Haunted by Atrocity

by Cloyd, Benjamin G.

  The fact that we cannot escape from the subject of Civil War prisons should not be construed as entirely negative. It is clear that neither the divisive nor objective memories of the prison controversy—the emancipationist memory, as connected to prisons, remains largely ignored—satisfy our need to better comprehend the wartime prisons. Even the white noise created by the proliferation and consumption of prison materials in the name of profit cannot prevent the eventual emergence of new strands of prison memory. There are signs, most notably the recent work of historians Charles Sanders, Jr., whose While in the Hands of the Enemy: Military Prisons of the Civil War is an unflinching look at the immoral choices made by the officials who operated the Union and Confederate prison systems, and James Gillispie, whose Andersonvilles of the North: The Myths and Realities of Northern Treatment of Civil War Confederate Prisoners details the unavoidable impact of disease on Civil War prisoners, that the long obfuscation of the reality of Civil War prisons may no longer satisfy the cultural needs of America. Although Sanders and Gillispie disagree in their emphasis—Sanders prefers to focus on the moral questions raised by the deliberate manipulation of Civil War prisoners according to political convenience, while Gillispie confronts the reality of how those prisoners died—they share a common desire to challenge the pervasive myths deeply rooted in the American memory of the prison controversy. Perhaps the yearning to more honestly and accurately assess the prison tragedy may yet lead to a more precise, fuller understanding of the elusive questions of responsibility for the failures of the past.59 But there is also the danger that Americans, in learning of the brutality inflicted on Civil War prisoners, may continue to favor the seductive blamelessness of objective memory and categorize such cruelties as further evidence of equalized, and therefore meaningless, guilt. The pattern of avoidance and the preference for more comforting interpretations will be difficult to break.

  Along with the tentative steps to more accurately reassess the problem of responsibility, the persistence in popular culture of the perception of Andersonville as a place of exceptional cruelty indicates that the memory of Civil War prisons, despite the widespread acceptance of the objective interpretation, is still contested even in the early twenty-first century. But the terms of the contest have not changed. The malleable nature of Civil War prison memory ensures that it serves, as it always has before, the interests of those who manipulate it in the name of inspiring patriotism, promoting tourism, rallying Confederate heritage, exploring the meaning of history, seeking the essence of modern war, or simply cashing in on various products. The enduring fascination with the horrors of Civil War prisons has and will continue to spread, promulgated by its commercialization and the resulting unsatisfied itch of curiosity, because we are convinced that there remains a useful lesson in the story, if it is possible to learn.

  7

  “The Task of History Is Never Done”

  ANDERSONVILLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, THE NATIONAL POW MUSEUM, AND THE TRIUMPH OF PATRIOTIC MEMORY

  As a result of its brief but devastating existence during the Civil War, Andersonville became and remains a term synonymous with atrocity. Despite the emergence of the objective memory of Civil War prisons during the twentieth century, the stigma of past bitterness refuses to fade completely. The focal point of that remaining acrimony, the ground zero of Civil War prisons, is located at the same spot as in 1865—Andersonville National Cemetery, resting place for 13,000 dead prisoners, and the adjacent prison grounds. Throughout the years Andersonville became increasingly and naturally central in the public perception of Civil War prisons for several reasons. Its casualties represented nearly one-fourth of all the prisoners who died in the Civil War, and its 29-percent mortality rate made it the deadliest prison on a comparative basis as well. The execution of Henry Wirz as solely responsible for the camp’s deplorable conditions further marked Andersonville as the singularly important Civil War prison. While survivors of other prison facilities wrote memoirs and discussed the horrors they experienced, as the largest prison Andersonville inspired the most narratives and monuments, including the controversial Wirz memorial. Artists and writers from Thomas Nast to MacKinlay Kantor exploited and explored the image of Andersonville as the primary symbol of Civil War prisons. Andersonville also claimed one other advantage in the postwar contest for public attention—as a result of the federal government’s establishment of Andersonville National Cemetery in 1865 and assumption of ownership of the prison grounds in 1910, by the late twentieth century it was the only major Civil War prison site left largely intact.

  Across Highway 49, the town of Andersonville attempted to shed the guilt of the past and embraced the commercial possibilities of remembering, in calculated form, its Civil War history. The care of the actual location where some of the worst Civil War atrocities occurred, however, required a more delicate touch.1 In the last half of the twentieth century, the national government, after years of passive oversight, became interested in developing the Andersonville site. Along with the process of preservation came the recognition that success in this undertaking depended on the creation of a usable interpretation out of the contested memories of Andersonville.

  Between 1910, when the national government accepted stewardship of the Andersonville prison grounds from the Women’s Relief Corps, and the late 1950s, a calm settled over the location as the number of visitors and public interest in Civil War prisons waned.2 Under the management of the Army, the minimal preservation efforts at Andersonville Prison Park and the national cemetery reflected not only the declining interest in the site after the deaths of both Civil War veterans and those who most staunchly vied to remember correctly the history of Civil War prisons but also the government’s willingness to allow the once intense controversy over the sensitive subject to fade. With the exception of the efforts of Civilian Conservation Corps laborers during the 1930s, improvements took place only sporadically. But the peace and quiet at Andersonville dissipated with the 1955 publication of MacKinlay Kantor’s Andersonville. By the late 1950s tourists started to overwhelm the limited Army staff, and the Civil War Centennial celebrations only heightened the curiosity about Andersonville. As early as 1959, Army officials recognized the impracticability of the current state of affairs and let it be known that “the operation and maintenance of the park” had become burdensome.3

  As rumors of Andersonville’s uncertain future swirled in the early 1960s, the question of what would happen to the site became paramount. With the growing acceptance of the objective memory of Civil War prisons and the rising tourist interest sparked by the combination of Kantor’s novel and the Civil War Centennial, some Georgians saw dollar signs when they looked at the prison and began a campaign for “a properly developed and promoted Andersonville historical complex.”4 In early 1966, Georgia senator Richard B. Russell arranged a meeting between prominent Georgian supporters of the idea and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Along with Georgia’s other senator, Herman Talmadge, state senator Jimmy Carter—the chairman of the West Central Georgia Area Planning and Development Commission—led the delegation, which requested Udall’s support for a proposed “national historical memorial on the site of the Confederate prison near Andersonville, Ga.” Carter took pains to assure Udall that Georgians had no intent “to reconstruct a one-sided version of what took place at Andersonville” but rather preferred to focus on the “national significance” of Andersonville “as part of the nation’s history.” Udall, although noncommittal, indicated that the concept intrigued him. “I like the idea,” Udall declared, because “that is the story of life.” “History,” he stated, “contains many things that are pleasant and unpleasant.”5 The meeting of these officials marked the beginning of the campaign to transform Anderson-ville into a national park. If properly presented, the history of Anderson-ville promised not only financial benefits but a chance to further defuse the sectional animosities of the past and, unfortunately, present. In the recent climate of the Civil Rights Movement, w
hich once again pitted the South against the rest of the nation, the opportunity to recast a symbol of sectional bitterness as a healing memorial to all prisoners of war (one that, not coincidentally, avoided the peculiar and potentially inflammatory racial dimensions of Civil War prisons) made both business and political sense. By the fall of 1966, a National Park Service planning study expressed increasing interest in assuming control of Andersonville and its unique legacy. “Since many people tend to think of the Civil War in terms of gallant charges and nostalgic battle songs, it is,” the report concluded, “perhaps appropriate that they have an opportunity to see a side of the War that was only too familiar to the men who fought in it.”6

  Although many Georgians and National Park Service members saw the possibilities of Andersonville, the transition of the grounds from the Department of Defense to the Department of the Interior was no “easy task” because the creation of a national park required congressional approval.7 In September 1970, Georgia congressman Jack Brinkley, sponsor of the bill to safeguard the prison location as a national park, addressed the House of Representatives to explain why the creation of an Andersonville National Historic Site was necessary. Andersonville “is the only Civil War prison site in the Nation physically in existence and still untouched by urban growth,” Brinkley stated, and therefore its preservation was vital. But if the importance of history failed to rally supporters to the cause, Brinkley also reminded listeners that, as “an outstanding point of interest,” Andersonville “will attract many, many thousands of visitors each year.”8

  Brinkley’s persuasive case aside, an understated but critical source of motivation for the establishment of the Andersonville National Historic Site came from the contemporary events taking place in Vietnam. On October 7, 1970, the day the Senate passed Brinkley’s bill, the Senate placed into the official record an excerpt from a statement advocating adoption of the measure. Not only would the creation of Andersonville National Historic Site pay tribute to the “painful sacrifices of those who preceded us,” the report declared, but Andersonville would also serve “as a memorial” to “all Americans who have served their country, at home and abroad, and suffered the loneliness and anguish of captivity. It is the undaunted spirit of men such as these that keeps America the Nation that it is.” The harsh lessons being learned once again in Vietnam about the suffering of prisoners of war prompted the Senate’s understanding of Andersonville as an important opportunity to recognize permanently the “grim” reality of the “story of captivity.”9 Although Vietnam never received explicit mention, the universal language with which the Senate discussed the bill clearly reflected the impact of that terrible war and provided a powerful incentive to support the measure. The combination of Brinkley’s pragmatic presentation and the desire to recognize the current prisoners of war won the day; the transfer of the grounds to the National Park Service became official. Anderson-ville National Cemetery and Andersonville Prison Park merged together to form Andersonville National Historic Site.

  Although the successful creation of Andersonville National Historic Site helped inspire the “Andersonville Trail” and the Andersonville Guild’s restoration of the town itself, not all Georgians viewed the government’s plan to raise Andersonville’s national profile as a positive step. Even as the bill emerged successfully from the labyrinth of Congress, the controversy over Andersonville flared once again in a debate over the appropriate role of the federal government in promoting “the interpretation of the life of a prisoner-of-war and the role of prison camps in history.”10 Leadership of the opposition to the new Andersonville National Historic Site came from the organization long distinguished by its devotion to righting the historical injustices committed against the South, the United Daughters of the Confederacy. J. G. Madry, chair of the UDC’s Andersonville committee, explained that Brinkley in particular “got our dander up” because he “turned against the South.”11 In a time when the identity of white southerners was once again being challenged, the UDC feared that allowing the national government increased control over Andersonville would only further erode the proper memory of the Civil War. Motivated by the desire to protect southern memories of Civil War prisons, and as part of the larger struggle to preserve the Confederate heritage of the white South, the UDC actively campaigned to repeal the legislation designating Andersonville as a national park. Madry and the UDC resented that “this prison is being singled out,” when “we feel that what happened to our Confederate soldiers in Northern prisons is as bad as what happened to Union soldiers at Andersonville.” “Most tourists aren’t historians,” she exclaimed, and therefore, no matter how objective the presentation of history or strong the emphasis on the universal story of prisoner of war suffering, Madry feared that the site would only reconfirm the “malicious and libelous, insulting and injurious myth” of Andersonville’s singular reputation for cruelty.12

  Even if it could not stop the transformation of Andersonville into a national park, the UDC hoped to at least find a way to influence the process. In early 1972, UDC vice president Mildred Veasey outlined the terms that would ensure her organization’s support for the Andersonville project in a letter to Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia. Although she could not resist “expressing resentment” over the travesty of “the so-called National Historic Site at Andersonville, Georgia,” Veasey recognized that, thanks to the support of such a powerful alliance of Georgia politicians and businessmen behind the project, repeal of the law seemed unlikely. She hoped nevertheless that Carter would at least consider delaying any appropriations to Andersonville “unless and until” additional laws gave the UDC and the Sons of Confederate Veterans the means to prevent the “injurious myth” from spreading further. Veasey asked that the UDC be allowed to participate in the process of interpreting history at Andersonville by placing monuments “honoring Southern men who died in Northern prison camps,” constructing markers “giving the South’s historic position before the war,” including “information about conditions and deaths in Northern prisoner-of-war camps” in “any exhibits, speeches, or recordings at the center,” and appointing “representatives to serve on any historical committee.”13

  The demands of the UDC made little impact on Carter, whose staunch support for the Andersonville National Historic Site dated to the 1960s. Rather than allow the UDC to rehash old divisive memories, Carter ignored Veasey and Madry and instead embraced the concept of transforming Andersonville into a symbol of the common suffering endured by prisoners of war. As part of his efforts to turn division into unity, Carter appointed a Governor’s Commission and charged it with the building of a Georgia monument at Andersonville National Historic Site. In 1973, the commission, led by Brinkley, selected University of Georgia sculptor William Thompson for the task of creating the Andersonville monument. The following year Thompson described his intentions for the Andersonville sculpture at a presentation of his proposed model. Thompson’s statue consisted of three emaciated, wounded prisoners of war, each struggling to assist his comrades. The monument was designed to provoke the realization, Thompson explained, “that the conditions I am trying to depict are universal.” The emotional scene, he hoped, conveyed the feelings of all prisoners, from the “combination of resignation to the tragedy of confinement and hope for freedom and a new life.”14 At a time when “prisoners of war from Viet Nam were returning,” these broader feelings and lessons about the prisoner of war experience, for Thompson and Carter at least, comprised Andersonville’s true legacy.15 The amount earmarked for the project, $110,000, seemed a small price to pay for a monument designed to generate positive memories out of Andersonville’s brutal past.

  On Memorial Day, May 30, 1976, Thompson unveiled his finished tribute to all American prisoners of war.16 As the Americus Times-Recorder noted, it was the “first of its kind erected.”17 Located at the entrance to Andersonville National Cemetery, the inscription on the base of the sculpture, in contrast to the old state monuments with their accusatory lists of c
asualties, took a passage from the book of Zechariah, “Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope.” Speaker Brinkley reminded the crowd of about 1,500 that, in keeping with the spirit of Thompson’s monument, “we should remember the most recent war when our soldiers fought without question.” Vietnam veterans, especially former prisoners of war, Brinkley stated, “should be saluted and their families given deep gratitude.”18 The vision of Thompson, Brinkley, and Carter conflated the separate prisoner-of-war tragedies into one unifying presentation that acknowledged the sacrificing nature and heroic qualities displayed by POWs in all wars. Thompson’s statue visually confirmed the growing acceptance of the objective memory of Civil War prisons as part of a larger pattern of modern war. It also—in its deliberate invocation of intangible, noncontroversial sentiments of freedom, hope, and nationalism—carefully avoided entangling the patriotism it evoked with the old memories of intentional evil or questions of race and, in doing so, set the tone for how the history of Civil War prisons would be remembered at Andersonville National Historic Site. Controversial conflicts such as the Civil War and Vietnam would be revisited based on a generalized interpretation that preferred to ignore the specific animosities generated by each particular war. Such a blurring of historical particularities continued to manifest itself during the 1980s, as new monuments joined the landscape of Andersonville’s still active national cemetery, including displays honoring the World War II victims of the Bataan Death March and Stalag XVII-B. Recast as a shrine to the universal tragedy of war, Andersonville National Historic Site continued the paradoxical transformation of Civil War prisons from a symbol of shrill sectional division into a solemn and reassuring testament to the patriotism displayed by all American prisoners of war.