Almost a century and a half ago, one of my forebears was a captive in the Andersonville Confederate prison camp near Americus, Georgia. He was one of a handful who successfully escaped that death-trap, and found his way to the Union lines. Fortunately for him, the Union lines at the time were in Northern Georgia, as “Uncle Billy” Sherman and his men were occupying Atlanta.
I’ve been hooked on history since I first read a family history that included that episode, and I’ve fed that interest with a lot of reading and a little independent research about The War (I live in Atlanta – I am contractually required to capitalize all references to the conflict).
Andersonville is now home to the National Prisoner of War Museum, and a National Military Park. The graveyard that sprung up outside this hellhole of a prison now is a place where honored dead from several military conflicts are buried.
There is a phrase in our vernacular that appears to have been born at Andersonville, one for which you would probably never guess its origins – the deadline.
Andersonville was built to house Union soldiers captured in battle. As The War progressed, the stockade was enlarged, but was never large enough for the number of captives it would eventually hold. 45,000 men spent some time at Andersonville; nearly 13,000 died there. Men wrote later of having to sleep crammed together for lack of space. Food was lacking, water was scarce.
There was a fence around the prison; a wall of pine with armed guards who were given status and rewards if they shot a prisoner trying to escape. The definition of an “attempt to escape” was fairly loose – there was a line about thirty feet from the wall, referred to as “the dead-line.” Anyone who crossed that line was considered a target. Some wrote that many were shot who merely sat near the line, or reached over to pick up a dropped fork or tent peg.
Some were pushed across by other prisoners wanting their tents or food.
Some ran across screaming when the confinement became too much.
If I miss a deadline, I am rebuked; rarely have shots been fired.
One of the books I’ve read about Andersonville, written by a survivor, was titled “Dancing on the Dead Line” and I’ve had a few conversations recently that made me think of this book.
Some of the men made a game of dancing with the deadline – seeing how close they could get without a guard raising a rifle. It was a foolish game, but these men didn’t have a lot of options to occupy their time.
I see a lot of the same foolishness in men around me (and myself). We know where the line is, and we know that to cross it would be deadly (relationally, if not physically); yet we still approach. We tiptoe up, watching to see if anyone is looking. Satisfied that we have not yet been detected, we wave a toe over the line. If we don’t hear a rifle being cocked, we might even stick a whole foot over. Oh, we’re so careful not to put that foot down – we don’t really want to die.
But we linger in that moment where we are getting away with something.
Were I a sane man, I would stay well back from the line. I would learn that men who dance on the dead line can sometimes slip, stumble, or even be pushed. I would recognize that there are others who would follow in my footsteps (he got away with it – let me try). I would know that one can only tempt fate for so long before a little unexpected breeze shifts my balance, bringing me down heavily on the wrong side of the line.
Now for the really insane part – I’m not in the prison. I am standing outside the walls, and I have been freed. Have I become so institutionalized that I would try to get back inside those walls?
Sometimes, it would appear so.
Sometimes it seems that I am determined to dance my way across the dead line that surrounds the prison, expecting that I can do so without fear of death.
Sometimes it would appear that I haven’t learned much.
