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Forcing Confederate War Guilt, Displaying National Triumph:

Salisbury Prison and the Salisbury National Cemetery

I. Introduction

Argument- Salisbury prison was one of the largest Confederate prisons and had among the highest percentage death toll on either side. The Civil War prison system was among the most brutal aspects of the American conflict. The death toll at Salisbury was originally estimated at over 11,000; this horrific statistic, the second highest throughout the prison system, helped shape Union memory and national reunion post-war.[1] The National Cemetery built in Salisbury after the war was symbolic of Union victory over the Confederacy. Obelisks and monuments dominated the cemetery in its earliest years. The Salisbury National Cemetery is more than just a memorial; the national site was a sectional tool. Dead soldiers were the most political objects after the war; the United States used Salisbury as a Triumph and symbol of Confederate War Guilt. Throughout Reconstruction the victorious North forced the Confederacy in places like Salisbury—through former prison memoirs, memorials and post-war prison trials—to accept the blame for the horrendous prison system. By the turn of the century events like the Spanish American War and a growing reconciliation transformed the purpose of Salisbury National Cemetery. Later memorials honored dead prisoners without defaming the former Confederacy. Fallen veterans of the Spanish American War and the World Wars came from across the country and were laid to rest in Salisbury, symbolizing and creating an end to War Guilt and Triumphalism.

Historiography-Salisbury prison is a well-documented site in the Civil War. Among the most popular works on the Confederate penitentiary is Louis Brown’s The Salisbury Prison: A Case Study of Confederate Military Prisons, 1861-1865. A heavily used resource, Brown’s work defends the Confederate prison system. Brown argues that Salisbury prison was not as bad as Reconstruction northerners would have people believe and that the situation was much better than popular memory shows. The Confederate government had no intent of abuse and instead tried their hardest to serve and protect POWs.[2] On the other side is Charles Sanders’ While in the Hands of the Enemy: Military Prisons of the Civil War which argues that the Confederacy had food and supplies available to feed its prisoners but chose not to deny them food as punishment. Sanders is especially damning of the Confederate government in regards to Salisbury, writing that there was a huge cache of food in the town proper.[3] This exhibit also focuses on representation and public memory. When it comes to Civil War memory no work is better than David Blight’s Race and Reunion which examines how the remembrance of the war changed in the fifty years after Appomattox. Blight points out that prison’s often remained the most challenging blocks to reunion, and even after the veterans died many still argued over who was responsible for the terrible treatment of POWs.[4] More specific to the topic is Benjamin Cloyd’s Haunted by Atrocity: Civil War Prisons in American Memory. Cloyd posits that only the issue of prison war crimes only receded when Americans were confronted with international atrocities such as filled the World Wars.[5] For commemoration John Heff’s Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation and Thomas Brown’s The Public Art of Civil War Commemoration place Salisbury National Cemetery’s objects in context. Heff states that, “the struggle to establish an inclusive, nonsectional nationalism….should be acknowledged as one of the noblest ideals that [the United States] has ever embraced.”[6] He argues that reconciliation came through common sacrifice and an intentional goal of ending sectional animosity from numerous parties. Brown’s work follows much of the same vein—analyzing how commemorations changed over the course of decades, focusing less on spite and more on a sense of national accomplishment and shared sacrifice.[7]

II. Salisbury Prison: The War Years

Creation and Early History- In December 1861 North Carolina opened its only prison in Salisbury, Rowan County. The prison was designed to hold citizens arrested for disloyalty, Confederate deserters, and captured US soldiers. North Carolina was the last state to secede from the Union. The earliest votes for secession were deeply divided and there were great fears of internal resistance to Confederate. Salisbury was a railroad hub, making it ideal for bringing in supplies. Paid for by the Confederate government the prison was placed on a sixteen acre lot with an abandoned three story cotton mill, six cabins, small hospital, and several outbuildings. Originally intended to house 1,000 prisoners, in its first year only a few hundred people were placed inside.[8] These were almost entirely Confederate deserters and civilian felons; the few enemy soldiers were captured in Virginia.[9] Salisbury prison’s first two years were witness to prisoners treated well with plenty of food, room and good hygiene. The prisoners gambled, staged plays, traded trinkets for food and even organized baseball games because, “Amusements, sports, and gymnastic exercises should be favored amongst the men.”[10] Prison morale was high. None of the captured U.S. soldiers stayed long in Salisbury, they—like thousands of others—were quickly exchanged for Confederate soldiers in the first two years of the war.

The Breakdown of the Prisoner Exchange System-The American prisoner exchange system collapsed in 1863 due to U.S. black enlistment and attrition strategy. For the first two years of the war there was an informal and consensual trade of prisoners. One-hundred and twenty Salisbury prisoners, captured in Virginia, were exchanged September 5, 1862 for an equal amount of Confederate soldiers at Washington DC.[11] On January 1, 1863, however, the Emancipation Proclamation enlisted African American soldiers into the US Army. Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered that captured black soldiers be re-enslaved or executed while their white officers could be tried for leading a servile insurrection, a capital offense.[12] In reaction US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton warned that any black soldiers re-enslaved or killed would be matched by a Confederate prisoner treated similarly. The advantage of numbers lay with the United States, which had significantly more Confederate prisoners than the Richmond had US prisoners.[13] Stanton’s order was part of an attrition strategy: denying soldiers to the Confederacy could hasten the war’s end. Each position provided no protection for the men caught in the middle. The cost of these two decisions would be felt most deeply by the soldiers now trapped in prisons like Salisbury.

Overcrowding and Abuses-In 1864 the Salisbury prison turned into a horrific cesspool. Prisons in Richmond were overflowing with US soldiers, and the Confederate government hoped to shift some of the burden to North Carolina. In October 1864 more than 10,000 blue-coated internees were transferred to Salisbury, overwhelming the poor infrastructure.[14] Salisbury was never meant to hold so many. The prison was even less suitable than Andersonville: Salisbury had no creek running through it for interned men to deposit their waste. Prisoners in North Carolina instead excreted on the prison grounds, creating an infectious environment. Major John Gee, commanding Salisbury, was as overwhelmed as the infrastructure—he could not get the 13,000 rations a day needed for the prisoners who soon began to starve. Meat quickly vanished from the prisoner’s diet, and the bread ration was reduced to almost nothing.[15] Thanks to their weak physical condition, the disease from piles of human feces cut through the prisoners and killed thousands.

            There was also abuse at Salisbury. Prison guards were accused of assaulting, torturing and murdering the captured men. Starving enlisted prisoners were driven made with hunger, stealing rations from weaker inmates. Men dying from hunger killed and ate rats, dogs and cats in the area and scavenged the trash piles. Some prisoners accused the Camp Commandant, Major John Gee of willfully denying the inmates food, despite the availability of food nearby.[16] The terrible conditions inspired several escapes; the largest was a full scale riot in November 1864, “The desperate men acted solely on the impulse of the moment. It was an ill-advised futile attempt,”[17] reported one prisoner. It involved more than two-thousand men and only ended when guards opened fire with artillery and rifle fire. One hundred prisoners died in the attempt.[18]

The Prison’s Destruction-Salisbury prison had a short lifetime and did not survive the war. The horrors which began in October 1864 were largely ended in February 1865 when the remaining prisoners were moved to smaller prisons in Greensboro, Wilmington and Richmond. They left behind thousands of dead prisoners. Deceased inmates were buried in eighteen slit trenches. These trenches were filled with the unnamed dead.[19] The unknown challenged attempts to document the fatality rate at Salisbury.

            In April 1865 a raid led by General George Stoneman’s reached central North Carolina and Salisbury. By that time the former prison was a supply depot for General Joseph Johnston’s Army of Tennessee, and Stoneman ordered his soldiers to burn it down. Stoneman was horrified by stories from townsfolk about the massed trenches, and furious at the treatment of blue-coated prisoners.[20] Destroying the depot also annihilated the prison infrastructure—including cells, fences, towers and the guard house. Destruction separated Salisbury from other Confederate prisons; Andersonville and Libby Prison both survived the war intact. Without any of the original structures, the only valuable artifacts remaining in Salisbury were the dead. Yet these thousands of decaying corpses were more valuable than any real estate in the economics of memory and retribution. These deceased US prisoners would be used for political purposes against the defeated Confederacy throughout Reconstruction.

III. Salisbury Prison: Reconstruction

Gee’s Post War Trial-Immediately after the war ended issues of blame for the abominable prison situation dominated Salisbury’s memory. Radical Republicans used the horrors of dead Union prisoners to argue for land redistribution and military reconstruction. Former Salisbury commandant Major John Gee was arrested after the war. Gee was one of two wardens tried by the United States government for their role in Confederate prisons. The other, John Wirz, ran the nationally infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia. Tried in Raleigh, Gee was charged with abuse of prisoners and gross negligence.[21] Gee and Wirz’s trials were part of an indictment on the Confederate prison system. Describing Andersonville and Wirz the prosecution stated that “it was the intrinsic wickedness of a few desperate leaders, seconded by mercenary and heartless monsters, of whom the individuals, of whom the prisoner before you is a fair type.”[22] Both men were convenient scapegoats since few in Congress believed that putting men like Jefferson Davis or any of his cabinet was feasible. Placing the former Confederate President on trial would only create greater animosity, something no US leaders wanted. No Union wardens were ever charged with anything despite the often equal rates of death of Confederate prisoners. Wirz was executed for his role in Andersonville, “there are crimes against God and man which ought not to be forgotten, and these for which Wirz suffered are all of them,”[23] reported Harper’s Weekly. However, Gee was acquitted thanks to his efforts to keep the prisoners alive. The defense proved that Gee went to great efforts to provide enough food for the inmates.

Memoirs and Diaries-The campaign against Salisbury prison was not limited to court trials; former prisoners launched their own attacks on the Confederate facility. Benjamin Booth, an enlisted man, was transferred to Salisbury in November 1864. Captured in the Shenandoah Valley [burning Dunker farms] Booth and his compatriots were the most despised prisoners at Salisbury. He found a horrific scenario in North Carolina—prisoners were starving and had little medical supplies or clean living. Booth kept a diary throughout his stay, he reported guards shooting at prisoners and bayoneting them for fun. Damning the authorities, he called Salisbury a “dark hole” and counted the dead from each day. Describing prison life, Booth illuminated true depravity; inmates intimidated, attacked and murdered one another for any small amount of supplies.[24] After the war he went on speaking tours across the country preaching about the terrible conditions within the prison. He reported on scurvy, frostbite, gangrene and cannibalism. Booth’s testimony was well received across the country.

            Another prisoner, Robert Drummond, went on speaking tours decades after the war ended. Drummond spent even longer inside Salisbury prison then Booth. He reported on starvation, disease and abuse by the Confederates. In December 1864 Drummond made a brief escape and, “learned from personal observation that the region abounded in corn and pork. Salisbury was a general depot for army supplies.”[25] In a 1901 speech at Hamilton College, Drummond described “sick pens” where “the wasted forms and sad, pleading eyes of those sufferers…will never cease to haunt me.”[26] Blaming the Confederacy for their poor treatment, Drummond argued that the poor treatment of United States prisoners was intentional.

            Men like Booth and Drummond were popular among northern audiences. Former prisoners went on speaking tours until the twentieth century and continually incensed the northern population against southern abuses.[27] Their listeners wanted to hear that the terrible lives of northern prisoners were a Confederate strategy. Northerners wanted to force blame on the former southern republic for Civil War prisons.

Forcing War Guilt- After the war the dead were treated as political tools or even relics. Foisting war guilt onto the Confederacy was accomplished partially through national cemeteries and monuments. The Confederacy lost the Civil War; emancipation and occupation were forced upon the defeated South, so was responsibility for the prison system. Since the prisoner exchange breakdown began over black soldiers, it was easy to pin the blame on the Confederacy. Northern criticisms of the US attrition strategy were muted since they brought victory.[28] Wirz’s trial and execution was only the beginning. National cemeteries were built only in southern prisons: Andersonville, Salisbury, Libby Prison and Belle Island. Northern prisons such as Elmira, New York did not get cemeteries for fifty years. The focus of most national attention was on Andersonville which had thirteen thousand dead, but Salisbury remained in the public mind. Though only 15,000 prisoners went through Salisbury, the official claim for the death toll was 11,700 which was an impossible number. In 1866 the United States purchased the former prison grounds for $4,000 and built a cemetery over the trenches under which the bodies were buried.[29]

IV. Salisbury National Cemetery

Triumphalism and War Guilt-Prison cemeteries were a powerful example of United States victory. The first national military cemeteries were all built upon Civil War Union victories—Gettysburg, Antietam, Chattanooga, Shiloh and Vicksburg.[30] In 1867, the first National Cemeteries were built at four Confederate prisons, including Salisbury. While cemeteries at battlefields were built for the honored dead, prison cemeteries were for men who had not died with honor. Instead of fighting for their nation like good citizen soldiers, prisoners suffered and died for nothing. If the highest form of patriotism is to risk life and limb in battle, starving to death in a diseased hole said little about patriotic sacrifice.

            The Salisbury National Cemetery combined triumphalism and war guilt. While the Union dead were remembered and honored, deceased Confederate prisoners were left without memorials for decades. Calling the dead prisoners heroes the United States government transformed them from passive victims into active participants. This metamorphosis allowed Salisbury to sit alongside cemeteries such as Gettysburg as symbols of US victory, if not martial honor. The Salisbury cemetery by its very existence placed war guilt onto Salisbury and, by extension, the former Confederacy.

The Federal Monument-The Salisbury obelisk symbolizes the issues of Confederate war guilt and United States triumphalism. Built in 1876, the Federal Monument was built, “TO THE MEMORY OF THE UNKNOWN UNION SOLDIERS WHO DIED IN THE CONFEDERATE PRISON AT SALISBURY, NC.”[31] Though little archaeological work had been done to verify the number of bodies buried in the Salisbury trenches, the official death toll written on the obelisk remained 11,700.[32] Such a high number represented the ardent belief that the Confederates had intentionally abused prisoners through starvation and neglect. Within ten years, after significant archaeological work and attention to the number of prisoner who went through Salisbury the death toll would be dropped to just shy of four thousand, a three hundred percent decrease! Yet no attempt was made to amend the Federal Monument for over a century. The earliest claim had lasting power—by inscribing that claim permanently, the US government made the high number permanent.

            The Federal Monument did nothing to contextualize the prison system, instead foisting all the blame on the “CONFEDERATE MILITARY AUTHORITIES.” Importantly, the prisoners were compared to soldiers killed in combat since the prisoners “DIED THAT THEIR COUNTRY MIGHT LIVE.” Unlike battles, however, the prison was built only honored United States soldiers and accused the Confederacy of their treatment.[33]

            The monument was also a triumph for those who suffered at Salisbury. On top of the obelisk sits a laurel wreath symbolizing the 1865 victory. Other images of conquest adorn the base of the Federal Monument—a sword, shield helmet and broken chains.[34] The first three were obvious allusions to the soldiers held at Salisbury, while the shattered chains could mean either the prisoner’s freedom or Union victory or the emancipation of millions of enslaved men and women throughout the South.

Maine and Pennsylvania Monuments-Built forty years after the federal obelisk the state monuments focused on reconciliation and honoring dead prisoners. The monument, erected in 1909, represented the end of triumphalism at Salisbury: “THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ERECTS THIS MONUMENT TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD AND NOT AS A COMMEMORATION OF VICTORY.”[35] A large memorial at Salisbury, the Pennsylvania monument is a roofed structure with an unarmed soldier on top. Pennsylvania’s Monument was all about honoring the 736 soldiers from the commonwealth who died at Salisbury. The prisoners were compared with armed heroes at Valley Forge and Gettysburg and “A GRATEFUL COMMONWEALTH RENDERS THE TRIBUTE TO THEIR HONOR AND MEMORY.”[36]

            The Maine Monument, constructed in 1907, was devoted to reconciliation and remembrance. At the peak of the monument stands a Maine soldier at parade rest. His gun is not aimed at anyone instead it rests at his feet. Each branch of the military—the artillery, cavalry, infantry and navy—was represented on the base. Re-union was all important and along the front of the monument was written “ONE COUNTRY-ONE FLAG.”[37] The main inscription regarding the prisoners reads, “THEY FOUGHT FOR PEACE, FOR PEACE THEY FELL, THEY SLEEP IN PEACE, AND ALL IS WELL.”[38] Like the Pennsylvania monument, the Maine memorial honored the dead by arguing that they helped bring about victory. This was a powerful change from earlier post-war blaming scenarios.

            The dedication speech was given on May 9, 1908 by J Bryan Grimes, the son of a Confederate General, which defended the treatment of US prisoners. Speaking to a northern audience Grimes said “[the Confederacy] could not feed our soldiers, and we could not feed our prisoners as they should be fed.”[39] His most controversial statement, however, was that “the Confederate Government was not entirely responsible for the great sufferings and death in these prisons. Our Confederate authorities made overture after overture to the Federal Government to exchange prisoners, but they were steadily refused.”[40] To Grimes and many other southerners blame for the terrible prison conditions lay entirely with the United States and not the Confederacy.       Grimes speech was met with anger from the Maine attendees. They demanded that he publish the speech and make his claims official.

While Grimes speech was poorly received, northern visitors were surprised at the warm welcome they found in Salisbury. The mayor of Salisbury, former Confederate soldier A.H. Boyden, did his best to treat Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) members with respect. Boyden declared that “the season of heated blood has passed.” A Maine dignitary visiting Salisbury reported that “only the kindliest feelings existed” now between the North and South.[41] The Salisbury National Cemetery was transforming the animosity from the former prison into new ideas of reconciliation.

V. Reconciliation in Death

The Spanish American War-Thirty years after its inception Salisbury truly became a National Cemetery with the Spanish American War. The 1898 war was the first conflict in which both former Confederates and former Unionists participated. Shedding blood together was a powerful act; and the Spanish American War helped Americans forget ‘the late unpleasantness.’ Beyond shared blood, the war proved that the United States remained a great power and that the Civil War had not ruined the country. For the first time in its history the US decisively defeated a European nation in combat. The first southern soldiers buried at Salisbury were from the Spanish-American War; many North Carolinians were entombed within throwing distance from prison-era trenches.

            Remnants of the sectional tensions remained, however. Each Spanish-American War grave has the birth state written in large print.[42] It still remained very important to veterans, families and the public where a person was born. Studying these earliest non-prison graves provides a window into the turn of the century America. National pride was stoked by the victory and the a former prison—symbol of disunity immediately after the war—was the site chosen for the burial of valued and valuable dead soldiers.

The World Wars: Recognizing the Commonality of Atrocities-The World Wars altered America’s relationship with the Civil War, prisons and atrocities. Like the Spanish American War the joint, national, sacrifices of American citizens through war helped alleviate the still memorable wounds from the Civil War. Unlike the Spanish American War, graves from the World Wars did not list the state where veterans were born in. Instead the person’s the markers only hold the name, rank, birth and death dates and branches in which the soldier served. Truly the national had finally trumped the sectional.[43] Except for the Civil War, the largest numbers of soldiers buried at Salisbury National Cemetery were veterans of the two World Wars. Those interred at Salisbury are represented from the entire country, not any one section. World War II had a powerful influence on how Americans viewed Civil War prisons. If the horrors of the Second World War proved anything, it was that all societies are capable of barbarity. The experience of captured soldiers in Axis hands—in the Philippines, France and South-East Asia—along with the horrific abuses between the Germans and Soviets, convinced many Americans that POW systems were easily abused.[44] The awful state of prisons during the Civil War could be seen as an outgrowth of the horrors of war, not an intentional strategy.

            World War veterans were recognized across the country as heroes. Their sacrifices, like the US dead at Salisbury, were given for a greater good. This common understanding helped transform Salisbury National Cemetery into a shared space and exorcise the remaining sectarian angers over the Civil War prison.

Continuing the National Cemetery-In the century and a half since the Civil War the Salisbury National Cemetery continues. Soldiers from the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been buried there. Graves from these later wars followed the World War, not the Spanish American War, style. The birth state was not mentioned, only the name, birth and death dates, military branch and conflict served in. By highlighting entirely national and personal events, the National Cemetery continued a tradition of celebrating heroic and national victories and sacrifices. There are more than 6,500 servicemen and women buried at Salisbury, almost double the estimated number of deceased POWs from the prison. 

The shared sacrifice celebrates the national and downplays the sectional. After 1910 no memorials or markers were placed at Salisbury; instead, each individual grave has been a memorial to the United States and its value. The further away Americans have gotten from the Civil War and the prison, the less important the Confederate prison is to Salisbury National Cemetery.

VI. Conclusion

Re-interpreting Salisbury-Nothing symbolizes the changing view inside Salisbury National Cemetery like the United Daughters of the Confederacy placard next to the Federal Monument. While the Federal Monument honored the unknown, and overestimated, dead at Salisbury the UDC marker attempts to contextualize Salisbury prison into the larger prison scenario of the war and expunge Confederate guilt. The UDC marker was is the first time the lower claim of 3,7oo dead at Salisbury, a decline of eight thousand under the original estimated death toll.[45] The language on the marker describing the Federal Monument is surprisingly dull, “Because there was not a comprehensive list of the dead, the government decided to erect a memorial to commemorate the soldiers who died at the prison and place ‘Unknown’ markers at the ends of the trenches.”[46]  There is no accusatory tone when the UDC reported that the agreed upon death toll was 3x lower than originally estimated. A marker from the UDC at a Confederate prison which does not viciously exculpate the Confederate prison system? Surely this marks an era of reconciliation.

The National Cemetery and Reconciliation-Though intended as a form of punishment for Confederate atrocities, Salisbury National Cemetery was instead a witness to reconciliation between the sections. The Federal Monument dominates the landscape of the National Cemetery but the graves of American veterans from across the country clearly overwhelm its initial power. The Massachusetts and Maine memorials honored those who died in the prison without arguing for Confederate intent. The state memorials, built in the first decade of the twentieth century, were emblematic of the desire to continue remembering prisons but end War Guilt. Across the hills of Salisbury, the thousands of American—defined as neither Northern nor Southern—soldiers who are buried in the National Cemetery have joined the thousands more who died at Salisbury prison. This combination creates a new atmosphere; no longer accusatory, but now of reunion and a shared sorrow. Visitors do not need to be from a particular section of the country to understand the loss at Salisbury. The dead cry out from across the nation to be remembered.