August of 1864 the Union Army pursued a policy of "Total-War" against the Confederate Army. What made this new type of warfare different was that it also targeted certain Southern civilians who were suspected of giving aid, food and information to the enemy. Many Northern officers felt the surest way to defeat the Confederate army was to destroy the will of the Southern people. If the Union army could threaten the homes of southern civilians it was thought that Confederate soldiers would desert their posts and rush home to protect their families and property. This sort of tactic was used by General Philip Sheridan in burning the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. It was also employed by Major-General William T. Sherman when he burned Atlanta and Columbia and devastated a sixty mile wide swath through Georgia and the Carolinas.

This "Total-War" policy was applied to the prison system as well, but for an entirely different reason. In 1864 the North had ended the prisoner exchange and reduced prisoner's rations and clothing. This was practically a death sentence to many of the weakened Confederate prisoners. At the same time the Northern prisons became grossly overcrowded because the exchange had been halted the year before. It was decided to relieve the crowding by opening a new prisoner of war camp at Elmira, New York. However, this prison was to be like no other. On the surface Elmira prison camp appeared to be very normal. Nevertheless, behind the scenes certain influential officials secretly planned to create a retaliatory prison to punish the Confederate prisoners for the suspected wrongs of Andersonville prison in Georgia.