Prisons, Paroles & POWs Belle Island Prison Like So Many Hungry Wolves Stormy and disagreeable weather. From fifteen to twenty and twenty-five die every day and are buried just outside the prison with no coffins- nothing but canvas wrapped around them. So wrote captured Union soldier John Ransom in his November 27, 1863, diary entry from Belle Island Prison. On February 11, 1864, the 20-year-old ...