Numbering all the Bones

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2002

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapter 14-Author’s Note

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Unchallenged Atrocities

The novel’s main concern centers around the mystery of why civilians living in the area around the Andersonville prison camp did not decry or intervene in the face of the inhumane conditions that were forced upon the Union prisoners. In the prologue, set long after the camp has been turned into a memorial, Eulinda states she is continually asked how people could live near such a place and not do something about it. The question emerges several times throughout the course of the narrative, often asked in ironic ways. The most egregiously perverse restatement of the question comes from Wirz, the commandant of the camp. He complains to Mistis about the local citizens who pay to climb up the parapets and stare at the prisoners. He asks what kind of people they are, implicitly admitting to the horrors of the camp as he wonders why they react like visitors to a zoo rather than witnesses to an atrocity.

The question is answered through the portrayal of the reaction of nearby citizens like the Kellogg family. Hampton visits the camp twice and is so repulsed he begins to suffer mental and physical symptoms. His reaction is worse because he knows his son resides in a northern prisoner-of-war camp. Rather than challenging Wirz and the conditions at Andersonville, he retreats inward, saying he wants nothing to do with Wirz. Two other descriptions of the reactions of area civilians are provided that offer insight into the collective perception of the camp. One occurs when Eulinda looks inside in hopes of seeing Neddy. The attitudes of the well-heeled citizens beside her are that the prisoners are less than human, as they taunt them and throw crusts of bread toward the starving men. The second is illustrated when Clara is invited to a tea at Pond Bluff to meet the finer local women. While they discuss many topics, the prison camp is never mentioned. In this, the area citizens demonstrate emotional denial about Andersonville and their denial continues after the war.

There are those who were not in denial. These include enslaved individuals like Sancho, who prophetically condemns the atrocities and Eulinda, who helps bring Janie Hunt and her baby from the camp. William Griffin, who served as a Confederate officer and was not near Andersonville while it was in operation, directly confronts the prison’s atrocities instead of choosing denial. These individuals express feelings of guilt and remorse, even though there was nothing they could have done to intervene. Thus, ironically, those who could have had a positive impact are in denial, while those who would have acted were powerless to do so.

Becoming True to Oneself

Of all the narrative threads, the most persistent and significant to Eulinda is her journey toward personal authenticity, which she refers to as “becoming true.” In the earlier sections of the book, Eulinda calls herself “namby-pamby” because she waffles back-and-forth over whether she belongs to the white Kelloggs in the plantation house—after all, she is Hampton’s daughter—or the enslaved Black people in their quarters because she, too, is enslaved. She admits that she can “be bought,” with privileges and treats. Enslaved people like Iris, Moll, and Sancho all confront her, as Neddy did before escaping from the Pond Bluff, about her indecision. Eulinda makes it her priority to become true. Given the opportunity to escape to the North, she refuses in part because she has not yet become true.

Throughout the narrative, many individuals achieve authenticity and provide Eulinda with an example of how to achieve it for herself. Neddy, who stole the ring that instigated the sale of Zeke to other slave owners, joined the Union army to fight for freedom, and refused to acknowledge Hampton as his owner even though it meant his death in Andersonville. William is so troubled by the disgrace experienced by the soldiers who fought against him that he leads the restoration and memorializing of the prison camp. Clara, the nurse and social activist, dauntlessly pursues the welfare and rights of the injured, marginalized, and dead.

With these examples as her guide, Eulinda achieves authenticity by choosing where she belongs, devoting herself to the service of others, leaving the security of Pine Bluff, and providing financially for a family to move to freedom and new life. Her final comments are an affirmation that, at last, she has become true.

The Horrors of Slavery and Imprisonment

A continuous theme throughout the novel are the circumstances faced by enslaved people and those faced by the prisoners in Andersonville. Eulinda’s existence is hallmarked by her status as an enslaved person, and she experiences the horrors of this injustice as her family is broken apart after her little brother is accused of stealing a ring. This is just one glimpse into the lives of enslaved people as they could be cruelly punished at the whim of their owners, treated inhumanely as they had no rights, personal freedoms, or recourse beyond the intervention of their owners. Eulinda, only 13-years-old, has already experienced physical and mental torment and abuse from her father’s wives as an enslaved person.

Inhumane in its own ways were the treatments of the prisoners-of-war who were held in Andersonville. Dorence Atwater reports in the narrative that by the fall of 1865, less than a year after the camp opened, 100 soldiers a day were dying. They suffered from war wounds, pestilence, and malnutrition. Since the commandant would not allow outside civilians to bring medicine, supplies, or food into the camp, help from the outside was limited to what soldiers could buy from vendors when they went outside the stockade to bury the dead.