As with the Reconstruction-era prison accounts, the authors focused attention on their horrible treatment and struggle to survive, and they charged individual Confederate leaders such as Wirz, Winder, and Davis, among others, with committing deliberate atrocities against prisoners. Motivated by the desire to sell their stories of suffering, prison veterans eagerly camouflaged tales of drudgery with sensationalistic rhetoric. In 1880, Sergeant Oats recalled the misery he and his fellow “ragged, scurvied, filthy, vermin-eaten wretches” experienced at Andersonville. These pitiful specimens represented the lucky ones, as Oats made clear, because the “strongest struggled for life, and the weak died without pity.”6 Willard Glazier, self-styled “soldier-author,” described the commandant of Libby Prison, Dick Turner, as “possessed of a vindictive, depraved, and fiendish nature . . . there is nothing more terrible than a human soul grown powerful in sin, and left to the horrible machinations of the evil one.”7 Such brutal treatment, Glazier argued, could only have supernatural origins. The animosity toward individual Confederate leaders reached an apex in the account of John McElroy, another Andersonville captive. McElroy detested Wirz, but he saved most of his antipathy for Winder, whom he held most responsible for the atrocities at Andersonville. Although “neither Winder nor his direct superiors,” and here McElroy singled out Jefferson Davis, “conceived in all its proportions the gigantic engine of torture and death they were organizing . . . they were willing to do much wrong to gain their end.” As their “appetite for slaughter grew with feeding,” McElroy declared, “they ventured upon ever widening ranges of destructiveness.” “Killing ten men a day” in places like Belle Isle, argued McElroy, “led very easily to killing one hundred men a day in Andersonville.” The popularity of McElroy’s well-written, if overwrought, account, due in part to his background as a newspaperman, was undeniable. Over 600,000 Americans purchased copies of McElroy’s account after its publication in 1879, and its circulation, as well as the popularity of other prison narratives, helped cement the enduring power of the northern memory of Civil War prisons.8
Well into the 1880s and 1890s, these narratives showed, northern survivors of Civil War prisons blamed the unprecedented prison casualties on the “depraved” leaders of the Confederacy, the representatives of the old southern social order. The perception that “fiendish” southerners reveled in the committing of these atrocities appealed to the former prisoners for several reasons. Focusing their anger on men like Wirz, Winder, Davis, and Turner provided an outlet for the prisoners’ bitterness, and the denunciation of the individual Confederate leaders offered a small measure of revenge for their suffering. With their infamous national reputations long established, Wirz and Davis served Union prisoners especially well in that northern audiences already perceived these men as villains, although the prisoners’ attacks on other Confederate officials accomplished the same result. The explanation of the prison tragedy as the result of the actions of evil Confederate individuals also ensured acceptance in the North because it continued the long tradition of distracting attention from the shortcomings of the Union prison system. Finally, the bravery displayed by so many loyal imprisoned Union soldiers, even though confronted by unspeakable human cruelty, proved just how honorable and righteous their cause had been and reassured readers of the providence that a reunited America represented.
Thanks to its versatile appeal, the selective memory of Civil War prisons dominated northern survivors’ memoirs as they discussed their captivity in the Confederacy. In the minds of a few prisoners, however, the explanation of so many deaths as the result of individual actions seemed insufficient. McElroy, although convinced of Winder’s evil nature, found the escalating scale and efficiency of the brutality stunning and denounced the prisons in language that referred to “organization” and an “engine of torture and death.”9 Ex-Andersonville prisoner Herman Braun went even further than McElroy in searching for a different understanding of what went wrong in Civil War prisons. After describing Wirz as an individual of “efficiency and consideration,” Braun assessed the organizational structure of Andersonville in a chapter titled “General Management of the Prison.” “The management of the prison,” according to Braun, showed “a persistent effort to prevent overcrowding,” but the mortality from “the change in climate alone” doomed many prisoners despite the Confederate efforts. Focusing on Wirz or even Confederate organization, Braun felt, diverted attention from the most important lesson of the prison tragedy. The real responsibility for Civil War prisons should be attributed to the conduct of the Republican Party. Braun believed that the party of Lincoln deliberately discriminated “between the favored class and the rest of the people” by exempting wealthier citizens from military service and drafting the poor instead. “The seed beds of that policy were Andersonville and other Confederate prisons,” as the Union government “assumed the right to expose citizens enlisted in its service to unparalleled suffering and sacrificed their lives for the sake of other citizens who were unwilling to aid in the country’s defense.”10 For Braun, the evil of Civil War prisons resulted from the Republican government’s callous abandonment of its soldiers, with their lower class origins, instead of the cruel actions of Confederate leaders.
The alternative explanations of the prison controversy offered by McElroy and Braun revealed the growing importance of two interrelated concepts in American society. One involved what later historians referred to as the organizational synthesis, the idea that during the late nineteenth century organizational structure and behavior challenged the autonomy of individuals during the painful creation of modern America. McElroy’s disdain for “organizations” and “engines,” and his amazement at the efficient killing they were capable of in the case of Civil War prisons, directly reflected the suspicion and uncertainty many Americans felt with the role that organizations played in changing America. Braun shared McElroy’s concerns with “efficiency” and “management” but made the even more ominous argument that the United States government itself represented a potential source of great evil in privileging the wealthier classes. By arguing that the Lincoln administration consciously sacrificed the poor in the prisons of the Civil War to benefit the rich, Braun implied that, in the America created by the Civil War, the growth of sinister government power made it impossible to accept that Wirz, Davis, or even the Confederacy itself could reasonably be credited with sole responsibility for the prison tragedy. Although the minority opinions of McElroy and especially Braun, whose class-based explanation of the prison controversy would never meet with acceptance, made little impact on public opinion at the time, in their refusal to accept the standard argument that depraved Confederate leaders intentionally slaughtered Union prisoners they not only anticipated concepts of modern, total war but asked thoughtful questions about the nature of an American society in transition.
Exceptions like McElroy and Braun notwithstanding, most of the post-Reconstruction era prison discussions aped the arguments of their predecessors in many ways. But along with the rehashing of familiar material and the escalating rhetoric, an emerging sense of purpose united these accounts. Three themes—rooted in the conviction of northern virtue—figured prominently in most of the newer presentations of prison memories. While continuing to vent hostility and attribute blame, the ex-prisoners also focused on the ideas of heroism, escape, and sacrifice. These themes, particularly sacrifice, were not new in the accounts of the late 1870s and early 1880s, but the emphasis given them was.
One of the primary reasons surviving veterans published accounts of their years in prison was to redefine what wartime heroism meant. Before the Civil War, according to public perception, heroism in combat almost exclusively manifested itself in battlefield charges, last stands, brilliant tactics, or personal fighting prowess. Young men entered the Civil War expecting a test of their manhood and character along these traditional lines.11 Instead, over 400,000 imprisoned Union and Confederate soldiers experienced an entirely new test of individual fortitu
de. The patient courage they demonstrated, although less glorious, demanded no less of them than did fighting on the front lines. But as many prison memoirs indicated, the stigma of being captured combined with the unglamorous prison existence of waiting for exchange undermined the public acknowledgment of their heroism. Heroism required action in the nineteenth century, and so prison survivors set out to recast passive imprisonment as a harrowing tale of Yankee toughness overcoming southern brutality.
“The awful reality of the torments,” wrote Asa Isham, Henry Davidson, and Henry Furness in 1890, “inflicted upon the unfortunate victims of this war in rebel hands can never be known, except by those who survived it.”12 Isham and his co-authors described in detail the horrible conditions they endured at Andersonville, including the lack of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, but, despite the exhaustive depiction, warned their readers that mere words could not adequately convey the incomprehensible depth of their suffering. Through the exaltation of the misery they endured, Isham, his co-authors, and numerous other prison survivors hoped for public recognition that, although different from the carnage on the battlefield at places like Gettysburg or Antietam, being imprisoned by the enemy represented an equally traumatic experience. In his account of life in Salisbury Prison, Benjamin Booth asked “that the example of this noble heroism and loyalty to their country and their flag shall not be forgotten or treated as a mere trifle.” Booth believed that the northern public needed these reminders of what happened in places like Salisbury because “this Nation cannot afford to forget.”13 The intensity of their trials, according to Alonzo Cooper, revealed the Union captives as “true-hearted patriots,” who, in the words of Jesse Hawes, “never for a moment faltered in their devotion to their country.”14
Unlike the more ambiguous diaries of the war itself, in which Union soldiers often pondered the role of their government in the failure to exchange prisoners, by the 1880s and 1890s few northern accounts even mentioned that the Lincoln administration played any part at all in the controversy. Proving their loyalty despite the hardships of Confederate prisons occupied the minds of most ex-prisoners, who seemed anxious to legitimize and explain their suffering as heroism on a par with any demonstrated on the battlefield. To that end James Compton dedicated his prison memoir “to the memory of that brave band of heroes,” men “who were true to the flag and the cause of freedom when the monster death was looking them in the face.”15 The redefined heroism displayed in the southern prisons, these accounts suggested, deserved even more widespread recognition and respect.
Despite their inspiring tales of patient courage, the authors of the prison accounts also demonstrated their bravery by describing their heroic attempts to escape their Confederate captors. Almost every prison memoir published in the late nineteenth century contained a detailed report of an escape plot or exploit. Although escape stories figured prominently in the earlier prison texts, escape took on even more significance in the post-Reconstruction era. Instead of waiting for exchange, prisoners planned elaborate schemes of scaling prison walls or tunneling underneath them to freedom. According to H. Clay Trumbull, escape “was our duty,” a sentiment shared by Madison Drake, who reminisced in 1880 that he “knew that a brave heart and unceasing vigilance would, sooner or later, offer me an opportunity of striking for liberty.”16 The idea of escape and its important role in the prison narratives restored the initiative to the captured soldier. Ex-prisoner John V. Hadley suggested that escape was a simple matter of “strength and will,” a perception that empowered the prisoner.17 Escape offered an active response to the inherently passive existence of imprisonment, and that desire for action resonated with the contemporary audience. Readers rooted for the underdog prisoner not only to escape the prison camp but to reach freedom despite the obstacles of guards, Confederate patrols, and hostile citizens. As Lessel Long, Andersonville prisoner, pointed out, the odds against successful escape seemed almost insurmountable when “every white man and woman in the South stood ready to assist in your re-capture.”18
The authors of the prison narratives stressed that despite the apparent inevitability of recapture, they remained determined to try their luck at every possible opportunity. Andersonville survivors like McElroy wrote that as soon as they established their shelter, escape became “the burden of our thoughts, day and night.”19 William B. McCreery spoke about the hardships of Libby Prison and his attempt at freedom, emphasizing that he was no braver than the rest of his fellow inmates, of whom “nearly everyone was projecting some plan for escape.”20 And the public responded to the idea of escape, as the publishing of seven different editions of Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War, a popular collection of escape narratives, between 1885 and 1915 clearly indicated.21 By emphasizing their escape attempts, the ex-prisoners focused public attention on their bravery and active determination to resist the Confederate villains holding them. Escape accounts, especially when successful, also appealed to the late nineteenth-century audience because they highlighted the ability of the individual to defy the power of the Confederate prison system. Although their audience appreciated the heroic sacrifices of the captives who died in the prison stockades and warehouses, they also appreciated a good story about the initiative of those resourceful individuals who actively fought to liberate themselves.
Whether they escaped or not, former captives of the Confederacy made their claims as Civil War heroes, according to historian Douglas Gardner, by basing their stories “on the metaphor of captivity leading to suffering and sacrifice and perhaps martyrdom, followed by some sort of redemption sanctifying and justifying the original suffering.”22 The dominance of Christianity in nineteenth-century America provided not only the archetype for the cultural understanding of sacrifice but the recognition that one of the most important proofs of faith involved the ability to sacrifice oneself for the greater glory of God and country. In a nation dedicated to belief in the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, the notion of wartime sacrifice particularly dominated the post-Reconstruction-era prison texts because it gave both the author and the reader a sense of meaning in the face of the unprecedented brutality that took place in Confederate prisons. The sacrifice of men like John Urban, who concluded his account by stating “a broken constitution and wrecked physical frame will ever be to me a horrible reminder of prison-life in the South,” appealed to the author and audience because it lent a sense of purpose to and inspired appreciation for their prison experience.23 Booth, who remained concerned that the public demonstrated too little appreciation for the misery endured in the Confederacy’s prisons, asked “that the great sacrifices of my dead comrades shall not be suffered to pass into oblivion.”24 Sergeant Oats dedicated his memoir to “my comrades in suffering,” an acknowledgment that the fraternal bond of sacrifice made the prison experience distinct in the Civil War.25 The official Civil War history of Michigan reflected the destructive memory of Civil War prisons, accusing the Confederacy of “the most inhuman barbarities ever committed.” But Michigan also acknowledged the “sacrifice” of “six hundred and twenty three braves,” who “became victims of the horrid ordeal.”26 W. T. Zeigler, former Andersonville prisoner, recalled the suffering, but in an 1879 address, he spoke to his audience about the emotions he felt upon leaving Andersonville near the end of the war. “My heart grew sad,” Zeigler stated, at the thought of those “who, in the defense of the cause they loved, had given their all, their life, and they lie there now in unknown graves.” The sacrifice of “the martyred dead,” he continued, would always remain in his thoughts.27
The recasting of the deaths of 30,000 Union soldiers in Confederate prisons as noble sacrifice revealed the desire of the former prisoners for public acknowledgment of their central role in the Civil War. Although during the war the misery of prisoners occurred far removed from the front lines of battle, prison narratives transformed suffering and death into a purposeful martyrdom that ultimately benefited the Union and reflected the moral certitude that God favore
d the northern cause. The prisoners’ hardships were also retroactively justified as shortening the war by depriving the Confederacy of potential soldiers and resources. In endowing meaning to the prison suffering, these arguments proved attractive. In an 1889 speech to a Grand Army of the Republic post, William Chandler thanked the Union dead for their sacrifice, calling them the “saviors of our country.”28 According to northern memory, the sacrifice made by Union prisoners became an essential component of victory. But the concomitant reinvigoration of old animosities also tore at the scars of reconciliation.
As northern prison veterans reinvented their wartime experiences and stirred the embers of sectional bitterness, they also redefined the meaning of the Civil War. The prison memoirs of the late nineteenth century consistently minimized the racial implications of the conflict and stressed the paramount cause of Union. Although an occasional survivor such as Braun, who, when writing about the exchange controversy, argued that “the race question” was a “mere pretense” for the failure of the cartel, most ex-prisoners simply avoided the controversial subject.29 Preferring to emphasize their warmly received tales of personal suffering, Union veterans of Confederate prisons risked alienating their audience with reminders that the Lincoln administration had not been above reproach during the sacred conflict. And the Union’s wartime insistence on the connection between racial equality and the collapse of the exchange cartel had long since lost relevance in a society where few whites regretted the regression of African American freedom. As white northerners, former Union prisoners wanted to remember their sacrifice in the context of saving a reunited, if not yet reconciled, nation. Even the format of prison memoirs, according to scholar Ann Fabian, “helped reconstruct racism for postwar white Americans.” The removal of African Americans from the story of Civil War prisons made white prisoners, who, in telling their tales of physical suffering and escape, “borrowed descriptions of slavery,” the central actors in the prison tragedy.30 By severing the memory of Civil War prisons from the conjoined issues of emancipation, African American military service, and the Confederate “black flag” prosecution of the war, white Union prisoners could define themselves as active heroes instead of powerless victims. Although the rise of Jim Crow during this time most strongly confirmed America’s shameful retreat from its commitment to racial equality, the racism inherent in the north’s self-congratulatory memory of Civil War prisons indicated the willingness of the white northern public to abandon the cause of racial justice and its preference for a whitewashed recollection of the past.
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