The holding of prisoners of war has always been both a political and a military enterprise, yet the military prisons of the Civil War, which held more than four hundred thousand soldiers and caused the deaths of fifty-six thousand men, have been nearly forgotten. Now Lonnie R. Speer has brought to life the least-known men in the great struggle between the Union and the Confederacy, using their own words and observations as they endured a true hell on earth. Drawing on scores of previously unpublished firsthand accounts, Portals to Hell presents the prisoners' experiences in great detail and from an impartial perspective. The first comprehensive study of all major prisons of both the North and the South, this chronicle analyzes the many complexities of the relationships among prisoners, guards, commandants, and government leaders. Lonnie R. Speer is a freelance writer with a special interest in the Civil War. His articles have appeared in Civil War Times Illustrated and America's Civil War.

"Hitler's Crawlin' Coffin" was an eighteen-ton M-4 high-speed artillery tractor that crept up out of the surf onto Dog-Green Omaha Beach hauling a 90mm anti-aircraft gun and its crew for the 110th AAA Battalion during the D-Day invasion of Europe. Landing on the beach with elements of the 29th Infantry Division and later supporting the 30th Infantry Division in the breakout of St. Lo, the 110th AAA would become the FIRST 90mm Gun Battalion to shoot down a German plane on French soil, the first American AA unit to enter Paris, chosen to guard First Army Headquarters at Spa, Belgium, and then go on to distinction during the Battle of the Bulge and, later, in the protection of the Remagen Bridge. Although Driving Hitler's Crawlin Coffin begins with the induction of one person into the 110th AAA, it illustrates how his situation was typical of all its members and then goes on to chronicle the entire history of the battalion from its inception at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in April 1943, through its combat history of WWII, to its deactivation in Germany in October 1945, all based on many first-hand accounts from interviews of the veterans, themselves, and a wide range of additional primary sources and previously unpublished material such as military records and archives, morning reports, individual, battery, and battalion awards and commendations and soldiers' letters, diaries, and memoirs.(323 pp, 40 photos, battalion roster, notes, bibliography, index)

"Hitler's Crawlin' Coffin" was an eighteen-ton M-4 high-speed artillery tractor that crept up out of the surf onto Dog-Green Omaha Beach hauling a 90mm anti-aircraft gun and its crew for the 110th AAA Battalion during the D-Day invasion of Europe. Landing on the beach with elements of the 29th Infantry Division and later supporting the 30th Infantry Division in the breakout of St. Lo, the 110th AAA would become the FIRST 90mm Gun Battalion to shoot down a German plane on French soil, the first American AA unit to enter Paris, chosen to guard First Army Headquarters at Spa, Belgium, and then go on to distinction during the Battle of the Bulge and, later, in the protection of the Remagen Bridge. Although Driving Hitler's Crawlin Coffin begins with the induction of one person into the 110th AAA, it illustrates how his situation was typical of all its members and then goes on to chronicle the entire history of the battalion from its inception at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in April 1943, through its combat history of WWII, to its deactivation in Germany in October 1945, all based on many first-hand accounts from interviews of the veterans, themselves, and a wide range of additional primary sources and previously unpublished material such as military records and archives, morning reports, individual, battery, and battalion awards and commendations and soldiers' letters, diaries, and memoirs.(323 pp, 40 photos, battalion roster, notes, bibliography, index)