The novel was originally published in 1955, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.

Although Kantor sold the motion picture rights of his novel to one of the major Hollywood studios in the 1950s, it was never produced.

It is told from many points of view, including that of Henry Wirz, the camp commandant, who was later executed.

Henry Wirz, who received an injury earlier in the war and never recovered properly, is portrayed not as an inhuman fiend but as a sick man struggling with a job beyond his capacities.

In 1967, the father of an Amherst High School student claimed that the book was "1 percent history and 99 percent filth" and could not be read by his daughter and called for the dismissal of the teacher who had assigned the book to her class.

"The Last Full Measure of Devotion: A Novel of an Infamous Prison in the Civil War", The New York Times Book Review.

"The Last Full Measure of Devotion: The Author Tells How He Relived the Tragedy", The New York Times Book Review.