Andersonville,the Story of Wilson's Raiders

Abstract

The concluding American Civil War spectacle-drama, announced and widely publicised as Andersonville, The Story of Wilson's Raiders (1905), was abruptly retitled The Raiders as the New York Hippodrome's management removed the scene depicting the Confederate prison on the pretext of avoiding partisan sensibilities linked to the war, but more likely to shorten the evening's programme by a half-hour. This essay describes the drama as it was written and rehearsed beginning with a West Point graduation and commissioning ceremony as the announcement of war divides the graduates and separates couples whose romance has spanned northern and southern states. The five-scene drama concludes with a fierce cavalry battle utilising the ‘Thompson and Dundy plunging horses’ in the Hippodrome's flooded arenas. The drama enacts the graduation and commissioning of a young Union officer, his enforced separation from his Southern sweetheart, his capture by Confederate forces, and imprisonment in the notorious and filthy Andersonville prison. We witness his ingenious escape, his reunion with his sweetheart, and his return to battle leading a cavalry detachment. This essay documents the effects created in each scene of the entertainment, which concludes with an imagined re-enactment of a conflict fought by mounted Union and Confederate cavalrymen in the Hippodrome's two arenas, now a vast tank, flooded before the audience's eyes as a part of the overall spectacle. The essay also notes the frequent unsubstantiated claims of historical authenticity made by Fred Thompson and Elmer ‘Skip’ Dundy and, where necessary, corrects them.