ANDERSONVILLE: THE LAST DEPOT

I can't say enough good things about William Marvel's 1994 monograph on the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.  The book is well researched and written in an engaging narrative style.

Andersonville, or Camp Sumter as it was officially called, was established after Belle Isle and other P.O.W. camps near Richmond or other areas became overcrowded and threatened by Union attacks.  The idea was to locate the prison in a remote rural area in the Deep South far from the front.

When the first prisoners were transferred from Belle Isle to Andersonville, they actually thought that the conditions in Georgia were much better than where they had come from.  Camp Sumter consisted of a wooden stockade with guard towers, called "Pigeon Roosts" at intervals, surrounding an open field with a creek running through it.  Although the original plan was to build barracks, this never came to fruition and no shelter was provided.  Prisoners lived in make shift tents and lean-tos called "Shebangs."

The real problem came when thousands and thousands of Union P.O.W.s were poured into the enclosure.  The stockade which was comfortable for 7 or 8 thousand, became a huge sewer when 30,000 men were packed inside the enclosure.  One of the biggest problems was lack of fresh water and lack of sanitation.  The creek which ran through the stockade first ran through a guards camp where it was used as a latrine.  Then the prisoners "sinks" or latrines were located along the lower end of the creek in the stockade causing the creek to back up and become one giant cess pool.  Supplying for thousands of prisoners also became a huge problem for the Confederate Army which could barely feed itself by that time in the war.  Thousands died of disease and malnutrition.

Union soldier William Smith, a survivor of Andersonville.

Photos like this enflamed the North and led to the trial and execution of Captian Wirz.

Neither side was really prepared to deal with the thousands of prisoners which they were suddenly stuck with.  During the first half of the war, prisoners were generally quickly exchanged.  The prisoner exchange broke down over the treatment of black Union soldiers by the Confederates. Confederates refused to treat black soldiers as P.O.W.s and originally threatened to hang any blacks who took arms and to treat the white officers as the leaders of slave revolts.  In the actual event, many black P.O.W.s were treated by their captors as slave labor.  Interestingly, there were several hundred blacks at Andersonville, most having been captured at the Battle of Olustee, Florida.  The Confederates refused to treat officers commanding black troops as real officers, and a Major of a black regiment was sent to Andersonville along with his troops.  (Officers and enlisted men were segregated in separate prisons).  The black troops were essentially used by the Confederates as slave labor on various projects around the camp.  Interestingly, Marvel says that the death toll among the blacks was less than among the whites because the blacks had less exposure to disease because of being allowed out of the stockade for work.

Captain Henry Wirz

Marvel is an apologist for the prison commander, Captain Henry Wirz.  According to Marvel, Wirz could not be responsible for everything he was accused of.  The peculiar command structure at Andersonville handicapped Wirz.  Wirz only had command over the Stockade itself and the prisoners.  He did not even have direct command over the guards, who were commanded by another officer.  Supplies for the prison were the job of the Post Commissary or Quartermaster and was largely beyond Wirz' control.  Marvel paints Wirz as a man of limited abilities faced with an impossible situation.  Marvel also denounces the unfair trial based largely upon hearsay and perjured testimony at which Wirz was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to hang.

Author William Marvel

13,000 Union soldiers perished at Andersonville.  The suffering endured by these American soldiers is truly beyond our understanding.  However, Marvel's book is outstanding.  Highly recommended.  

THE CONFEDERACY'S LAST HURRAH

It's probably not politically correct anymore to even study Civil War history.  Seemingly we have reached a point where we will be required to white wash any history that the ruling elite doesn't like.

After a visit to Franklin, TN in May I got back interested in reading about The Late Unpleasantness With the North.  I have had this book sitting around for a long time and decided to read it.  Originally published in hardback in 1992 as Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin & Nashville and released in paperback simply as The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, this is currently the best account of the Army of Tennessee's ill fated 1864 Autumn Campaign now in print.

Written by independent scholar Wiley Sword, the book is well written, well researched and entertaining.  In recent years Sword has come under fire by apologists for Confederate General John B. Hood who object to Sword's portrayal of the General.  Hood apologist and distant relative Stephen Hood has pointed out errors in some of Sword's statements and conclusions.  I find these errors and distortions to be minor.  The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is an excellent book.

Author Wiley Sword

Sword especially takes fire for describing in detail General Hood's relationship and failed engagement to the beautiful young Southern Belle Sally "Buck" Preston.  Although the "moon light and magnolia" romance lends nothing to the military history it does show that Civil War Generals were real flesh and blood human beings who have all of the problems and weaknesses that human beings have.  It also makes for very entertaining reading.

General John Bell Hood, C.S.A.

Sword has also been criticized for alluding that General Hood may have made bad military decisions because he was high on laudanum because of his horrific battle injuries.  (Hood had an arm mangled at Gettysburg and lost a leg at Chickamauga.)  I don't think that there is any doubt that in his crippled condition, regardless of how good his mind was, Hood was not in good enough physical shape for the rigors of commanding a Civil War army in the field.   Hood would have been fine for the job that Jefferson Davis gave Braxton Bragg, to sit around in Richmond and advise the President on strategy. But hours in the saddle in the field had to be taxing on a physically fit man, it was probably brutal on a man in Hood's condition.

Sally "Buck" Preston

It's obvious that Wiley Sword thinks that John Bell Hood was a bad general.  He's entitled to his opinion.  I tend to agree with Bruce Catton that at the stage of the war when Hood was appointed to command the Army of Tennessee there was no good decision that he could make.  Any decision Hood made was going to be a bad one.   By the summer of 1864, in order to win, any Confederate general was going to have to take long chances.  Jefferson Davis fired Joe Johnston because the President perceived that Johnston wouldn't fight.  Hood was expected to fight for Atlanta and that's what he proceeded to do.  Hood's plans were not bad on paper - but the execution of them always seemed to get bungled.

The invasion of Tennessee was controversial even then.  Hood pulled his troops out of Georgia and left Georgia to the mercy of Sherman and headed for Tennessee.  The best chance for victory in Tennessee came at Spring Hill when the Army of Tennessee almost trapped an entire Federal Army Corps.  The failure at Spring Hill is due to several factors.  As Sword points out, due to Hood's physical condition he left matters primarily to his subordinates and rather than going to the front himself and pushing the attack, Hood retired to his headquarters for rest.  A man in good physical condition would have probably gone to the front himself and pushed the attack like Stonewall Jackson did.  The escape of the Federal Army at Spring Hill was not entirely Hood's fault.  As Sword points out, Hood's lieutenants served him poorly at the Battle of Spring Hill.

There is considerable controversy over whether the disastrous assault at Franklin the next day, was ordered by Hood as a punishment for the Army allowing the Federals to escape at Spring Hill.  There is no doubt that Hood was livid at his subordinates for their bungling.  Time and again Civil War Generals ordered frontal assaults on prepared positions which in retrospect should not have been made.   Burnside assaulted Marye's Heights at Fredricksburg, Lee assaulted Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Sherman assaulted Cheatham's Hill at Kennesaw Mountain, and Grant assaulted the formidable Confederate position at Cold Harbor.  Hood was certainly not alone among Civil War Generals in ordering a disastrous front assault.

I don't think that Hood realized how well the Union Army was entrenched at Franklin.  And except for a few accidents of war, like a Yankeee Brigade accidentally resting where it could repulse the Confederate breach of the line, Hood's assault at Franklin almost worked.  Nobody could have predicted the horrendous casualties that would be suffered by the Army of Tennessee on that day.  To the extent that Sword insinuates that Hood may have ordered the attack to impress his girlfriend, that's just nonsense.  Sword also says some unkind things about Hood's post-war marriage and says that he fathered 11 children in order to show he was a still a man.  Stephen Hood is right that Sword's comments along these lines are just plain mean.

The so called siege of Nashville by the Army of Tennessee was a forlorn hope.  That it would eventually repulsed and the Rebel army beaten back were almost a foregone conclusion.

I have left out of the above a lot of really interesting reading in this book regarding the politics and squabbling among the Union High Command during the Autumn Campaign.

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is a very good book.  Highly recommended.