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Introduction

Salisbury National Cemetery entrance

The Salisbury National Cemetery gate. The intimidating gate to the cemetery seemed a good example of the power of the state in memory and public narrative.

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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.”[5] 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.[6]



[1] Louis Brown, Salisbury Prison: A Case Study of Confederate Military Prisons, 1861-1865, [Wilmington: Broadfoot Publishing, 1980], 68-70.

[2] Charles Sanders, While in the Hands of the Enemy: Military Prisons and the Civil War, [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005], 253-254

[3] David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory [Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2001], 122.

[4]Benjamin Cloyd, Haunted by Atrocity: Civil War Prisons in American Memory [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010], 129-130.

[5] John Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation [Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2005], 261.

[6] Thomas Brown, The Public Art of Civil War Commemoration [Boston: Bedford Publishing, 2004], 8.