IT is estimated that 188,000 Union soldiers and sailors endured the hardships of the sixteen Confederate prisons during the Civil War. In the prison yards are 36,401 graves. 11,599 of those released from prisons died before reaching their homes, and 12,000 after reaching home--making 60,000 lives sacrificed in Confederate prisons. Several estimates place the deaths as high as 80,000. Strange as it may seem, the war photographers succeeded in taking their cameras behind prison walls. Three of these remarkable negatives are here revealed. The first one was taken at Libby prison, Richmond, where most of the commissioned officers were confined. In Libby, men were often shot for approaching near enough to a window for a sentry to see their heads. The other two were secured within the "dead line" at Andersonville prison in Georgia. It was an open stockade with little or no shelter, covering about 30 acres. The palisade was of pine logs 15 feet high, closely set together. Outside of this, at a distance of 120 feet, was another palisade, and between the two were the guards. About 20 feet from the inner stockade was a railing known as the "dead line," and any prisoner who passed it was instantly shot. A small stream flowed through the enclosure and furnished the prisoners their only supply of water. The cook houses and camp of the guards were placed on this stream, above the stockade. Starvation and disease drove many of the prisoners mad and they wandered across the "dead line" to end their misery. Fugitives were followed by horsemen and tracked by a large pack of blood hounds. The crowded condition of the prisons at the beginning of 1864 was appalling. There were as many as 33,000 hungry and dying men confined in Andersonville at one time, which gave a space of about four feet square to each man. Some of the other Confederate prisons were at Salisbury, North Carolina, at Florence, South Carolina, on Belle Island in the James River, at Tyler, Texas, at Millen, Georgia, and at Columbia, South Carolina. At Belle Isle the prisoners were packed so close that when they lay sleeping no one could turn over until the whole line agreed to turn simultaneously. While many imaginary pictures have been drawn from descriptions of Andersonville, it has remained for the lens to to engrave the actual scenes, and they are here perpetuated by the negatives. [Illustration: ANDERSONVILLE PRISON WITH ITS STOCKADE AND GUARD TOWERS] AMERICANS are the most loyal people on the face of the earth. Self-government encourages fidelity to Home and Country. In a nation where the _citizens are the Government_, patriotism cannot die. Unfurl the flag of a monarchy and there will be a dutiful reverence to it. Unfurl the Stars and Stripes of the Republic and there will arise a mighty ovation that thrills from the hearts of men--a spontaneous outburst that has never been heard except under the Emblem of Freedom. Liberty is everywhere the mother of patriots.