Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: Repulican Donkey
Not. Ask the United States Colored Troops. AFAIK, there were few intentional field atrocities against white units of either side, but there were lots by CSA units against colored troops, many of which were also directed at their white officers. Nathan Bedford Forrest's troops had particularly ugly reputations in this regard.

The only effective limitation on this was the initial US Army field retaliation, which involved about 20-40 expedient hangings of newly captured Confederate personnel. This retaliation ceased immediately on Lincoln's orders, but pretty much deterred further atrocities by CSA personnel against colored troops (they were instead enslaved), excepting Forrest's who continued to murder quite a few captured colored troops for the rest of the war.

Civil wars are always ugly. The Confederates would not surrender and had to be destroyed inch by bloody inch. Tough for them. The North was outright nice compared to what Europeans would have done in the face of a refusal to surrender.

And the South didn't try guerrilla warfare only because they knew how the North would use colored troops.

30 posted on 02/16/2013 5:46:56 PM PST by Thud
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies ]


To: Thud
The 6th Tennessee Cavalry captured 21 Confederates at Middleton, Tennessee and killed one at every mile marker from there to Purdy. One was skinned alive and others were left to die after being gut shot. General Forrest in the OR states unequivocally that if he captures any member of the 6th Tennessee he will give no quarter to them. Several of these men were at Fort Pillow when Forrest and his men attacked that fort. If there had been true atrocities at Pillow, doesn't it make sense that the Union would have punished Forrest after the war? No, Sherman himself evaluated the incident and deferred charges against Forrest.
31 posted on 02/16/2013 6:17:19 PM PST by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

To: Thud

Actually the South used guerrilla tactics quite a bit. Stand Watie a Cherokee General in the Confederate Army used them effectively. Probably the most successful partisan Ranger ever was Confederate John Mosby. My Mother’s GGsomething belonged to Laird’s Rangers and she had another kinsman serve in the Alabama Partisan Rangers.

George Custer started the hanging of prisoners but John Mosby made him think again. Custer captured a small number of Mosby’s men and hanged them. Mosby who had always just released his prisoners via parole and promise they would not fight again, went out and captured a whole bunch of Custers men and handed 10 for every one Custer had done the same to.

That ended the murder of prisoners by Custer.

You have it exactly backwards. It was the Union which began the murder of prisoners and the Confederates who put a stop to it since they had far more Union prisoners than vice versa, especially early in the war.


32 posted on 02/16/2013 8:48:19 PM PST by yarddog (One shot one miss.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

To: Thud

First, Forrest tried to stop the Fort Pillow massacre. That’s based on Union testimony. Second, the Fort Pillow massacre pales in comparison to Union atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley and Georgia. Third, why should the south have “surrendered”? The states of the Confederacy exercised their right to leave the United States. Fourth, it was not a “civil war”. Check the definition. Lincoln systematically violated the Constitution.


33 posted on 02/17/2013 5:22:53 AM PST by Repulican Donkey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

To: Thud
Read how the Union Army used black troops at Petersburg, Olustee, and Fort Waggoner. They used them as cannon fodder but to the black man's defense, they followed orders with pride and honor as they were slaughtered. The Union officers admitted using the black troops to just use up the Confederate's ammunition.

At Andersonville the black troops were treated better than were the Tennessee Unionists according to the first hand account book, Life In Rebel Prisons written and published in 1865.

40 posted on 02/17/2013 9:54:30 AM PST by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson