Haunted by atrocity
Subtitle: Civil War prisons in American memory
By: Benjamin G. Cloyd
Series: Making the modern South
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Baton Rouge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 251
ISBN-13: 9780807136416
Description: The first study of Civil War memory to focus exclusively on the military prison camps, Haunted by Atrocity offers a cautionary tale of how Americans, for generations, have unconsciously constructed their recollections of painful events in ways that protect cherished ideals of myth, meaning, identity, and, ultimately, a deeply rooted faith in American exceptionalism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: "Our souls are filled with unutterable anguish" atrocity and the origins of divisive memory, 1861-1865; title: "Remember Andersonville" recrimination during Reconstruction, 1865-1877; title: "This nation cannot afford to forget" contesting the memory of suffering, 1877-1898; title: "We are the living witnesses" the limitations of reconciliation, 1898-1914; title: "A more proper perspective" objectivity in the shadow of twentieth-century war, 1914-1960; title: "Better to take advantage of outsiders' curiosity" the consumption of objective memory, 1960-present; title: "The task of history is never done" Andersonville National Historic Site, the national POW museum, and the triumph of patriotic memory.