Andersonville+in+Comparison

Original Author: Micaela Luisa Martinez, ENG348 FL09 Revision: The American Civil War was unlike any other battle fought for the United States; as it were a battle of the states, fought on American soil. The war was fought through a horizontal line, the Union North versus the Confederate South. The American Civil War was the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian causalities (Kizilos, 2001). It legally abolished slavery in the United States. The Civil War, regarding the steps leading up to, occurrences within, and what brought the deadly war to an end, are routinely described year after year in American schools. Wheat is of importance and is lesser known to the public, are the treatment of soldiers—prisoners of war—in American camps. The Andersonville prison, officially known as Camp Sumter, was the largest Confederate military prison during the American Civil War (Wikipedia). Today the site includes a Civil War prison, an Andersonville National Cemetery, and a National Prisoner of War museum (Bates, 2002, para.21). It is believed that about 45,000 Union prisoners went through the Confederate Andersonville prison doors, and roughly 32,000 made it back out (Bates, 2002). Death due to starvation, malnutrition, diarrhea and disease were extremely common (James, 1973, p.25). Equipped with graphic personal testimonies, and reminiscences of soldiers who barely made it by, the doors of the 1864 Andersonville prison camp will be reopened. The continuing controversy among historians is the nature of the deaths and reasons for them. Some contend that it was deliberate Confederate war crimes toward Union prisoners and others believe that it was merely the result of disease promoted by severe overcrowding, and the shortage of food in the Confederate states (Trammell, 2009,). The number of Union soldiers had swelled in Andersonville due to the breakdown of the prisoner exchange agreements (White, 1889). The Confederate’s capital security was already sparse, and with the limited resources, Confederate soldiers did not eat any better, for the most part, than the Union prisons they help captive. In refutation of the change that prisoners were starved, the Confederate view expressed claimed that the rations furnished to the prisoners of war were same in quantity and quality of those received by Confederate enlisted men. They admit that at times it was “scant. . . [but] every rebel in the field can testify” (White, 1889, para.15). Andersonville was initially built for a total capacity of 10,000 soldiers, but it was crammed full to its hastily constructed boundaries with 32,000 inmates (Wikipedia). Lincoln S. Bates (2002) visited, the now deceitfully peaceful grounds, where thousands of soldiers used to be housed. With a seemingly formulated background in the history of Andersonville, the author incorporates recreated flashbacks of the horror, while strolling within the now pleasant confines of the visitor center. Bates transmits that prisoners only had “three to six square feet a piece” (para.2). The overcrowding was so immense that it “could take a man a couple of hours or more to make his way from one side of the camp to the other” (para.3). As he skipped passed the “lovely little stream” that runs though the site today, he reminisced on the “absurdly named Sweet Water Branch, used as a sewer as well as for drinking and bathing” that it used to be in 1864 (para.5, McElroy, 1957, p.15). Author Jack Trammell (2009) admits the conditions at Andersonville were “hellish” by any standard (para.22). Although Confederate authorities periodically inspected the camp, and in theory provided basic food and health care, the reality, which the majority of research supports, was that men starved to death and were provided almost no shelter while being exposed to every kind of filth and disease imaginable (Kizilos, 2001). John McElroy (1957), describes the feeling of despair as soldiers were first brought into Andersonville prison: “Five hundred men marched silently along towards the gates that were to shut out life and hope from most of them forever” (p.5). This area of Georgia, McElroy explains, was nothing more than a “vast expanse of arid yellow tive soil in its last steps of deterioration,” or in their case—home (p.6). During heavy storms, especially in the months of June and July of 1864, it “rained for 21 consecutive days and the rainfall amounted at times almost to a deluge” (Inside Andersonville, 2007, para.12). Without shelter, during the night many would have to lie down and, in the morning, if it had rained enough, “you would approach a man who looked like a pile of sand, the heavy rain having thrown sand over his prostate body” (para.17). A prisoner of war, Frederic Augustus James (1973), kept a personal diary of his experiences at Andersonville. When he arrived the “weather was cold and blustering” (p.58). He said they had no fire, very little food, but under the “Flag of Truce by the United States Government,” they were issued clothes and a blanket (p.39). The hut or “chebang” Jones and his comrades constructed and lived in was roofed with “four blankets and with logs for walls at the sides” (p.78). The make-shift huts all lie on lots, and any space beyond a designated lot is called a “deadline” at which point “anyone who ventures into the forbidden space is liable to be shot” (p.79). Whether out of disobeying the “deadline” rules, or from the conditions of the prison overall, burials climbed to 100 per day (Bates, 2002, para.7). As all resources were scarce, if a “man died in good clothes, he was buried nearly naked. The living need apparel; the dead none” (para.8). The living also needed food. Overwhelmingly, the majority of disgust and, to put it lightly, discomfort, associated with Andersonville, was the lack of adequate nutritional intake. If cooked rations were issued, a “piece of corn bread about 2”x2”x3,” the meal being ground cob and all. . . a few beans. . . and a couple of ounces of pork or bacon” was handed out (Inside Andersonville, 2007, para. 11-12). The meal was ground so coarse, McElroy (1957) would go on to say, “that it caused great irritation to the bowels. . . producing some of the most frightful cramps that men could ever suffer from” (p.59). Of the roughly 13,000 that died, 4,000 died of chronic diarrhea, 817 of acute diarrhea and 1,384 of dysentery (p.64). Privations, lack of vegetable food and lack of exercise led many to contract scurvy (Inside Andersonville, 2007, para.15). One man’s mouth became so infected, the “gums so swollen so the teeth could not be closed together. . . [t]he gums [became] black and decayed. . . [he] would gouge away parts which were in such condition as to be exceedingly offensive to the smell” (para.18). Consequently, after being tried by a United States military court and convicted of war crimes, the prison’s commander, Captain Henry Wirz, was hanged in November of 1865 for “impairing the health and destroying the lives of prisoners” (White, 1889, para.17). Alex Christopher Meekins (2009) explains that “the disease mortality in the Civil War was high only by modern standards” (p. 356). One man, McElroy (1957) reported in his book, looked outside his “tent” and described the immediate scene: Directly in front of me lay two brothers. . . who originally came from Missouri. They were in the last stages of scurvy and diarrhea. Every particle of muscle and fat about their limbs and bodies had apparently wasted away, leaving the skin clinging close to the bones of the face, arms, hands, ribs and thighs, everywhere except the feet and legs where it was swollen tense and transparent, distended with gallons of purulent matter. Their livid gums from with most of the teeth had already fallen protruded far beyond their lips (p.98). One of the untold stories of the American Civil War is the incarceration of United States Black troops at Andersonville prison. More than 180,000 United States’ Black troops enlisted in the Union Army (O’Connor, 2009). The Confederates were angry that the Blacks would fight against them but they fought in 39 major battles nonetheless (para.3). The main job for African Americans, though, was to do the work. Work entailed building and repairing the prison walls and digging graves. With over 100 soldiers dying every day, grave-digging was an important position (para.11). Because their jobs were so important, most were given rations and fresh water to “keep them fit to do their duty” (para.12). McElroy (1957), however, contends that Blacks were treated as bad as possible, stating that “the wounded were turned into the stockade without having their hurts attended to” (p.34). One man had received a bullet which had forced its way under the scalp for some distance and “partially imbedded itself in the skull,” where it remained; it could be clearly felt with the fingers (p.35). Authenticity of personal accounts is questionable. Many simply have good imaginations and a colorful eye for storytelling, but the consistencies with many stories of the brutality and the last crust stolen from starving men, and the blanket taken from men in the agony of death proves sufficient enough in the quest of an accurate depiction of Andersonville. The conditions of both Union and Confederate prisons are highly contested. One author believes that Confederate prisoners shaped the above “narrative” to enhance their wartime experiences and gain a measure of recognition for their honor and valor during service (Meekins, 2009, p.354). Whatever the case may be, the unit stories and personal testimonies provide some picture of truth and serve as food for thought in today’s prison camps. Bates, L.S. (2009). A hell on earth. //Civil War Times//, 41(5). Retrieved from Academic Search Premier. Inside Andersonville. (2007). //Civil War Times//,46(8), 40-47. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier. James, F.A. (1973). Frederic Augustus James’s Civil War diary. Edited by Jefferson J. Hammer. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Kizilos, P. (2001). A Civil War book of the dead, 36(1). Retrieved from Academic Search Premier. McElroy, J. (1957). This was Andersonville. New York: Mcdowell, Obolensky Inc. Meekins, A. (2009). Andersonvilles of the north: The myths and realities of northern treatment of civil war confederate prisoners. //North Carolina Historical Review//, 88(3), 354-355. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier. O’Connor,B. (2009). America at war: Blacks in Andersonville; labored in prison by building walls, digging graves for troops dying daily. //National Security//, 5. Retrieved from LexisNexis. Trammell, J. (2009). Such recklessness of life’; Missives home recount camp life, horror of Andersonville. //National Security//, B05. Retrieved from LexisNexis. White, I. (1889). Andersonville prison. //Southern Historical Society Papers,// 17. Retrieved from Google Scholar.
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