Libby Prison War Museum: Site of Commemoration or Commercial Enterprise

Abstract

Throughout the late-nineteenth century, survivors of Civil War military prisons actively sought recognition, and in some cases recompense, for their suffering. Their captivity narratives and their growing commemorative efforts coincided with other attempts to tell the true history of the Civil War and its prison camps. One of the public spaces of commemoration that appeared as part of this larger effort was the Libby Prison War Museum. Within just three months of the opening, more than 100,000 people visited the museum. The opening of the Libby Prison War Museum, however, unearthed feelings of animosity in Union ex-prisoners of war. During its brief time as a tourist attraction, veterans of the conflict, ex-prisoners in particular, struggled to reconcile the museum’s advertised purpose and interpretations with their own memories of the war.