morning to actually be present d projecting images of prisoner of war camps. i don't think i represent that well. i'm going to negotiate a very, very dangerous set of rapids this morning. the professor at georgia southwestern state university, who is married, in fact, to one of my employees, dr. glen robins, he says and i agree completely, generally, you can either talk about andersonville or the other military prisons of war. it becomes emotionally difficult to try to do both. and i will explore that. and i am going to weave in between the two a little bit. a note on semantics before i start any further. i hesitate to use the acronym p.o.w. in a civil war context, because it's a 20th century term.

and i like to talk a lot. prisoner of war slows me down a little bit. civil war prisons and prisoners of war fall outside of the traditional heroic narrative of the war. and looking into this story, in a sense, that requires one to dive deeply into the wreckage of the war, the consequences of the war. and, again, you lose objectivity very quickly the longer you stay down in the wreckage of the war. andersonville is the most famous of the military prisons. it's a long way from the rest of the civil war world, both literally and figuratively. the prison site was chosen on purpose 150 years ago to be as remote and as insulated a place in the confederacy, far from perceived locations of battle.

and 150 years later, this prisoner of war story remains distant from the rest of the narrative. we have the tendency to talk about prisoner of war camps, and andersonville, off to the side of the main narrative of the war. it's, you know, as we talk about battles and campaigns, oh, by the way, there's this crazy thing happening at anderson i -- andersonville and some other places. when prisons exist because of the war, prisons are influenced because of the war. they are part of one story. one of our great challenges is to better integrate prisoner of war stories into how we talk about, how we explore the civil war. as a measure of the figurative distance, this narrow view of

prisons, i want to pause for a moment to examine a new monument in the town of andersonville. this past fall, the ft. benning sergeant major's association dedicated a pow-mia monument 50 feet from the train tracks where prisoners arrived. in front of this monument -- it is very bold. it is designated to p.o.w.'s past and present. and on the backside, what's missing? 50 feet from where 45,000 american soldiers entered captivity, they're not present. and it is worth noting, though we will not dwell on it, that this is about 200 feet from a monument dedicated to the heroic story of the commander of that prison. so there's a precedent here already.

at the prison site itself, the historical monuments dedicated 100 years ago by states, they face out. they face the prison wall and the road that loops around the site, designed for the visitor to stand up literally on the outside of that experience, looking in. and that emotional distance, again, prevents us from experiencing, understanding this story, you know, in very important ways. it's impossible to overstate how much lost cause mythology and revisionism of 100 years ago persists within the subgenra of military prisons. this narrative, you know, by design, is a very narrow one

built upon concepts of false equivalency and distracts from understanding by focusing on blame. and we'll explore exactly how that happens. this narrative and how narrow it is, is beginning to show its age. we talk about prisons like they're in a box, and focusing on, well, yours are worse than ours. and as one example of that, one book on the prisons in the last 10 years was pulped by its publisher because one author swore up and down he was being plagiarized. when we repeat the same story over and over and do not question it, that is going to happen. it has become so repetitive, so narrow, that plagiarism is part of the process, in many

respects. what is maddening about this is how universal the prisoner of war experience is in the course of the war. an average soldier of both sides, during the course of the conflict, has a one in seven chance of becoming a prisoner of war. the united states soldier has a one in 11 chance. a confederate soldier, just pick one at random -- they have a 25% chance of becoming a prisoner of war. it is a universal consequence of the conflict. it's a critical part of the experience. and by the end of the war, 56,000 prisoners of war are dead, north and south. this is not something off to the side of the conflict. it is deeply entrenched into the middle of it. there's no better example of the ragged edges of how to talk about prisoners of war than america's now most famous

prisoner of war, the recently freed beau bergdahl. the emotions, the controversy, the anger, the suspicion in recent weeks are a reminder that prior to vietnam, prisoners of war were not viewed as heros. they were viewed with suspicion, as failures, as men who were cowardly, who failed to do their duty. they should have done something better. they shouldn't have got caught. men coming back from korea were so held in suspicion, you know, over fear of brainwashing by communists, that that leads to the creation of the code of conduct. this is a universal story.

the prisoner of war story, it's deeply personal, deeply controversial, and deeply complex. survivors and families began struggling to define the meaning of captivity before the war ends. the missing soldiers' office, established in 1865, run by clara barton, would endeavor to provide answers seeking loved ones, from the battlefield to the prison camp. it's in this capacity that clara barton accompanies the quartermaster general's expedition that establishes the andersonville lists. her work here is limited to making a list of the dead. she is credited with identifying the dead or graves or establishing the cemetery, and

she did not do those things. the u.s. army, under the command of quartermaster james moore, established the cemetery. the 12,920 dead of andersonville make it the single deadliest place of the civil war. just counting fatalities, you have to add at least three battles, the battle deaths of both sides, to equal the scale of andersonville. following the war, clara barton took her story on the road, and a former prisoner accompanied her. relics of the prison become tourist attractions across the country. these are artifacts that clara barton used, accompanying her particular lecture tour.

beginning in 1876, and extending for decades, prisons and prison treatment, north and south, became a political device by which southern democrats and republicans bludgeon each other, in the process codifying this narrative that we are still sort of stuck in. and the narrative fallacies that go along with it. to the end of their lives, former prisoners of war were stalwart defenders of their experience. what is most extraordinary about these men is how many of them went on to lead ordinary lives. it is to them and their memory that we must chart new paths of discussion to better include them in how we talk about the war. the first avenue is the discussion of policy. primarily, exchanges. the political system which

governed exchanges occurring over the first two years of the war was exploded over one central idea. the black soldier. the lieber code, established in 1863 is, in a sense, america's first civil rights policy. it unequivocally announces that black soldiers are equal and to be treated equally. and it is that question that stops full-scale exchanges for the remainder -- very nearly the remainder of the war. other excuses are thrown out, but that is the reason exchanges have stopped. that is the reason that giant prisons appear late in 1864, primarily in the south but likewise in the north.

and that begins in 1863, at the battle of fort wagner. 35 soldiers of the 54th massachusetts are captured and taken to the charleston city jail. when word of their treatment reaches the white house later in the summer, exchanges stop. these men and their story are a very good example of the complexities, in that the governor of south carolina wants a chance to try them for war crimes. he wants to execute them for the slave insurrection that they've

been a part of. he is not permitted to do so. much to his disgust, the state court system finds that south carolina has no standing to do so. these men remain in charleston for over a year. later in 1864, they're normalized into the confederate military prison system. and that's when they start dying. their time at charleston, all things considered, wasn't quite as bad as what was to come. while large-scale exchanges remained frozen, it is really important to remember that limited exchanges are still occurring, especially late in 1864. exchanges of the sick and wounded, or field exchanges. sherman's exchange after he occupies atlanta is very, very critical to the history of andersonville. this breakdown of exchanges has an incredible, massive effect, especially for southern prisoners. the prison in salisbury had operated all the way through the war.

in 1864, it stops being the place that you can play baseball at. the second avenue of discussion is the question of systems of management. what choices do each side make in managing military prisons and the prisoners in their care, and what resources do they allocate to prisoner care? as prison populations just expand exponentially, late in 1863 and 1864, you have a prison in the south where they're just jammed into richmond until thanksgiving, when a realization is that, that's really scary. it's a threat to the security of richmond on multiple levels. it's a stressor on the resources of richmond. let's move them away. in the north, there's a much

greater capacity for dispersing prisoners to multiple facilities. training camps are being switched, or having an additional function added to them during this time. north and south cannot be compared equally. this is the greatest narrative fallacy of the civil war prisons. while prisons have much in common -- they are all prisons. your rights are restricted. food and other things are no longer necessarily up to you. you have to wait for them to be provided. the differences in management and scale are so large that they are not equal. and cross comparisons are, quite frankly, dishonest. just as an example, camp davidson military prison in southwest georgia, the elmira facility in new york.

eventually, those tents are replaced by barracks. across the united states is a vast network of permanent military facilities that have prisons added to them, and training camps changed into prisons. their deficiencies tend to be in contracting, and because of the vast military bureaucracy, incompetence of command is often addressed and removed. in the south, a highly centralized system, run out of richmond, led largely by general john winder, becomes almost a cult of personality. he trains a cadre of officers whose names appear over and over again. in 1861, a prison board is

organized to provide oversight and management of military prisons in richmond. it's worth noting that two of the names on that prison board are command level officers at andersonville three years later. the problems of southern prisons, challenges and deficiencies originate in this centralized and often reactive management system. this map shows major military prisons in the north and south in july, 1864. and by major, i'm defining them at at or above 1,000 prisoners in population. two of the red marks on this map are transitioning to, in a sense, transition facilities, in richmond and danville. prisoners are held for a short

time, and then they are being moved to larger facilities. the northern prisoners are everywhere. everywhere, all the way from the florida keys to boston harbor. and then all the way out to san francisco harbor and alcatraz. when you read the o.r.'s, the managers of the northern prisons, they're transporting prisoners all of the time. they are dealing with issues of contracting, delays of construction. in the south, they are centralizing, centralizing, and

centralizing, until by the summer of 1864, that strategy becomes very clearly not a good one. by august, 10% of the army of the potomac is held in a 26.5 acre enclosure in southwest georgia. the third and most critical avenue of exploration of the prisoner of war is to examine the individual experience of captivity. it is a mistake to think that prisoners had identical experiences. and yet, while circumstances vary wildly, the emotional component, the emotional descriptions, are hauntingly similar, regardless of what facility you are in. one emotion is fear. as a reminder of how central prison experience has become, and fear of the prison experience has become, you know, this idea of capture and imprisonment, it's always in the back of your mind as a soldier in the field.

a private of the 19th ohio volunteers reflected during the battle of kennesaw mountain on the futility of the battle, and he closes it with this thought. still our lines advance, but it is to death or a southern prison, for but few return. uncertainty -- a confederate prisoner of war captured at lookout mountain was paroled out of the general population and served as a clerk. his work provided him with access to news reports, relief supplies, interaction with civilians around the prison.

his journal is full of just the constant rumors he's hearing and his hope for the cause. he reports these rumors, and while constantly worrying about his parole, thinking, it is a stretch of conscience for me to think it right working for uncle sam. i hope i am doing no wrong in consenting to write for these folks. he's struggling with the choice he made. he's getting better treatment. he is no longer staying in the main prison while he's working as a clerk, and he also spends quite a deal of time in the diary recounting how he gets into the prison, and he's bringing in supplies that civilians are bringing. journey. this idea of being transported to an uncertain -- oops, capture. i'm getting ahead of myself. john january, from illinois,

remembered, i was captured between macon and atlanta, georgia, august 1st, 1864. i was taken to andersonville, but before entering the stockade, i was stripped and searched five times. everything was taken from me except an old blouse, pants, and horse blankets. i had no idea what kind of place i was going to, or i would have risked my life to escape. being taken to the stockade, i was three days without food. the capture is the beginning of a journey. a transportation to camp, often movement from one camp to another camp. a member of the 111th united states colored troops, he's a white, noncommissioned officer. along with other prisoners from alabama -- they are moved eastward in the late fall of

1864 as concern over sherman's presence is creating massive disruptions in the southern prison system. walt, being transported in train cars, 60-100 in a car, he reflects, facing a journey with an uncertain destination. left columbus at 5:00. nothing worthy of note until we reached fort valley, where the road heading to andersonville intersected the columbus and macon railroad. here, we heard the report that we were to go to andersonville prison and, from the reports, we heard of that place. we dreaded the very idea of making our entrance there. what terrible suspense was that which we endured while laying there at the valley, anxious to start, yet fearing we would take the road to that most loathsome of all prisons, andersonville. at last, we start.

near the switch of andersonville road, we pass it, listening with throbbing hearts for the signal from the engineer to back off and switch on the fatal road. but, no, we get faster and faster. we are enabled to draw a long breath. we involuntarily exclaimed, thank god we are free from the fate of the prison. there are themes of landscape. the prisoners spent a great deal of time describing the intimate facilities in which they're held. and yet, these descriptions are often admittedly incomplete. halfhearted. even to those who experience it firsthand. one man recounted, i cannot tell you why the stockade was a perfect hell on earth, unless it was because prisoners were treated so. nothing to eat, nothing to wear. no fuel. hardly any water. i shall certainly not consider it a heaven or a decent place. i can compare it to nothing but hell on earth. as a natural consequence of the treatment our men received

there, they were fighting and robbing each other. the prisoner's experience is often defined by the wall. whatever is holding them in. exterior details to these facilities. a military prison is not simply the stockade. there has to be a vast complex of warehouses and camps to support it. and, yet, that immediate landscape, the stockade is generally the defining feature. prisoner drawings of southern facilities, northern facilities -- and just one example, the drawings of robert knox sneden, held by the virginia historical society. he has multiple maps of andersonville showing its evolution during his captivity there. how he depicts the earthworks outside the stockades like they are on steroids, because he only sees them at a distance. when you are looking at a distance, what you really see is

the fact that there are guns pointed at you. when he's moved to the camp laughton facility in the fall, he's paroled out. he works in the hospital. and, as a consequence, his drawings of the camp laughton prison facility are almost hyper accurate. in terms of not only the stockade, but placement of exterior features. prisoners of war face impossible choices. that we in many respects do not understand and cannot understand. it's almost a moral calculus, where the equations are all different. as one example of that, john tarsney, a michigan soldier held in andersonville and then in

moved in the fall to camp laughton, in the fall, during one of the exchanges in november of the sick and the wounded, he realizes he's just too healthy. he doesn't qualify for the exchange. the night before the prisoners selected are to be transported away, as he walks through that 42 acre enclosed stockade, he happens across another soldier, very clearly qualified for the exchange. he was suspicious, and he was right, that that soldier was so weak, so ill, he was not going to live through the night. he stops and spends the time with this soldier to get his name, his regiment, his squad within the prison where he's captured, other important details. the next morning, just before the prisoners selected to exchange are to assemble, he walks back by the soldier again and the soldier is gone. john does an impossible thing. he puts his own name on the dead man. he assumes the name of this dead

soldier to live. it's -- what can you do to live? without risking your life, what can you do? certainly, andersonville escape is a very unsuccessful thing, but it's being tried all of the time. freedom-seeking. southern prisons become places where prisoners are the slaves. when they escape, they are hunted by dogs. at andersonville, one of the things that distinguishes andersonville from other southern prisons -- when you're caught, you're brought back and heavily punished. many of those punishments sound like they're straight out of slave narratives. iron collars, balls and chains, prisoners are whipped.

escape is a very unsuccessful thing. and why do you do it? why do you endeavor to keep trying? escape is hope. the other part of the escape story, more so in the prisons in the carolinas than andersonville is this. who is risking their lives to aid fleeing soldiers? a small class of white southern unionists, and they're certainly taking risks, but by the 1930's, the presence of slaves assisting escaping prisoners in escape narratives becomes so common that southern historians laugh about it as a cliche. southern prisons become a place where the underground railroad is flipped.

slaves are risking their lives. certainly, at andersonville, this is a very intimate relationship between the prison site. these places remain among the war. visitors and a certain kind of visitor to andersonville, one of their first comments tends to be, well, prison is just as bad as andersonville. there's an absolute legitimate reason why they say this. almost always. one of their ancestors was at whatever prison. and it's a reminder to the individual, where ever you're

at, it's the worst place. this is a reminder to me, too, that forgiveness is an on going process. this is a self inflicted wound. i will admit to you that this is my favorite prisoner of war monument that's not at andersonville. the keystone has a single word. americans. these places have an untapped potential and what we do to each other, the choices that prisoners and guards at each facility face when trying to

guard people that are, in fact, us. we have met the enemy and it's us. survivors do. john january, corporal of company d, 14th illinois volunteers, survive and capture during the stoning. i quoted him earlier. at florence, he suffers so bad that their response is, hmm, you're going to die, kid. impossible choices with the help

of his friends, he amputates his own feet. after the war in testimony to congress, he declares i want -- i went from home full of hope with an ardent desire to do something for my country. flushed with health and strength. i came home warn down to nothing, to confident me only to thought that i have tried to do my duty and that my sufferings were to dry to do a good cause. thank you. [applause]

>> first one to the bar. and i'm already in my head listing the things that i didn't say. >> yes, i hear you. >> is the mckinley canter book reasonably accurate? in a general way? >> there's no middle ground on canter's book. i have one minor complaint, otherwise. kanter's 1955 700 page magnum opus is an incredible piece of work. it does the impossible. it provides a 360 degrees view. the personality is outside of it. he used primary source material. that even to this day some

writers refuse to engage in. it's an incredible book. my one complaint as a word smith, he was an expert in words. provocative words, memorable words. and he picked one single term for prisoner shelter. when prisoners use dozens of terms, shelter, tent, hut, burro. blanket tent. shanty. he picks shabang. john january is one of only four prisoners in primary source material right after the war that works trial and congressional itinerary. only four times does that phrase appear. and january literally says we called our shelter shabangs. and i'm sure he did. otherwise, it is remarkable. it's a very difficult read.

>> yes, i wonder if you could tell us about the relationship between winder and sutton? sutton was very indifferent to him and didn't seem to take very many steps or even respond to his letters. >> the intention is once they're out of richmond, a sort of out of sight, out of mind sets in. and there's a very clear, cognitive disconnect as commanders at camp sumpter are writing to richmond saying we need this, we need this, we need this and nothing is happening. and inspectors come in and say they don't have this, this and this. at a certain point, what are you going to do? and so, i don't know to what extent exactly the relationship between sutton and winder, you know, where it sets. winder, he moves largely because

there's a realization that that strategy of centralization is failing as prisoners from the overlying campaign just continue to stream its facility. it is now double its design capacity. >> robert domingus, chula vista, california. i'd like to know a little bit more about this man. john who? >> john. january. >> is he an officer? >> no, he's enlisted with only a small number of officers. he's a non-commissioned officer. >> and did he have gangrene in his feet? >> that earlier, the other illustration is out of a harper's weekly. he's also described as being -- his body weight is well under a hundred pounds. whether or not he had gangrene, i'm not certain. there are other versions of this

photograph that show him standing with a top hat. another version of this picture also includes the prosthetics on either side of him. and, for me, you know, i find it very hard to look at this picture in light of the men and women who have been maimed in the last ten years overseas for, you know, roadside bombs, which is a little bit different than choosing to take off your on feet to save your life. >> david keller, chicago, illinois. i'm part of an organization in chicago, we're working to establish a historic site for camp douglas. >> yes. >> and hopefully, eventually, an interpretive center. and it's really a challenging

thing to do. it's pretty close to the center of the city. relative to andersonville, i can only imagine the challenges of trying to establish a site for a camp that housed federal prisoners deep in the heart of georgia, setting aside the land, a funding for the monuments and all of the stuff that goes along with that. can you talk a little bit about the establishment of that park and history of that? >> it's something that deserves a lot of scrutiny. the confederacy is receiving a lot of choices and they're allocating a huge amount of resources to, during the course of a single year, build not one, but two military prisons simply in the state of georgia. the construction begins in january of 1864. 900 slaves are impressed from across central georgia to fell

trees, to, you know, rough-view the logs, dig trenches to then put those 20 foot logs in to create a 15 foot tall perimeter. at the same time that that's happening, it's important to note that this is a little bit more, this wider connection, he has a son and a nephew that are command-level staff. and as the first prisoners are beginning, the week within the first prisoners arriving, there are frantic letters of we only have a hundred rifles. right off the bat, they're having problems attaining supplies. this part of it is a pernicious consequence of state's rights. the gov forof georgia is being dependent upon to provide

slides, to provide troops to this confederate military facility in a state to run out richmond. he chooses not to help very often. the only thing worse is two of them. the construction begins in august and that's a 42 acre enclosed stockade. it's designed very intentionally with the lessons learned of camp sumpter that flows millions of gallons of water a day as to posed to a tepid trickle. and at camp laughton, in the six weeks it operates and prisoners are evacuated from it, 700 men die. >> mike wright, east

stroudsburg, university. is there mostly sedentary places? bush has been doing his 25 years. how do you feel about it? >> what's the question? >> oh, 2 question is johnson's island or this site in eastern georgia. and, you know, how do i feel about it. it's great. the -- especially at camp laughton. site was essentially forgotten. and the joke there is a garage graduate student about six years ago really wanted to finish his degree in archaeology. and his professor said oh, the fish and wildlife service, there's going to be nothing there. wrong.

that prison was abandoned in a hurry. youryou leave, you take stuff. it's not quite that simple. when they move, they take their stuff with them. it's post-farm, post-war and it's cleaned up during the prisons operation. johnson's island is really valuable. certainly, dr. bush's book about

the letters he uses where he's then illustrating with archaeological finds is really valuable and trying to, again, personalize this story. >> i'm robert holmes from piedmon, north dakota. i wonder if the horror is exemplary or was it qualitatively different from places like elmyra or was it simply four times as large? >> well, we'll use elmyra as an example. elmyra operates for about a year. the total number of confederate prisoners of war held there is larger than the number of dead at andersonville. the total number of dead is smaller than the dead of a single month at andersonville. so the scale is off the chart. its's the exception that sort of proves all the rules of southern prisons, if that gets toward an answer to your question. >> not entirely.

there's said to be about 2900 dead in elmyra. andersonville, roughly 13,000 dead out of 45,000. so you're looking at the same 25%-30% of burial rates. >> percentages are really misleading. if andersonville stopped dead in july, it would remain the place deadliest place of prisons. on a personal level, it's different. the book by michael is a good start. the business of captivity and how the operational culture of that place exist and not simply in a vacuum. prisons likeese

they are islands. there are towns around them. they have great opportunity to improve their conditions. >> hello. i did some research on union veterans and i went through several newspapers in washington, d.c. and the american tribune out of indianapolis. often times, they would have vignettes from stories of the war. and there was a ton of stories about being a prisoner. there are a lot of books written. it almost becomes a genre in itself.

so i just wonder if you have any additional comments about the popularity of the stories of being a prisoner after the war. >> it's driven by self interest. in the early 1880s, congress passes a law by which former prisoners of war, not the other way around can receive a higher pension to the tune of $6 a month. that creates a massive cottage industry in publishing. if you write a story of your experience, that's proof to the pension board. the further away they are published from the war, the more they reflect memory. and the less they reflect accurately the prison experience. and so we -- it becomes a paradox.

you want to quote them as primary sources. but sometimes you just have to worry about to what extent their exaggerate something or a myth that they may not have witnessed at all. "the national tribune," one of the major voices behind it is john mcelroy whose memoir is published in 1879. dominated, for better or worse in many respects. >> i'm cathy wright from down in richmond, virginia. i know there was a concentration of numerous p.o.w.'s.

i was wondering in there's civilian populations helping prisoners escape. >> that, i can't speak to you as much as i'd like. that's certainly something that deserves a lot more research in terms of confederate prisoners. a book i'd recommend is not military prisoners, but nonetheless, the adventures in confederacy.

these are writers captured in 1863 and held livingston prison, castle thunder, later salisbury. they make an escape. there's a focus on unionists who are assisting them in their run to freedom. in the fall, it's still an off chance but more likely you could go to escape by october. for a good time to get to that blockade line, they're in this role in the 1890s, his great pain in telling the story is he waited too long to try to touch base with this person who's critical to his survival. he passed away just a couple of years earlier. this prisoner not able to say thank you in the way he thought he ought to.

>> i'm richard maynard. a big thing seems to be the mistreatment of prisoners by the prisoners, the gangs that operated there. i have not come across that story in other prisons. and i'm wondering whether that was unique to andersonville or just a part of the story that's not included in the story in firsthand accounts. >> are you referring to the raiders? >> yeah, in new york. that's one of the great mythologies of the prison. the turner film uses the raiders as

literally it's narrative device. match prisoners' diaries. what do guards do? they keep you in. there is essentially no apparatus. at this place, the prisoner who arrives at andersonville, in february, march and april, they've been prisoners for 6-9 months, at least. they've been held in the richmond complex. to them, when they first get to andersonville, their lives are better. this is a better place. there's more space. there's debris leftover from

construction to build shelters. these prisoners, one example, on described where he's transferred march 1st, he has the cloets on his back. that's all he has. and then may comes. and you get prisoners from north carolina from the overland campaign. from the wilderness and other battles that are coming straight from the battle field. prisoners from a plymouth were guarding a town. these guys have really nice kits. knapsacks, blanket rolls, shelter halves. they're rich beyond measure to the prisoners that are held there. happen.begins to

in prisoner memoirs, in the diaries, you know, we use raider with a small "r." it's 150 years ago right now and into next week, a large, massive vigilante group is raised to stop raiding. this image that we have, this gang fighting off the raiders is sort of a jets versus sharks bit of business. that's post-war mythology. one -- samuel melvin in his diary, he says i saw six victims hung today.

sgt. john bear who arrives before the execution, his diary is full of long entries where he struggles with the moral quandary, the fact that it's -- people are preying on each other when they shouldn't. he goes onto describe the regulators. prison. terrorizing the in the fall of 1865, the only thing he did was execute the six. it might be where the death penalty is a deterrent.

>> thank you. >> jorn busset from new york in springfield, virginia. dichotomy there. i'm a member of the prison association association in the confederate star line-up. the death rate there -- or the death numbers are almost as maybe more than andersonville, i am told. but i'm not sure of that. but the narrative of the prison seems to be remarkably similar to what you've been describing although it's common to not get tried and executed. and that's one of my questions to bring up wertz, the guy that ran andersonville and paid the price. i trace some near relatives through salisbury and that's why i'm a member. one survived and one didn't. within a week of his exchange he died from the -- and he went in

august of 1864, just in that timeframe that you describe. so just to comment there about salisbury and a question about wertz. the commandants in other prisons never came to trial as i understand and didn't go that route. so comments please on wertz and company. >> so major john gee commanding at salisbury is the other commander of the prison confederacy who is tried for violations of the war. and he's acquitted. there's a reason for that. it's well described in the trial the effort he makes to aid prisoners. the effort he goes to to allocate resources to prisoners. and yet, salisbury's -- and this is where that junius and albert book is a good outside observer example in that those two newspaper reporters are at salisbury and they witness it going from where baseball games are played to something else

entirely. one of the two of them was working in the hospital and he starts to keep a list of the dead because that fear that records may not be kept. wertz is one of two confederate staff at andersonville tried for violations of the laws of war. his trial is, quite frankly, one of the darkest holes of study of the war and its consequences. the last time an in depth study of just the trial was written by a legal scholar was 1917. a lot have said around the trial but they don't examine the trial itself. to me one of the truisms about this, people who complain about it never read the trial. the transcript exists and it's a confounding document. the trial lasts 63 days. there are two charges.

the first is being part of a conspiracy to, you know, maim and murder american soldiers in violation of the laws of war. the second set of charges is individual acts of murder of american soldiers by either wertz himself or his subordinate commanders -- his subordinate soldiers at his orders. we know how this ends. he's convicted. during the course of the trial a low level quartermaster employee by the names of james duncan, just a great deal of discussion is spent on how he's beating prisoners and embezzleing money and supplies. he's tried and convicted. he spends a year in the military prison at ft. pulaski, georgia. in the beginning of 1866 president andrew johnson commits a merciful act. there's a blanket amnesty of

troops and along with that executive order is a prohibition of further military tribunals. it's important to note that a judge advocate generals office, they were not done. they were preparing a massive set of additional war crimes trials including among them george pickett. forgiveness has to start somewhere, and the united states began to forgive in 1866. and henry wertz, if there's an injustice to him, it's that major -- or general winder had a heart attack in february of 1865 at florence, i believe, and passed before a higher court of judgment, as we say. ok. ok, one more question. >> [indiscernible]

for your presentation. it was provocative, beautiful. i havession for this -- a two-part question. [indiscernible] wondering what do you know about creating this calculus of [indiscernible] and most of the stuff i had read [indiscernible] given the theme of the conference, 1864, i wonder if -- could elaborate quickly

you brought up with the [indiscernible] partly because of a larger story, a narrative of war. >> i think there are three questions. [laughter] wronge me if i get them

-- the comparative calculus of prisons and death rates, and is that is something constructive to engage in? in the third question, there was -- >> [indiscernible] the calculus of war that also has something to do with these men dying. >> in terms of the comparative numbers -- it is a trap. that is your admiral akbar moment. thank you very much, john. that tends to be, yours are worse, yours are worse. that seems to stop the dialogue. they are absolutely separate. the choices each commander is each prisoner is

judged onserve to be their own merits. it reflects this desire of reconciliation. after the war, we are one nation. prisons, they simply are not the same. thenetting into the math requires much larger discussions. it is a good starting point, but it is not where we should stop is my thought. the monument that i did not picture that i sort of mentioned in andersonville, dedicated by the united daughters of the confederacy in 1889. it quotes general grant on one side, and throws them under the bus. hard on our soldiers not to exchange them, blah, blah, blah.

it is great's fault. it is grant's fault. is, there are 100,000 or so soldiers at andersonville at the time he is riding that. it does not explain it. it echoes a lot of what has been said about bowe bergdahl in the last two weeks. every soldier we exchange with our enemy will come back and kill americans. we should not do it. that is grant's point. american soldiers have this funny persistence of going straight back into the field, whereas u.s. soldiers, many of go home oreither they cannot go back to the fight. the men that do, like sergeant manager robert kellogg or boston corbett, they are in a sense a real rarity. that is not entirely a direct

answer, but certainly part of it . this idea that you do not want to exchange, because it is to your advantage not to is quite honestly secondary. on the same day grant rights that letter, benjamin butler writes the letter that says, every other point of exchange -- whythe question is soldiers? the only one that remains. it is still very central to why exchanges had been stopped. thank you. [applause] >> join american history tv next to saturday for all-day live coverage of the world war i centennial symposium from the macarthur memorial in norfolk, virginia. we will hear from scholars about the war that inaugurated the 20th century and welcome your calls, facebook post, and

tweets. craig ons include lee the u.s. navy wartime role and a guest on the ottoman empire in germany's bid for world power. 9:30is next saturday at a.m. eastern here on american history tv. >> monday on "the communicators," the director of the columbia law school -- >> the people who oppose privatization should take a look be for header. if you look that up, that is the magic that makes the internet work. there is something called the type of service class. that is different service classes, low bandwidth, low lateness, different types of prioritization's. and people say, oh, that is just an old architect. when we denied the internet -- when we designed the internet,

they not only kept that field, they put another field to do another form of prioritization. if you look at the engineering design to suggest is was never beended that prioritization allowed, i think a little engineering knowledge goes a long way. it is the design of the network. if you talk to the people who use the network, they are using the network -- we have all been frustrated. the true, completely i.t.-based voip service to your phone -- all use prioritization. 8:00 easternht at on "the communicators" on c-span2. the 2015 student can competition is underway, open to all middle and high school students to do a five minute

documentary on the legislative branches and year or -- the three branches and year. there are 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totaling $100,000. for a list of rules and how to get started, go to student cam -- studentcam.org. >> c-span veterans day coverage begins tuesday morning with "washington journal" and 80 interview with the american legion executive. then an interview with martin dempsey. and we're are live at 11:00 from cemetery forional a wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknowns. then a discussion on veterans mental health issues and selections from this yours white house medal of honor ceremonies. roger cheney served as the

chief justice of the supreme court and delivered a majority opinion in the controversial dred scott case. a discussion of public opinion of chief justice cheney -- taney . the supreme court historical society hosted this event. it is a little under an hour. [applause] >> thank you very much, mr. goldman. historians like me because every faculty has a legal historian on it but how important they are depends on how much you think the history behind the constitution or any other statute depends upon what was the understanding at the time, which is what historians can tell us. i hi