Man up: At Andersonville and other Civil War prisons, captives resisted and coped in a number of ways. They asserted a new form of masculinity

Desperate to be free: Union prisoners tunneling (National Park Service)

Sgt. Maj. Robert H. Kellogg and his comrades in the 16^th Connecticut Infantry, like generations of American soldiers before them, believed the only manly death in war should occur on the battlefield.

But they would find their experience to be different as the Civil War wore on. The green regiment, chopped up at Antietam in September 1862, was captured in only its second engagement 19 months later in Plymouth, N.C.

Gone were the ideas of battlefield victories and fame. Kellogg realized their world had been turned upside down when the regiment surrendered in April 1864.

“On the morning of (April) 21st we awoke to new experiences. Instead of the calls to which we had -been wont to listen, and the labor we had been accustomed to perform, we were but passive beings, subject to the will of a conqueror,” Kellogg wrote in “Life and Death in Rebel Prisons,” published in March 1865 near war’s end.

The soldier could not have predicted the extreme privation and horror he would witness and endure at Andersonville prison in Georgia. He provided colorful details in his book, considered one of the best personal accounts about life and death at Andersonville.

Various photographs of Robert H. Kellogg (Museum of Connecticut History)

What Kellogg and soldiers from both sides experienced at prisons contributed to a change in the perception of 19^th-century masculinity, according to many scholars, including conflict archaeologist Ryan K. McNutt.

As McNutt pointed out in a paper and a lecture in November at Andersonville National Historic Site near Americus, the Victorian ideal of manliness was courage through sacrifice and action – a good death on the battlefield, should it come to that.

“The POW experience was the direct antithesis of this ideal: Capture was socially seen the same as surrender,” wrote McNutt (the men of the 16^th Connecticut said it was not their decision to surrender). “And the wartime experience of POWs in the American Civil War was passive, inactive – waiting. For exchange, for parole.”

The talk by the assistant professor of anthropology at Georgia Southern was titled “But Passive Beings, Subject to the Will of a Conquerer,” pulling the line from Kellogg’s book.

(At left, Father Peter Whalen prays for prisoners, Thomas O'Dea sketch, NPS)

As it turned out, men confined with Kellogg were not all that passive, McNutt told the November audience in the park visitor center. They resisted in a variety of ways, trying to survive while buttressing their sense of manliness.

Tries were usually futile. But they dreamed of escape

McNutt spoke about resistance at both Andersonville (Camp Sumter) and Camp Lawton, another Confederate prison site in Georgia. McNutt directs the GSU archaeological project at the latter site

Andersonville is the emblem of POW suffering at Union and Confederate camps during the Civil War. Of 45,000 men held there, 13,000 Union service members succumbed to horrible conditions. Rather than a quick battlefield death by a bullet or artillery round, they faced death on an hourly or daily occurrence. It could come at any time.

Themes of heroism through endurance, martyrdom and stoicism arose, McNutt argues.

Soldiers engaged in tunneling, trickery and barter with guards. They endured beatings and incidents of cruel treatment – all while trying to stand tall amid the misery.

“Attempting is just as important as being successful,” McNutt said of defiant acts. More than 80 tunnels were found at Andersonville. Only 30-40 men successfully escaped the prison, which held about 45,000 soldiers over its 13 months.

But that did not stop them from trying.

A National Park Service article about escape attempts includes a paragraph that gets at what McNutt and others have studied. By being taken captive, prisoners had to find other ways to “prove oneself” and disprove any notions of cowardice.

“As a result, many prisoners faced the choice of either returning home after the war to be received as failures, or to attempt a dangerous escape. Those prisoners at Andersonville and elsewhere who never successfully escaped would often invent escapes or escape attempts in order to validate themselves in the eyes of their society,” the NPS says. (At right, Thomas O'Dea drawing of escape attempts at Camp Sumter)

'Can this be hell?

Kellogg was 20 years old when he passed through the gates of Andersonville into the chaos and suffering.

"As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror…before us were forms that had once been active and erect -- stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin…Many of our men exclaimed with earnestness, 'Can this be hell?'" the sergeant wrote

The soldier survived Andersonville and was transferred after a few months to  prisons in South Carolina paroled in November 1864. He was a changed man.

Robert Kellogg (right) with Oscar Wiel (Museum of Connecticut History)

Kellogg tried to resume his career path as a druggist but found himself disconnected and isolated, according to an article in Zocalo Public Square. When a local deacon died, he wrote in his diary that he felt numb: “Death seems to have lost its solemnity in me since ‘Andersonville.’”

He later moved to Ohio and published his book. Kellogg worked for years to ensure “thousands of brave men” were not forgotten. He died in 1932. The Connecticut Historical Society has his diaries, letters to his parents and military service records, among other items.

The Museum of Connecticut History in Hartford contains numerous photographs of Kellogg and some information about this life. (Special projects curator Christine Pittsley was helpful while I researched this post.)

One of only a handful of photographs of Andersonville (National Park Service)

Mary Gorman, author of a book about the Andersonville Raiders and a member of the Descendants of Andersonville Prison Facebook page, says Kellogg’s is probably the best Andersonville memoir, drawing from his vivid diary.

“If you want to get the truest picture of Andersonville, stick mostly with diaries and the memoirs published within the first 5 years” after the war, Gorman wrote when I asked followers of the Facebook page about Kellogg.

McNutt concluded his paper outlining the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by Civil War prisoners.

“The restructuring of masculine identities, the resistance both physical and symbolic, the creation of crafts and games, such as chess pieces found under the brick oven at Lawton, all served to combat the depression and mental effects of long confinement, a final deadly symptom of structural violence of the internment system, through action and engagement,” he wrote.

“Acts of resistance, effective or ineffective, were acts of survival.”