A Penman’s Legacy
As a captive at Andersonville, young Dorence Atwater risked his life to keep a secret list of the men who died in the infamous prison.
In 1875 Union veteran Dorance Atwater married a princess and lived happily ever after. The Connecticut native deserved this fairy tale ending because, like all protagonists of the genre, he first endured misery, losing his health in Confederate prison camps and being unjustly imprisoned by the United States after the war.
Atwater probably gave his age as 18 on September 1, 1861 when he enlisted, his 5′ 11″ height belying his true age of 16. He took part in several engagements with the 2nd New York cavalry, but his superiors frequently detailed him as a messenger because of his excellent penmanship. While serving as a courier on July 7, 1863, Atwater was captured near Hagerstown, Maryland by Confederate forces retreating from the Battle of Gettysburg.
Initially imprisoned on Belle Island in Richmond, Atwater was transferred in December, possibly because of his penmanship. “I then,” he later wrote, “went to Smith’s Tobacco Factory, Richmond, where I kept the account of supplies received from our Government and issued to Federal prisoners of war.” In February, he was among the early prisoners sent to Camp Sumter at Andersonville, arriving there on March 1, 1864.
Atwater’ s health declined steadily after his capture, and in mid-May 1864, he was sent to the Andersonville prison hospital. A month later, he had recovered sufficiently to ply his penmanship skills again. “On the 15th of June,” wrote Atwater some years later, “I was paroled and detailed as a clerk in Surgeon J. H. White’s office, to keep the daily record of deaths of all Federal prisoners of war. I also made monthly and quarterly abstracts of the deaths, the latter one was said to be for the Federal Government . . . .”
Doubting that the Confederates would keep their word about sharing information regarding the Andersonville deaths with United States authorities, young Atwater surreptitiously copied a second list including each desceased prisoner’s name, company, regiment, and home state alongside the date and cause of his death. In addition, Atwater noted the number of the unmarked grave in which each soldier lay in the Camp Sumter cemetery. He secreted each day’s work in the lining of his coat before returning to his hovel within the prison pen.
In February 1865, Sherman brought pressure to bear on northwest Georgia, and the Confederates began emptying Andersonville. Atwater was sent to Columbus, South Carolina, carrying his clandestine list of 12,658 names in his laundry bag. A month later he, the bag, and the list reached Camp Parole outside Annapolis, Maryland. Built in 1863, the camp was a facility at which paroled Union prisoners awaited exchange and were given baths, haircuts and shaves, clean clothing, and medical attention.
Shortly after reaching Camp Parole, Atwater wrote Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, “asking for a furlough of thirty days” during which he would publish the death list “for the relief of many thousands anxious in regard to the fate of their dead.” Before a reply could be received, the camp commandant granted Atwater a furlough to his home in Terryville, Connecticut.
Atwater’s homecoming was bittersweet. He learned his mother had died during his enlistment, and he fell ill the day after his arrival, suffering from typhoid and diphtheria. On April 12, a mere three weeks into his recovery, Atwater received a telegram from the War Department instructing him to bring his list to Washington immediately. Against his doctor’s advice, Atwater complied.
As instructed, Atwater went to the War Department to meet with Colonel Samuel Breck of the Adjutant General’s office. Unfortunately, he arrived on April 14, 1865, when Colonel Breck and many dignitaries were in Charleston for the symbolic re-raising of the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumpter on the fourth anniversary of its surrender. One dignitary, the Commander-in-Chief, was not among them, preferring to attend a play at Ford’s Theatre.
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Shortly after Easter, as Washington reeled in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination, Atwater met with Breck. The Colonel informed him Secretary Stanton had authorized payment of $300 for the Andesonville death list. When the youth explained that he only wanted the names published for the benefit of the soldiers’ families, Breck declared that if Atwater attempted to publish the list, the government would confiscate it as contraband material. In actuality, Breck already possessed the list, Atwater’s having naively left it “with the chief clerk for safe keeping” on April 14. Breck gave Atwater until the next morning to decide whether he would accept the money.
Fearing the list he had risked his life to create, conceal, and transport would pass from his control forever, Atwater presented Breck with a counteroffer. He agreed to accept the $300, provided that he be employed as a clerk in the War Department and that his original list would be returned to him once it was copied. Breck agreed on the condition that Atwater, whose military enlistment had expired, enroll in General Service in order to receive the clerkship. Atwater wrote later that upon reluctantly agreeing to that condition, he was told to officially muster out of his unit, return home to arrange his personal affairs, and “return for the duty by the first of June.”
One can only speculate about each man’s motives during this mutually distrustful exchange. Atwater had no desire to profit from his list, but once he perceived the government did not intend to release it immediately, he likely wanted to remain as close to it as possible and be able to advocate for its publication. He would have needed the $300 dollars and a clerk’s salary to pay living expenses while in Washington.
On the other hand, the proliferation of greed, graft, and corruption in the capital city during the war may have caused Breck to doubt Atwater’s altruistic intent. Having the young man work under him in General Service gave Breck more control over Atwater.
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Twenty-year-old Dorence Atwater returned to Washington in June saddened and confused. His father, Henry Atwater, had died on April 25th, succumbing to diphtheria contracted while nursing Dorence a few weeks earlier. As he struggled with this personal loss, young Atwater learned that the goverment had not yet copied his death rolls. When he asked for permission to copy his list at his residence after business hours, he was denied. Young Atwater thus found himself at war with the War Department and in need of an ally. He found one in Clara Barton.
In 1865 Barton was head of the Missing Soldiers Office, helping families learn where and when their soldier sons and husbands had died. She posted lists of missing soldiers in public places, asking that anyone with knowledge of those men respond to her. According to Stephen B. Oates, a Barton biographer, Atwater saw one of her lists in a post office in June of 1865 and wrote to her for an appointment. When the two met, Barton realized the value of Atwater’s list. Even more significant was her recognition of the youth’s selfless principles.
Barton immediately developed a plan to go to Andersville, with Atwater, to mark the graves. Stanton approved the mission but appointed Assistant Quartermaster Captain James M. Moore, rather than Barton, to head it. The expedition, including Moore, Barton, Atwater, and forty-two workers left Washington on July 8.
The trip was arduous, involving travel by water, rail, and wagon across war torn Georgia, and personality clashes esclated its unpleasantness. Moore complained about having to travel with a female, and Barton resented Moore’s authority as head of the expedition. Moore may simply have been a sexist, but he more likely focused his wrath on Barton specifically as being responsible for his having to leave the comforts of Washington to swelter the summer away in tents beside the country’s most infamous pesthole. Tensions between the two heightened when Barton and Atwater confirmed that Moore’s men had carelessly misidentified many graves and insisted that the errors be corrected.
Neverthelelss, the mission achieved its purpose. Nearly seven weeks after leaving Washington, the party returned, having installed wooden markers on each grave in the Andersonville cemetery. Because of Atwater’s list, only 460 graves needed to be marked Unknown. In addition, the cemetery was enclosed so that animals could not damage the markers and graves.
As the project drew to its close, a messenger arrived with a request for the death list, which the government planned to use in its prosecution of Camp Sumter’s commandant, Henry Wirz. Atwater, like most of the Andersonville prisoners, hated Wirz and blamed him for the miserable conditions of the prison. Undoubtedly delighted that his list would be used as evidence against Wirz, Atwater directed the messenger to a table where his original list and a copy made by the War Department lay. The courier picked up the latter copy and left the camp. Atwater packed his orignial list in a trunk with his personal possessions when he returned to Washington.
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The members of the expedition returned to Washington the morning of August 24th, the second day of the Wirz trial. Atwater reported to Colonel Breck, fully expecting to be relieved of his duties as clerk and to return civilian life, with his list.
Breck, however, had other ideas. First, he declared that Atwater could keep his list only if he returned the $300 he had been paid in the spring. This reversal of the agreement, Breck claimed, was because Atwater was going to “set [himself] up in business by publishing” the list. Atwater, feeling he had complied with the guidelines of their agreement, refused to return either the money or the list and found himself under arrest.
After spending two days in the guard house, Atwater was transferred to the Old Capital Prison where, ironically, Wirz was also incarcerated. Atwater was court-martialled on the charge of having stolen his list from the government when he left Andersonville at the conclusion of the grave-marking expedition. He was convicted and dishonorably discharged. Additional punishment included a $300 fine and 18 months of hard labor. The latter would be extended indefinitely until Atwater paid the fine and returned the “stolen property” to the War Department. He, of course, did neither and was sent to Auburn State Prison in New York on September 26, 1865.
Clara Barton worked to have Atwater released, involving such notables as Horace Greeley in letter-writing campaigns. Some sources claim she secured his freedom shortly before Christmas, but his release was actually part of a general pardon issued by President Andrew Johnson for all prisoners convicted by courts martial of crimes other than murder.
Barton was, however, helpful in other ways. Atwater’s intention to publish the list for the benefit of soldiers’ families was still unrealized. As the roll was lengthy, Barton prevailed upon Horace Greeley to publish it in 1866 as a pamphlet, “A List of the Union Soldiers Buried at Andersonville.” In addition to the names of the victims, the publication contained an introduction by Atwater, “To the Surviving Relatives of the Martyred ‘Dead’ at Andersonville, Georgia.” (All quotations attributed to Atwater in this article are from this source.) Barton’s official report of the work of the cemetery project also appeared in the pamphlet, which sold for a small fee to offset printing costs. Atwater did not profit from sales of the list.
Atwater and Barton developed a deep friendship. She employed him as her secretary and business manager, and he accompanied her on lecture tours for a time. In 1868, Barton’s political influence resulted in Atwater’s appointment as United States Consul to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Three years later, he was transferred to Tahiti, where he met and in 1875 married his princess, the European-educated daughter of an English businessman and a Tahitian royal. An astute businessman, Atwater became wealthy and built a home in San Francisco, he and his wife dividing their time between there and Tahiti.
Dorence Atwater died in San Francisco on November 26, 1910, following years of ill health attibutable to his Civil War imprisonments. In 1912, his body was reburied in Tahiti in the only royal funeral ceremony ever held for a nonroyal there. The residents of his adopted land erected a magnificient 7,000-pound marker on his grave to express their love for Atwater. Thousands of miles away rows of simple markers showed his love for his fellow soldiers.
