Haunted by Atrocity
Page 24
As the sizable gathering for the 1976 Memorial Day ceremony indicated, the reinvention of Andersonville as a national park also brought a renewed emphasis on the once popular Memorial Day tradition. Between World War II and the late 1960s, perhaps due to “white superiority” and “black backlash,” the local tradition either ceased entirely or, if gatherings were held, was not covered by the local newspapers. Since 1970, however, the annual customs of speeches, grave decorations, and musical tributes have been fully revived as crowds yearly made (and still make) the pilgrimage to southwest Georgia. Although at first glance the contemporary Memorial Day programs seem to mirror those of the early 1900s, two noticeable changes distinguish the current celebrations from those of the past. Prior to World War II, local coverage of the festivities focused on the racial makeup (and behavior) of the participants, suggesting the importance of the ongoing competition between the bitter sectional memories and the emancipationist recollection of Andersonville and Civil War prisons. But over the last few decades, the diversity of the annual crowds goes unreported. This testifies to how powerfully the older memories of the Civil War have been overshadowed by and absorbed into the allure of Andersonville as a symbol of national identity. Also striking is the emphasis of the more recent Memorial Day tributes on latter-day wars, particularly Vietnam. On May 30, 1988, Vietnam widow Barbara Smith addressed the attendees, reminding them that Vietnam “is still being fought in our hearts and minds today, and I say to you that we are all still Prisoners of War.” The yearly display of such emotions by Smith and former POWs revealed—quite legitimately—that Andersonville’s tragic history did (and does) not matter nearly as much as the prison’s redefined role as a national mourning ground for all American prisoners of war. And this preference for an Andersonville that comforted rather than challenged did not go unnoticed—or unrewarded.19
The annual Memorial Day services attracted the most attention to the park, but throughout the early years of Andersonville National Historic Site, National Park Service (NPS) officials daily faced a demanding task as they, in the words of current park superintendent Fred Boyles, “were busy in the 1970s telling the story of Andersonville.”20 The overall mission of the national park, according to the 1971 master plan for the location, centered on the “presentation of an effective interpretive story” of “life and death in military prisons throughout the ages of man.” Making that ambition a reality at Andersonville would require years of work. Luckily, the years of care lavished on the site by the Women’s Relief Corps and the maintenance of the area by the Army during the previous decades gave the NPS a firm foundation on which to build. The 1971 master plan for the national park testified to the already powerful appearance of the grounds, noting that “the unique value of Andersonville is that here the harshness of history is tempered by a landscape of beauty which raises hope that reason and harmony can still prevail in the affairs of man.” Turning such a “landscape of beauty” into a finished presentation, however, still posed challenges. A new entrance to the park would be required, as would the construction and repaving of roads and parking lots to allow vehicles to circumnavigate the old prison stockade. Walking tours, following pathways that proceeded from the main parking lot into the national cemetery and prison grounds, also needed to be designed.21 But the immediate priority, argued historian Edwin Bearss, had to be the preservation and interpretation of the “structural history of the prison.” His 1970 “Historic Resource Study and Historical Base Map” created the framework for this initial goal.22 The problem, as Bearss noted, and the 1971 master plan confirmed, was that while the national cemetery remained in attractive condition, “the stockades and various structures associated” with the actual prison “have not been restored.” Other than the state monuments built at the location, little evidence of Andersonville Prison itself remained visible for potential visitors to inspect. The years of relative neglect needed to be overcome through “excavation” in order to convey the details of life at Andersonville.23 Over the next few decades, replicas of prison walls and prisoners’ shelters joined the “landscape of beauty” in order to better communicate the “harshness of history.”
With restoration efforts underway at the prison site, the NPS continued to consider the problem of how to juxtapose the specific story of Civil War Andersonville with the universal perspective of the common suffering of all prisoners of war. The 1974 “Interpretive Prospectus” for Andersonville National Historic Site acknowledged that the “touchy” subject of Andersonville made it essential that visitors to the park proceed through an “interpretive facility” before touring the prison and cemetery. A combination of lobby, “mood room,” and brief audiovisual presentation on the general experience of prisoners of war would establish the broad context of what it meant to be held as a POW. As tourists then viewed the specific story of Andersonville, park officials hoped that the visitors would understand that, as unpleasant as Andersonville had been, the suffering there was simply one chapter in a larger, ongoing tale. “We would like visitors,” the prospectus stated, “to leave the area with a feeling of antipathy for war, hope for peace.”24 Due to limited budgets and the demands of getting the new unit at Andersonville up to speed, however, expanding on the “little attention” given to “the larger story of all POWs” remained difficult.25 The NPS’s 1979 “Environmental Assessment for General Management Plan/Developmental Concept Plan” admitted that, after almost a decade of operations, the park still failed to properly emphasize its desired theme. The “small” size of the “visitor contact facility” prevented any substantial presentation of the larger interpretation, while the “inadequate” and “hazardous” nature of the facilities and circular access route through the prison grounds further discouraged repeat visits.26 As Andersonville National Historic Site entered its second decade of existence, its core mission of crafting a more accessible presentation of Andersonville’s history remained only partially realized.
In the early 1980s, Boyles reported, Chief Ranger Alfredo Sanchez “recognized that the park was ignoring its larger mission of commemorating all POWs.” By now accustomed to budget shortages, Sanchez turned to a private group, the American Ex-Prisoners of War (AXPOW), as a potential ally to help achieve that goal. By 1984, AXPOW agreed to support the building of a museum “on site to tell the larger story.” To fund the proposed National Prisoner of War Museum, AXPOW created the Andersonville Fund, a campaign that hoped to raise $2.5 million and thus offset any residual effects of the government’s underfunding of the Andersonville National Historic Site. Throughout the 1980s, Sanchez and then-superintendent John Tucker continued to reach out to various POW organizations. Efforts to expand the small visitor center to include “exhibits on recent wars,” along with invitations to groups like AXPOW, the American League of Families for Ex-POWs and MIAs, and Nam-POWs to attend ceremonies at Andersonville, encouraged the growing visibility of the park among all veterans, not just prisoners of war.27 New, “unbiased” NPS brochures also appeared in 1987, and the redesigned pamphlets offered comparative death rates of prisoners in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam.28 Slowly but surely the interpretation of the universal prisoner-of-war story started to come into focus.
Thanks to a congressional appropriation in the early 1990s, Boyles stated, planning for the National POW Museum “began in earnest.” The alliance between the NPS and AXPOW led to the formation of the Andersonville Task Force Committee, a group comprised of ex-prisoners from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam who offered their input on the museum’s design and presentation of the prisoner-of-war experience. The NPS also reached out to the local community, particularly Friends of Andersonville, a group, as Boyles noted, led by a former POW, Carl Runge. Runge spearheaded efforts to raise an additional $400,000 for the museum; led a successful campaign to have the government build a new park entrance road to the facility; and “developed national publicity for Andersonville and the museum” by getting Turner Productions interested in filming the
TNT movie Andersonville.29
Despite the cooperation of the NPS, AXPOW, and Friends of Andersonville, according to Wayne Hitchcock, national commander of AXPOW, the original $2.5 million goal remained out of reach in the early 1990s. Although the government agreed to match the money privately raised with federal funds, the National POW Museum would remain in limbo unless an additional source of revenue could be found. In 1993, to secure the necessary funding for the project, Florida congressman Pete Peterson, a Vietnam POW, introduced a bill for the minting of a “Prisoner of War Commemorative Coin.” On one side of the proposed $30 coin, an inscription read “freedom” next to the image of “a chained eagle” breaking through barbed wire, the remnants of the chain dangling from its leg. The opposite side of the coin featured a depiction of the hoped-for National POW Museum. By the end of 1993 Congress approved the coin, and the proceeds of the sales, although not as brisk as anticipated, helped raise the capital needed to continue.30
With the financial hurdles finally overcome, on July 15, 1996, the Mitchell Group, a Georgia company, received the nearly $4 million contract and began construction.31 The National POW Museum was underway. As NPS architect Carla McConnell explained it, several considerations influenced the museum’s location and design, but the overall purpose “has been to develop an architectural vocabulary which reinforces the stories related by all POWs.” A new entry road funneled all visitors “directly to the Museum,” she pointed out, and although the large museum needed to be “dramatically visible,” the issue of the building’s height initially proved troublesome. If too tall, the structure would detract “from the Andersonville prison site,” McConnell pointed out, and so the finished product took the form of a “long, low solid dark-maroon brick building punctuated with three grey granite towers.” The museum’s appearance “is reminiscent of prisons,” she argued, “and uses the thematic elements common to all POW stories: towers, gates, confinement, water and light.” The addition of the outdoor Commemorative Courtyard behind the museum, an open space containing a “meandering stream” and sculptures provided a peaceful spot of contemplation as well as an opportunity to gather one’s thoughts before proceeding on to the prison stockade or the national cemetery.32
Just as the outside of the National POW museum invoked the universal themes of prisons, the interior design was calculated to do the same. J. Scott Harmon, exhibit planner at the Harpers Ferry Center, described the collaborative process of his NPS unit with the Denver Service Center, AXPOW, and Barry Howard Associates, a California exhibit design company, as based on “the guiding principle” that “we were to tell the story of all of America’s prisoners of war, not just the Civil War story of Camp Sumter, or Andersonville.” An initial proposal of a chronological design starting with the French and Indian War through the Persian Gulf War met with rejection due to too “much repetition.” Instead, Harmon explained, the planners realized that the exhibits needed “to focus on those experiences that are common to all prisoners of war.” Visitors would circulate through a series of exhibits, starting with “What is a POW?” followed by “Capture,” “Living Conditions,” “News and Communications,” “Those Who Wait,” “Privation,” “Morale and Relationships,” and “Escape and Freedom.” The series of exhibits ended by depositing viewers in a central corridor that displayed a “more specific interpretation” of Civil War prisons and Andersonville. Thus museum guests encountered the specific tragedy of Civil War prisons only after it had been placed in the larger context of the more general presentation of the experience of all prisoners of war.33
As visitors passed through the museum, the audiovisual presentation of prisoner interviews and footage of reunions, along with the introductory film, “Echoes of Captivity,” narrated by General Colin Powell, drove home the point that while the uniforms and technology changed from war to war, the emotional and physical challenges that prisoners of war faced maintained an unfortunate consistency.34 The juxtaposition of artifacts from the various wars also reinforced the overall interpretation. In the “Living Conditions” exhibit, canteens and utensils from Andersonville prisoners rested alongside the canteens and utensils of World War II and Korea POWs.35 Lying side by side, these relics poignantly reminded viewers that the mutual suffering of all prisoners of war crossed historical boundaries. No matter when or where imprisonment occurred, deprivation invariably followed. The relentlessly emotional presentation served a clear purpose, one apparent upon entrance into the museum lobby. “The National Prisoner of War Museum,” a dedication panel read, “is dedicated to the men and women of this country who suffered captivity so that others could remain free. Their story is one of sacrifice and courage; their legacy, the gift of liberty.” This acknowledgment of sacrifice not only echoed the words found in the narratives of Civil War prison survivors but congratulated them on their patriotic achievement—the protection of freedom for subsequent generations of Americans, some of whom made the same sacrifices in later wars. Although the rhetoric emphasizing sacrifice hearkened back to the explanations of the past, the museum dedication served the needs of the present. Despite the inherently depressing subject material, the museum infused the tragedy of war with an optimistic meaning of redemption. The idealized dedication ignored the reality that Confederate prisons existed precisely to deny the “gift of liberty” to African Americans and suggested that the specific actions of the Confederacy no longer mattered. The torment experienced by all American prisoners of war, not just those of the Civil War, now took place for a reason. No matter how unspeakable each individual prisoner’s ordeal, all Americans could recognize the heroic courage of prisoners of war, feel comfort in the meaning of each prisoner’s sacrifice, and, as a result, remember their own patriotic responsibility to honor the ideal of freedom for which those captives suffered.
On April 9, 1998, the anniversary of the Bataan Death March (which, purely coincidentally—and for many attendees, irrelevantly—shared the date with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox), the dedication ceremonies of the National POW Museum drew more than 3,000 observers, mostly ex-POWs, to Andersonville National Historic Site. Although President Clinton did not attend, he sent his blessing, thanking “these American heroes” for reminding us “that freedom does not come without a price.”36 The main speaker, Senator John McCain, himself a Vietnam POW, told the crowd that “all the Andersonvilles in our history” tell the “story of a struggle against daunting odds to choose their own way, to stay faithful to a shared cause.”37Many former prisoners of war witnessed the ceremony and toured the exhibits in amazement, feeling overwhelmed by the nature of the tribute. Ohioan Harley Coon, a Korean War POW, exulted in the moment: “Americans need to realize the pain and suffering they went through to preserve our freedom.” Even in captivity, Coon remembered, “every day we fought ‘em, in any way we could. We disrupted anything we could. We fought with anything we could.”38 In the midst of the tears of memory, pride, and anguish, a sense of appreciation for the museum’s purpose permeated the crowd. As a monument to American patriotism, the museum would remind current and future generations of the value of freedom. “That’s what this is about,” Georgia governor Zell Miller “said proudly,” as he observed “a youngster watching a video in the museum.”39
The emotional opening of the National POW Museum offers a valuable window of insight into the malleable nature of public memory and how the process of historical construction works. The parallels of the universal experience of prisoners of war did not stop after capture, imprisonment, and release. For decades, especially in their twilight years, Civil War prison survivors fought a rhetorical war in the form of monuments and testimonials to reassure themselves that their sacrifices meant something. The same historical concerns motivated the efforts of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam POWs to transform Andersonville into their monument too. It is an understandable pattern, and one that is hard not to view with sympathy. By the 1990s, as the World War II and Korean War generation of POWs faced the prospect of death, the campa
ign for the National POW Museum and the preservation of their story offered one final chance to feel appreciated and remind all Americans of the significance of their suffering. For Vietnam POWs, it represented yet another positive step back from the painful divisions of the past. In each Memorial Day ceremony, with each visitor inspired by the national park, Andersonville became (and becomes) the setting for a mystical transubstantiation, where the haunting memories of meaningless atrocity became (and becomes) a celebration of the triumph of patriotic sacrifice. History may not run in cycles, nor is it endlessly repetitive, but some human needs do and are.