of war wedged together on the ship. Barely seaworthy to begin with, the State of Maine was lugging double its capacity on its journey from New York City on October thirty-first, eighteen sixty-one. Food was sparse. The quarters were so tight that many prisoners had been forced to remain standing through the night. The captives crowded the port side of the ship to catch their first glimpse of their new island home. Although the granite fortress on windswept George’s Island exuded rugged New England strength, it generated little enthusiasm among the Confederate soldiers. “A more desolate place could not be imagined anywhere this side of the Arctic regions,” one prisoner wrote, awaiting a steamship. On the piers stood the grizzled figure of Colonel Justin Dimmick, his white beers standing out amid the darkening skies. The Army veteran had been stationed at Virginia’s Fortress Monroe when the Civil War broke out, but the duties were too trying for the sixty-one-year-old. Fort Warren promised to be a less demanding assignment, but the West Point graduate was about to face an unexpected challenge. The War Department had instructed Demick, who had only taken command of Fort Warren days earlier, to prepare for the transfer of some one hundred political prisoners, including former Kentucky Governor Charles Morehead and Baltimore Mayor George Brown. As the steamer inched closer to the island, however, Dimmick realized the Department had given him a much bigger task, because, in addition to the political prisoners, more than six hundred Confederate soldiers captured at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, were suddenly dumped upon the ill-prepared garrison, which was still under construction and barely revisioned for its Union volunteers. Except for four North Carolina companies, the prisoners were forced to spend another night on the crowded vessel without supper. Lucky captives slept in the stateroom beds and rotating three-hour shifts. Once they were brought ashore the following morning, the prisoners didn’t find their lot much improved. The hospital, already facing the prospect of treating dozens of prisoners suffering from typhoid, was still unfinished and lacked critical supplies. Famished prisoners had to subsist on handfuls of dry crackers and morsels of raw hand. There were no beds, no cots, no blankets, so most captives slept on the fort’s cold, bare floors. The fortunate received wooden boards on which to rest their heads. Boston newspapers printed sympathetic accounts of the conditions facing the prisoners and urged city residents to respond charitably to assist the new. “Our citizens should contribute liberally with things as are needed.” The Boston Post implored, “For the sake of humanity, the authorities should move at once to alleviate the condition of these unfortunate men,” besiech the Boston Daily Journal. Local residents responded by donating food, iron bedsteads, mattresses, blankets, medicine, clothing, and other supplies. They left care packages with the police chief to be transported on the daily Harbor police boat route. The American Track Society delivered books, and Mayor Joseph Whiteman even procured supplies from a charitable institution established aid Union servicemen, a decision at earned him the score of political opponents who accused him of aiding the traders. Bostonians were inspired by charity, but they also hoped the proper treatment of the prisoners might generate equal compassion toward Union prisoners of war. According to the Boston Daily Journal, “The friends of our prisoners now laying wishing in the South will reach them by the shortest method if they set an example of magnanimity toward these rebels.” The fact will soon become known to the South, and their hardships will be lessened. Thanks to the donations, the crisis quickly abated. In fact, the city’s largest made life inside Fort Warren relatively luxurious, particularly for the political prisoners and Confederate officers, who were able to supply themselves with nearly anything they could afford to be shipped across the harbor, including furniture, bedding, food, cigars, newspapers, and even alcohol. Not only did the Confederate political prisoners live better than the military prisoners, they ate and drank more sumptuously than Union privates. When weather permitted, they were allowed outside their quarters to congregate, walk, pitch quoits, or have a smoke. The Boston Daily Traveler reported that the political prisoners would, quote, smoking, conversing like a party of do-nothings in front of a fashionable hotel. Such lax regulation was largely due to the character and humanitarian impulse of Colonel Dimmick, who was widely admired by both Union and Confederate troops for his years in military service and his strong Christian convictions. Dimmick diligently complied with the initial order that the prisoners were to be treated with all kindness, and his humane tone was largely echoed by the Union troops. “The rank and file had a pretty good, too,” Private Alexander Hunter of the Seventeenth Virginia Infantry, who would later pen Johnny Reb and Billy Yank. Rhododemic. “In that large heart of his, no bitterness, no malice, no sectional hate could find an abiding place.” There was not a prisoner under his charge who did not learn to respect and love him before a week had rolled over their heads. While doing his duty as a soldier, he did not sacrifice his humanity as a man. When Dimmick received orders in March eighteen sixty-two to direct General Simon Bolivar Buckner, an old acquaintance from the Mexican-American War, to solitary confinement, Fort Warren’s commander was so distressed that he wept while conveying the order and ultimately had to be consoled by Buckner himself. Buckner wasn’t the only Confederate general with whom the Union colonel had deep bonds. However, a devout Episcopalian, Dimmick was one of Stonewall Jackson’s baptismal sponsors when the pair served together in the U.S. Army in eighteen forty-nine. Little couldemic have known that fourteen years later, both Jackson and his own son would meet similar fates. During the Battle of Chancellorsville, moments after Jackson was accidentally shot by his own troops, a battery led by twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Justin Dimmock, Junior, unleashed a firestorm upon the Confederate troops desperately trying to carry the wounded general out of harm’s way. Hours later, rebels crying, “Remember Jackson!” shot the son of Fort Warren’s commander in the spine. Within days, both the younger Dimmock and Jackson were dead from their wounds. By some accounts, Lieutenant Dimmick went to his death carrying a letter from Fort Warren’s prisoners requesting humane treatment for him should he be captured by the South. And yet, even after losing his only son on the battlefield, Dimmick did not retaliate against the Confederate prisoners inside Fort Warren. It couldn’t last forever, though. The colonel left his command in November eighteen sixty-three, for health reasons, and Confederate prisoners inside Fort Warren enjoyed fewer freedoms under his successors, in part due to tightening federal regulations. When Dimmick passed away in eighteen seventy-one, both Union and conve officers served as his pallbearers. But perhaps a greater testament to Deemick and the relatively unique conditions of Fort Warren is that only thirteen Confederate prisoners out of the more than two thousand rebels who were imprisoned within its walls died during the Civil War, or just over half of one percent, compared to the twelve percent mortality rate for Confederates in all Union prisoners combined.
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Christopher Klein, who contributes regularly here at Our American Stories and is also a frequent contributor to the History Channel. And what a record and legacy Justin Dimmock left! My goodness! The fact that officers from the Confederate and Union armies were pallbearers at his funeral is testimony enough. But then, only half of one percent of the prisoners of war at his camp. Camp Warren died when the standard was twelve percent across Union camps. Well, that’s just a testimony to his kindness and his decency. I love what Klein set about Dimmock. While doing his job as a soldier, he did not sacrifice his humanity as a man, and at the age of sixty-one at West Point grad, he was responding to the call of duty when the Union went to war, and he wanted to serve in battle. But it’s just, well, it was impossible at his age. But there he was doing his job for the cause and serving both Union and Confederate soldiers as human beings and political dissidents as well. The story of Justin Dimmock here on Our American Stories.
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