The Smoked Yank

While reading A P.O.W.’s Story, I learned that an entire body of literature exists about the time people spent in P.O.W. camps, concentration camps, and the like outside of the Holocaust and outside of the Soviet gulag.  Since man’s inhumane treatment of his fellow man seems to be as old as time, many of these works are also quite old, including a number exploring P.O.W. prisons during the American Civil War.  I have never been a huge Civil War buff, but I do hold an appreciation for the role it has played in America’s great history.  Some of that appreciation has been gained while visiting the famous battlefields like Gettysburg and Manassas.  Some has come from reading and coming to better understand the conflict and the stakes at hand.

The Smoked Yank by Melvin Grigsby (available for free from Google Books), tells the story of one soldier’s time in the Confederate P.O.W. prison in Andersonville, Georgia.  It is really the author’s entire wartime experience, so we learn about his role in the Union cavalry before being captured, his time in Andersonville and other prisons, and, then, his time on the run as an escaped prisoner.  The account is very interesting and quite adventurous as there are battles, chases, escapes, secret plots, first love, hide-outs, and a happy ending.  The author was a patriotic Northerner who believed that black people deserved better treatment.  He left school to join the army.  He fought honorably in the cavalry before being captured.  His initial few months as a P.O.W. were sometimes uncomfortable, but not too much trouble, as he and the other men were treated more-or-less humanely.  Some Southerners were even kind enough to provide supplies to the prisoners or lend them books.  Later, though, they were transferred to Andersonville.  The prisoners didn’t know what awaited them there, but they soon found out.  Hygiene was almost non-existent thanks to swampland that served as a latrine for a camp that often housed triple (or more) the number of people it was designed for.  Food was in drastic short supply.  Disease, which was the number one killer in the war, raged in the camp, too.  There were also executions of the Union soldiers, which the author didn’t seem to find too out of line, and Union-on-Union violence, which is one of the larger subtexts to the prison’s story in later academic studies of the prison.  Eventually, the author finds a way to make his escape, and then spends (if I was following things correctly) a few months on the road running from Rebels back to the North.  The story of the escape is just as intriguing as his time in Andersonville, if not more so.  He is helped at almost every turn by the slaves, who, with one notable exception, are grateful for the Northerners’ sacrifices in securing their freedom.  There are many close calls, a lot of time spent hidden away in the swamplands of the South, and a lot of risk.  Eventually, the author makes it back to his family in the North.

I enjoyed the book and, as mentioned, thought it had a nice mix of information and adventure in the telling of the story.  I was, maybe, a little underwhelmed by the author’s description of the infamous prison, but I think his experience, which was not as lengthy as that of many others, was a little different.  It was very similar to other stories in the same vein because Grigsby was someone who wasn’t going to let things just happen to him.  He was always looking for the next way out, the next work party join, or the next scheme inside the prison yard to stay active.  The story of his escape, which simply would not have been possible were it not for the help of what was essentially the Underground Railroad, although he never called it that, was a highlight for me.  It seemed the good in the human spirit was on display as so many people, who were still technically slaves, opened their homes to a white man and provided him with food, blankets, medicine, sometimes at great personal risk.  Like most good books, this one had a few good lessons packaged inside an intriguing and inspiring story of adventure.

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