On this episode of Our American Stories, during the Civil War, Boston’s Fort Warren held more than 2,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Unlike many prison camps of the era, it was not a place of cruelty or mass death. That was largely due to its commander, Union Colonel Justin Dimick. A career Army officer with deep Christian convictions, Dimick insisted that prisoners be treated with dignity, even after losing his only son in battle. Under his command, only thirteen Confederate prisoners died at Fort Warren, a fraction of the mortality rate elsewhere.

Historian Christopher Klein tells the largely forgotten story of a Union officer who proved that mercy and humanity could endure even in the midst of war.

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