What I Learned on My Summer Vacation
Once again, I needed a title for a service before I had the faintest idea what I might choose as a topic. I hoped I would learn something from my summer vacation that was worth sharing with you – besides, if I didn’t learn anything, that alone would be worth talking about. Almost as soon as it was in print, I regretted my choice because the first things I wanted to talk about were from a trip we took in February.
I was playing bridge in Florida and I convinced Jan to join me on the trip. We would make several stops along the way and visit friends in Savannah on our return. Early in our relationship, we took a road trip. We were at the stage one of our friends calls the “touching phase,” where the couple can’t believe how lucky they are to have found each other and the two are almost joined at the hip. The road trip was a test of sorts. Could we get along traveling together for a week?
Turns out we both have a love of secondary roads and a preference to use Interstates only when we need to make miles in a hurry. On our trip to Florida, we took two-lane roads through much of Kentucky and Tennessee and skirted the southwestern flank of the Smoky Mountains before entering the high hills of Georgia where we stayed for the night.
The next day we traveled to Atlanta specifically to visit the Carter Center and have dinner with Jan’s daughter-in-law’s parents, the Dabneys, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. The presidential primary season was upon us. I got James Dabney talking about how he and Lilly got together and learned in college he had been involved in the integration struggles in Georgia and Alabama. Jan was rooting for Obama and asked James’s opinion about a black man having a serious shot at running for president.
I don’t recall his specific answer, but it lead me to think perhaps they didn’t vote, which struck me as odd given his civil rights background. I probed on that issue, which led into a discussion of Jehovah’s Witness beliefs and practices. To our very great surprise we discovered that the line in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done” is interpreted strictly. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not vote because it purports to supplant human will for God’s. All world events are God’s will and there is not a darn thing a mere human can do to change God’s will.
I asked some clarifying questions to make sure I understood and they lead to another shocker, which I should have figured out, but hadn’t. I knew James and Lilly were very involved with regional, national and international Jehovah Witness activities and we asked more about them. The shocker was that all of the time and energy they expend are for “inreach,” Jehovah Witness activities. They spend considerable time and money constructing new and refurbishing old meeting places. Unlike mega Evangelical Christian churches, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not want congregations to grow too large. If they exceed a certain level, they split into two and build a second meeting place. Maximum congregational size is about 200 with 120 being the target.
Their outreach effort is limited to drawing in new members. Many of us have experienced their door-to-door canvass. They even made it to our camp in the deep Northwoods. After that, it is all about keeping the faith until Judgment Day.
I suppose it is the height of hubris for an agnostic like me to argue with a believer what God’s will means when it comes to world affairs. I’ve often thought we UUs spend proportionately too much time trying to help others solve their problems and too little making sure our ship is well-trimmed and fit for rough seas. There is no doubt in my mind that if God exists such an entity would not ask us to abrogate civil responsibilities like voting our conscience because we might be wrong and contravene her will. This “it’s all in your hands, Lord” is an easy out. We don’t live under a dictatorship so we do have political choices, and we need to make the right ones. The fact that we don’t always agree on what the right choice might be is why we UUs celebrate the use of the democratic process in both our religious community and in society.
This debate reminds me of a joke I heard involving a strong believer in God’s saving grace. A hurricane was gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico and the Hurricane Center predicted that the hurricane would take dead aim at this man’s town. Local governments called for all residents to voluntarily evacuate. When police knocked at his door, he insisted on staying at home. He proclaimed, “God will save me.”
The hurricane struck, flooding reached his front door and a boat operated by the firemen motored up and called for him to get in. “No,” he said. “God will save me.” Storm surge and floodwaters continued to rise and drove him onto his roof. A helicopter spotted him and lowered a rope ladder. He ducked out of its way and shouted to the pilot to leave. “God will save me,” he proclaimed.
Later that night, he reached the Pearly Gates for his interview with St. Peter. However, Peter was vacationing on the river Styx and God was covering in his absence. The believer recognized God and before God could ask the first question, the believer began berating God. “I believed in you,” he said. “But you didn’t save me.”
“Oh ye of little faith, to hell with you,” God said. “I made sure the Hurricane Center got the storm track correct and your town issued an evacuation order. Did you listen? No. Then I sent you a boat. Did you get in? No. Finally I sent a helicopter to rescue you from the roof, and you sent them away.”
An argument from the religious non-involvement perspective is that the “Law of Unintended Consequences” is too powerful for our feeble minds to counteract and, therefore, when we try to change what is, to what we think should be, we are incapable of getting it right. This dinner with the Dabneys reminded me that “faith” arguments always trump “rational” arguments. You cannot argue against “I believe this to be so.” I am so thankful I have found a fellowship of people who believe not trying is unacceptable; who know that sometimes the action chosen will bring more pain than no action.”
From Atlanta, we could have taken I-75 and arrived in Florida in a few short hours. We veered west on blue highways to travel to a spot that touches me deeply: Andersonville, Georgia. I’m sure in my Civil War studies I had heard of Andersonville, but the first time it really entered my consciousness was in 1966 when I read MacKinley Kantor’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Andersonville, which described life in and around the Confederate prison, officially called “Camp Sumter.” A few quick facts: The prison was built in 1864 to house up to 10,000 prisoners. As is the case in much of our prison system today, the prison quickly became overcrowded, with a peak population of 32,000. Clean water and sanitation, which might have worked with the intended prison population, failed. There was inadequate safe drinking water, sewage did not flush and food rations were insufficient. During its operation 45,000 union soldiers (privates through sergeants) entered Andersonville. Almost 13,000 of those exited by death.
Based on its size and mortality rate, many consider Andersonville to be the worst prison of the war. The North had its equivalent hell. In Elmira, New York, a prison started in May 1864. At its peak, it housed 10,000 prisoners. Of the 12,122 prisoners who entered the prison, 2,963 died, almost 25%. Due to overcrowding, many Elmira prisoners were forced to sleep outside without blankets. During a four month period the commandant instituted a bread and water regime causing massive scurvy – this in a food rich area of the country.
There is a UU connection to Andersonville. Near the end of the war, Abraham Lincoln appointed Clara Barton, a Universalist, and later to found the American Red Cross, to head the Missing Soldiers Office. At Andersonville, individual graves and coffins soon gave way to mass graves. Unlike many prisons of the time, by the commandant’s orders, each corpse was numbered. Dorence Atwater, one of the prisoners at Andersonville, meticulous copied these records of the deaths, including to the extent known the name, rank and unit of each because he was afraid the originals would be destroyed.
After a long, convoluted tale of bureaucratic mismanagement, Atwater learned of Clara Barton’s office. Clara was good at many things, including jumping past junior officers to get to the top of the chain-of-command. She quickly convinced the Secretary of War to authorize her, Atwater and a contingent of soldiers to travel to Andersonville to mark the graves. The original records were in Union hands, however, one book was missing and writing on many pages was blurred from water damage, so Atwater’s copies were very useful. On July 25, 1865, they arrived and placed wooden grave markers with name, rank and unit on all but 460 graves, which were marked “unknown.” Work ended on August 17, 1864 and Barton raised the Stars and Stripes over the graveyard for the first time.
In her report addressed “To the people of the United States of America,” she described the prison as she found it and with great foresight wrote:
The future of this historic spot cannot fail to constitute a subject of deep and abiding interest to the people of this entire country, and it would seem fitting that it should be preserved as one of the sanctuaries of the nation, and be in due time decorated with appropriate honors. … Both national gratitude and personal affection will suggest the erection of a suitable monument within the cemetery, where, if desirable, may be preserved in durable form the names of the martyrs who sleep around. And as the land on which all these interesting associations are clustered, is still the property of private individuals … (I)t would seem desirable that the cemetery at least, and its immediate surroundings, become the property of the nation. A mile square will embrace all points of general and historic interest.
It took more than twenty-five years before the Grand Army of the Republic (essentially the Union soldiers’ lobbying group) purchased the land with membership subscriptions. The Federal government acquired the land in 1910. Today the site has three main features: The National Cemetery, the prison grounds, and since 1998, the National Prisoner of War museum, which alone is worth a visit to Andersonville.
Barton’s work at the Missing Soldiers Office continued for some time and eventually resolved over 22,000 missing Union soldiers files. When the office closed, over 40,000 men were still missing. Survivors of the 40,000 missing were not eligible for back pay (the government said they couldn’t determine the last day worked) or widow’s benefits (they might not be dead.)
As interesting as the National Prisoner of War museum and the prison site are, the cemetery is what draws my return. Oh sure, I’m a sucker for cemeteries with their winding roads, sometimes quaint tombstone sayings and implied stories. In honesty, those rambles are mostly Jim, the living, lording it over the dead. This cemetery is different. No family plots. No witty, humorous or sad sayings on the tombstones. Just row after row after row; 13,000 nearly identical markers.
Stone markers eventually replaced the wooden plaques and in 1898-9, the chosen standard Union soldier gravestone one sees today replaced the variable stones. Each marks a life snuffed out as a result of war, but not as a direct result of battle. Most of these kids were captured in Virginia and shipped to Georgia as Grant’s army bore down on Richmond in the 1864 campaigns. Many died of dysentery, although the camp experienced small pox, typhoid, exposure to the elements and starvation. Soon after the camp began, a group of thieves emerged from the prisoners. They called themselves the “Raiders.” It took months before an opposing force, the “Regulators,” restored order, which included hanging six leaders of the Raiders. Their gravestones are separate from all the others.
The only person executed for war crimes relating to the Civil War was the stockade commandant at Andersonville, Captain Henry Wirtz. The North wanted vengeance. Lincoln had been assassinated and Wirtz’s superior had died shortly before the war’s end. Despite contradictory evidence, Wirtz was executed on November 11, 1865.
I walk the rows and sadness enfolds me. When buried in ones and twos in the midst of family plots the power of their deaths is lost on me. Only as I see the 13,000 together do I get a sense for the enormous cost of our human inability to resolve economic disputes without war.
What were their life stories?
#4608, Private JP Decker of the 119th Illinois Regiment, Company C – was he a draftee or did he enlist? Did it matter when he died of dysentery on August 3, 1864?
#4609 Unknown, did his fiancée die unmarried always wondering his fate? What burden did his parents hold in their hearts because they never knew what happened to their son?
#4610 Corporal Ezekiah Baker of the 64th Pennsylvania, Company K – Probably a draftee who mustered into service on January 1, 1864. Perhaps being a bit older than his peers earned him his corporal’s stripe?
How did #4611 a Navy man, BN Smith come to end his life in the midst of a landlocked prison, also dying of dysentery? Did he join as a bounty man, agreeing to serve for three years to take another man’s place?
And #4612 Jacques Eber of New York, my guess puts him as an immigrant not long from his arrival in New York harbor, escaping European wars, only to die in prison in his adopted country.
I don’t know any of this, other than their name, regiments, rank and reason for death. I know they and 69 others died on August 3, 1864. I know when I walk those rows I feel a fierce anger, but I’m not sure at whom it is directed.
Andersonville reminds me that to grow I need to spend time at disquieting areas as well as those that soothe my soul. I need the soul-warming experiences to gird me for the tougher work. This anger I experience visiting Andersonville is a signal that I have unresolved conflict somewhere. I know it is something I need to deal with and I suspect I may need to return to Andersonville to search for answers. It’s a good thing to find places that rub you the wrong way – only through abrasion are our rough edges smoothed, are the facets of our internal diamond polished to a shine.