Andersonville: The Southern Perspective, and: Andersonville (review)

book reviews277 such as deep loyalty to local communities, survived it. Whether or not Professor Gallman's thesis convinces his readers, this is a good, compact discussion of its topic. Larry Gara Wilmington College Andersonville: The Southern Perspective. Edited by J. H. Segars. (Atlanta: Southern Heritage Press, 1995. Pp. 191. $15.00.) Andersonville. Screenplay by David W. Rintels, with an introduction by James M. McPherson. (Baton Rouge: Gideon Books, 1996. Pp. xix, 202. $14.95.) These two books are virtually mirror images. The first challenges the "Federal orthodoxy" about Andersonville and counters with the "Southern Perspective" (3, 10). The second, despite historian James McPherson's claim of "absolute integrity," is theater. Andersonville: The Southern Perspective is a collection of ten "past" and "contemporary" essays and an "Epilogue" that were selected to offer "historical truth." While "historical truth" may not emerge, the "Southern Perspective" does. The lead article by Dr. R. Randolph Stevenson, Camp Sumter's chief surgeon , sets the tone: "When the web of falsehood, concealment and perjury called the 'Wirz trial' shall be rent, and the truth known, it will be seen that the real responsibility [for the suffering at Andersonville] lies with the men who sacrificed these poor wretches [the prisoners] to their own ambition" (28). Unfortunately, the essays repetitively claim that the prison was well chosen for the health of the prisoners, that attempts were made to ameliorate conditions, and that the soldiers' suffering was due to the Lincoln administration's failure to live up to the Dix-Hill cartel. In fact, Mauriel Joslyn asserts that Lincoln was pursuing an imperialistic strategy against the South that was designed as an "ethnic cleansing" ( 1 34, 1 4 1 ). A side effect was the deaths of the Andersonville prisoners. Ostensibly the case is strengthened by two former Union prisoners' accounts which, however, appear too informed about the prison and Federal authorities' intentions to be entirely believable. There are two exceptions in Segars's collection of essays. The first is Mildred Rutherford's recitation of the appealing letters by Wirz and by his lawyer, Louis Schade, whereby Wirz is portrayed as a thoughtful unfortunate caught in a trap not of his making. The second exception is William Scaife's well-researched and objective account of the misguided and ill-fated attempt by Brig.-Gen. George Stoneman ("Great Cavalry Raid") to free the Andersonville and Macon prisoners. Nonetheless, Andersonville: The Southern Perspective provides an antidote to David Rintels's more dramatic screenplay, which was the basis for TNT's "bloody shirt account." 278CIVIL WAR HISTORY David Rintels's Andersonville is what most readers have come to expect in any portrayal of the most notorious Civil War prison. Stereotypical portraits of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys" dominate. Still, Rintels is a good dramatist, offering well-developed characterizations of a small band of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania soldiers and the Raiders' nemesis, "Limber Jim." (However, the latter pops up so often one almost wants him to go away.) Rintels paints a memorable portrait of deteriorating prison conditions that steadily sap the prisoners' mental and physical health. Yet, the "bloody shirt" portrayal is balanced somewhat by a more sympathetic treatment of Captain Wirz. My main criticism of the screenplay is Rintels's reliance on literary license and anachronisms. Illustrative is a memorable scene wherein Confederate Colonel O'Neal invites the near-death Union prisoners to take a Confederate loyalty oath and thereby obtain their releases. Rintels has the half-dead Massachusetts sergeant order his men to perform a contemptuous "about face." In fact, O'Neal did not appear until fall, when Andersonville was virtually empty, and a small number of fatalistic prisoners did, in fact, become "Galvanized Yankees." Similarly, though an attempt is made to be accurate, the final scene suggests that the prison is emptied at once in early September and its inmates freed. Rather, the hardiest endured another five months at various Southern prisons. And the capture and trial of the Raiders assumes greater importance in the screenplay than in more contemporary accounts. Yet, for all its faults, Rintels's screenplay brings to twentieth-century life the tortured story of Andersonville. Wayne Mahood Geneseo, New York We SawLincoln Shot: One HundredEyewitnessAccounts...