Haunted by Atrocity Read online

  HAUNTED

  BY ATROCITY

  MAKING THE MODERN SOUTH

  David Goldfield, Series Editor

  HAUNTED

  BY ATROCITY

  Civil War Prisons in American Memory

  BENJAMIN G. CLOYD

  Published by Louisiana State University Press

  Copyright © 2010 by Louisiana State University Press

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First printing

  DESIGNER: Michelle A. Neustrom

  TYPEFACE: Adobe Caslon Pro

  PRINTER AND BINDER: Thomson-Shore, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Cloyd, Benjamin G., 1976–

  Haunted by atrocity : Civil War prisons in American memory / Benjamin G. Cloyd.

  p. cm. — (Making the modern south)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-8071-3641-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Prisoners and prisons. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Atrocities. 3. Military prisons—United States—History—19th century. 4. Military prisons—Confederate States of America—History. 5. Prisoners of war—United States—History—19th century. 6. Prisoners of War—Confederate States of America. 7. Memory—Social aspects—United States—History—19th century. I. Title.

  E615.C58 2010

  973.7’71—dc22

  2009044597

  The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

  For Katie

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1

  “Our Souls Are Filled with Unutterable Anguish”

  ATROCITY AND THE ORIGINS OF DIVISIVE MEMORY, 1861–1865

  2

  “Remember Andersonville”

  RECRIMINATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION, 1865–1877

  3

  “This Nation Cannot Afford to Forget”

  CONTESTING THE MEMORY OF SUFFERING, 1877–1898

  4

  “We Are the Living Witnesses”

  THE LIMITATIONS OF RECONCILIATION, 1898–1914

  5

  “A More Proper Perspective”

  OBJECTIVITY IN THE SHADOW OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY WAR, 1914–1960

  6

  “Better to Take Advantage of Outsiders’ Curiosity”

  THE CONSUMPTION OF OBJECTIVE MEMORY, 1960–PRESENT

  7

  “The Task of History Is Never Done”

  ANDERSONVILLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, THE NATIONAL POW

  MUSEUM, AND THE TRIUMPH OF PATRIOTIC MEMORY

  Conclusion

  Notes

  Works Consulted

  Index

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Following page 110

  “The Prisons at Richmond—Union Troops Prisoners at Belle Isle”

  “Camp of Rebel Prisoners at Elmira, New York”

  “Prison in Casemate No. 2, Fort Lafayette, New York Harbor”

  “Living Skeletons”

  “Andersonville Prison Scenes, Illustrating Captain Wirz”

  The Execution of Henry Wirz

  “The Political Andersonville”

  “Let Us Clasp Hands Over the Bloody Chasm”

  Memorial Day at Andersonville, 1897

  The New Jersey Monument at Andersonville

  Andersonville National Cemetery, circa 1910

  The Entrance to “Andersonville Prison Park”

  The Camp Chase Monument to the Confederate Prison Dead

  The Wirz Monument

  The Georgia Monument at Andersonville

  African American Girl Scouts Decorate Graves at Andersonville

  The National POW Museum

  The Current Interpretative Landscape of Andersonville National Historic Site

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is gratifying that a book about the power of remembrance should inspire such warm memories of my own past.

  A few individuals are responsible for the origins of this project. My oldest debt is owed to my parents, Gregory Cloyd and Eileen Kennedy, and my brother Liam, for providing constant encouragement in ways both seen and unseen. When I was an undergraduate at Notre Dame, Father Robert Kerby’s spellbinding courses on the Civil War so transfixed me that I decided to pursue graduate school. Even so, I continue to hold him in the highest esteem.

  This book would not be possible without the influence of Gaines Foster. Although it has now been several years since I left Louisiana State University, he remains a superb mentor who always manages to be both gracious and pointed in his wisdom. His patience in commenting on the different incarnations of this work will not be forgotten. Other LSU comrades have shaped me and this project as well. Charles Shindo revealed the powerful hold of consumption on the American mind. Matt Reonas offered—as he always has—keen insight and enduring friendship, and I am additionally indebted to him for inspiring the book’s final title. Court Carney made a variety of intangible but vital contributions, which should surprise no one who has had the good fortune of his company over the years. During my tenure at Hinds Community College, I have been inspired by the supportive example of my colleagues: Martha Wilkins, Loyce Miles, Sheila Hailey, Eric Bobo, Bill Simpson, Mickey Roth, Cam Beech, Chris Waldrip, Mike Lee, Eric and Lisa Pridmore, and Ben Fatherree. With reliable good cheer, James Kennedy obtained countless volumes for me via interlibrary loan. Stephen Wedding read the manuscript and insisted on clarity—readers of this book owe him almost as much as I do.

  Several institutions and individuals facilitated the enjoyable task of collecting research materials with tremendous professional and personal courtesy. Well-deserved thanks go to the staffs of Andersonville National Historic Site, the Georgia State Archives, the Library of Congress, Middleton Library at LSU, the National Archives, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the United States Army Military History Institute for indulging me in my curiosity. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Dale Couch and Greg Jarrell at the Georgia State Archives, Richard Sommers of the United States Army Military History Institute, and Superintendent Fred Boyles at Andersonville National Historic Site for their interest in and support for my investigations. And Sean and Megan Lumley, now my old (sadly) but always dear friends, kindly shared their home with me to enable my research.

  Throughout the publishing process, it has been a pleasure to work with the staff at LSU Press. I am grateful that Rand Dotson expertly shepherded the manuscript to existence while gracefully balancing our friendship with his editorial responsibilities. W. Fitzhugh Brundage offered excellent suggestions for the book’s improvement which I have tried to incorporate. David Goldfield commented—perceptively, to no surprise—both on my ideas at an American Historical Association panel in 2007 and on the manuscript, and I am honored by his faith in and commitment to this project. All of the above individuals deserve credit for the merits of this work. Any blame for its failings, of course, belongs to me.

  My deepest obligation is to Katie Cassady, source of an ever-growing body of wonderful memories, who, along with our traveling circus of Doc, Parker, and Ella, reminds me of the importance of perspective. She deserves a book about a far happier subject than this one.

  HAUNTED

  BY ATROCITY

  Introduction

  Few stories are as grim as those of the mishandling of wartime captives throughout history. Regardless of civilization or era, armed conflict traditionally results in th
e misery of those unfortunate enough to endure detainment. The experience of the United States confirms this pattern. There exists, however, a distinct dividing line in American military history as it pertains to prisoners of war. Soldiers captured during conflicts such as the American Revolution and War of 1812 certainly suffered during their imprisonment.1 During the revolutionary struggle, the British held perhaps as many as 32,000 American patriots captive. Infamous British prison ships such as the Jersey claimed thousands of American casualties.2 But even a war as vicious as the American Revolution provided little indication of what awaited prisoners during the Civil War.

  Between 1861 and 1865, as a central element of what historian Charles Royster called “the scale of destruction,” the Union and Confederacy engaged in an unprecedented imprisonment of combatants.3 Of the approximately 410,000 soldiers held prisoner in the Civil War, 56,000 died in confinement. That figure accounted for nearly one-tenth of the 620,000 men who perished in the conflict. But the numbers only hint at the depth of the catastrophe. Both the Lincoln and Davis administrations consistently emphasized the pragmatic needs of the war effort over humanitarian concerns for prisoner welfare. In both the Union and the Confederacy, political maneuvering and ideological expediency determined the fate of each side’s captives. Even in the midst of a war defined by its destructiveness, the extent of the agony that occurred within Civil War prison camps enraged and shocked Americans, North and South. According to scholar David Blight, “No wartime experience . . . caused deeper emotions, recriminations, and lasting invective than that of prisons.”4 The extraordinary suffering sparked a lasting debate over the intertwined issues of the meaning of and the responsibility for the tragedy of Civil War prisons.

  To avoid false pretenses, two issues that define the purpose and scope of this book need clarification. This is not, nor is it intended to be, a comprehensive description of events that occurred between 1861 and 1865 in the numerous military prison camps of the Civil War. This is instead an account of how multiple generations of Americans, angered, dismayed, and perplexed by the treatment of Civil War prisoners of war, engaged in an ongoing search to find meaning in the tragedy experienced by those captives.

  Of the unfortunate soldiers confined in Civil War prisons, none received more attention than the Union captives who endured Andersonville, the infamous Confederate prison in Georgia. Andersonville became and remains the dominant symbol of prison cruelty during the Civil War. Several factors ensure Andersonville’s singular reputation despite the persistent misery that occurred in other prison camps. Thirteen thousand Union soldiers died there, making Andersonville the deadliest of all Civil War prisons. In 1865, the camp’s commander, Henry Wirz, was executed for war crimes against Union prisoners. During the postwar decades scores of Andersonville survivors published embellished memoirs rehashing their wartime experiences. And while most of the other prison sites disappeared into oblivion, Andersonville, due to the consistent northern fascination with the prison, has been preserved. Today at Andersonville National Historic Site, visitors will find Andersonville National Cemetery, the old prison grounds, and the National Prisoner of War Museum. Much of this narrative focuses naturally therefore on Andersonville, and it would not be unfair to change the subtitle of the book to “Andersonville in American Memory.” Yet I stand by my chosen title. For all the sectional bitterness provoked by Andersonville, and despite its central role in the prison controversy, this is ultimately the larger story of how reunited Americans endeavored to learn from their shared failure.

  From 1861 to the early twenty-first century, as they contested, commemorated, and commercialized the story of Civil War prisons, Americans sought answers to the question of how such horrors could be possible in a civilized society. Out of that national discourse, an important pattern emerged, one that illuminates the essence of the malleable, complicated relationship that exists between past and present, or, in a word, memory.5 The concept of memory can seem deceptively simple, but why we remember—the empowerment derived, the identity defined, the wallets fattened, and the myriad emotions unleashed—is anything but. Americans were and remain strangely compelled to recall the brutality of Civil War prisons.6 The attempt to remember Civil War prisons, although certainly motivated by the desire to honor the dead, persisted mostly to assuage confusion over the senseless nature of the tragedy. Americans of each generation explored the prison controversy and shaped the interpretation of its history in response to their own contemporary political, social, cultural, and financial needs. As they did so, the inevitable selectivity of memory encouraged them to externalize the evils done in Civil War prisons as the fault of others. The consistent refusal to confront the reality of the prison atrocities nourished the cherished myth of American exceptionalism. That statement is intended partly as criticism but even more as recognition of how the retelling of the tale of Civil War prisons provides evidence of the nebulous relationship between memory and history. What is remembered depends on who is recollecting, and the transient nature of memory ensures that the effort to remember naturally distorts the perception of the past. Only a more thorough and honest understanding of why this was (and is) so can offer hope that we might yet find the answers, so persistently elusive, that we will continue to seek in response to our eternal questions about what the Civil War, and its prisons in particular, truly means.

  Finally, because this is a study of memory—which by its nature requires careful attention to the identity of those quoted within these pages—I have honored the individuality of past voices by retaining, in all cases, their modifications of traditional grammar.

  1

  “Our Souls Are Filled with Unutterable Anguish”

  ATROCITY AND THE ORIGINS OF DIVISIVE MEMORY, 1861–1865

  As the mutual bloodletting of the Union and Confederacy commenced in 1861, the relatively innocuous question of the fate of prisoners of war was of little concern. The excitement over the opportunity to claim prisoners in battle prevented much forethought about what to do with them once captured. The only fear seemed to be that captured soldiers would not unswervingly demonstrate patriotism during detainment. On June 19, 1861, the Charleston Mercury denounced a band of captured Confederate soldiers who swore allegiance to the Union. This dishonorable act of taking the oath represented a forfeiture of their “Southern citizenship” and a betrayal of the Confederacy. “The United States Government had the right to hold them as prisoners of war,” the Mercury editor declared, because “they were not the first, and will not be the last, of mankind who will be subject to imprisonment. It is the fate and the fortune of war.” In a final blast, the paper warned Confederate troops that “war is bloody reality, not butterfly sporting. The sooner men understand this the better.”1 As long as optimism for a quick resolution of the crisis persisted, such reminders of the “bloody reality” of war could be excused as necessary. The expected brief duration of the conflict promised at worst a short, if intense, period of suffering or imprisonment that any honorable soldier could withstand. But it would take years, not months, to clarify the true meaning of “bloody reality.” As the war escalated into a shocking cycle of violence, no other group came to experience the destructive nature of the clash like prisoners of war did.

  The story of Civil War prisons reflects the larger pattern of the conflict. Just as few in 1861 predicted the slaughters of Antietam or Shiloh, no one anticipated the capture of large numbers of prisoners at a time or foresaw the need for the preparation of prison camps. In the unlikely event of prisoner accumulation, contemporary military convention held that upon capture “a prisoner was subject to immediate exchange or release on parole to await exchange at some later date.”2 Immediate exchange allowed capturing armies to avoid the burden of feeding and sheltering hordes of prisoners by swapping captives after a battle. When paroled, a captured soldier swore not to fight or aid the enemy in any way and would then be released. The parole oath precluded the soldier from active duty until declared officially exchan
ged at a later date. In the early stages of the war, when exchanges were intermittent and before the recognition of how precious the commodity of manpower would become, many paroled soldiers were simply discharged from the army. Both exchange and parole restored the captives to freedom, and once exchanged, soldiers soon returned to the front lines. Although a third fate, imprisonment, potentially awaited captured soldiers, the chances of being held in large-scale prisoner camps seemed far-fetched during the first summer of the war. Unfortunately for the eventual hundreds of thousands of captives, the unprecedented scale and complexity of the conflict made it impossible to divorce the issue of exchanging prisoners of war from the fundamental questions that provoked the war itself.

  According to President Abraham Lincoln’s interpretation, secession from the Union was theoretically impossible, a perspective that made all Confederates traitors and their army an insurgent force. In practice, his position proved unfeasible since all captured Confederates technically would face trial and potentially execution for treason. Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s threats of retaliatory executions against captive Union soldiers further indicated the danger of Lincoln’s stance. With reluctance, both Lincoln and Davis realized the necessity for some concessions on the prisoner issue. As a result, the Union, as historian William Hesseltine pointed out, “held captive men of the South and treated them as prisoners of war, rather than as traitors, but they refused to admit that their captives were other than traitors.”3 Given this conflicting position and Lincoln’s desire to avoid legitimizing the Confederacy’s existence, the exchange of prisoners proceeded tenuously. In a cautious attempt to skirt any official recognition of the Confederacy, the Lincoln administration accepted only a piecemeal, informal process of prisoner exchange despite the Confederacy’s desire to standardize the process.4 From the outset of the war, both the Lincoln and Davis administrations viewed prisoners of war as a problem of political expediency. The lack of humanitarian concern for the war’s captives foreshadowed the disasters to come.