There was sniping being done on shipping once Vicksburg had fallen and the Union started to use the Mississippi again. Some Confederates decided to deny the north unfettered access to the river and attacked shipping. But they did so secretly. They were using guerilla war tactics. The response was swift. The Union showed up to the nearest town, rounded up 10 able bodied, war aged men at random. And then executed them for the attacks. iirc, the attacks stopped.
General Butler also ordered that hostile women in New Orleans, be treated as prostitutes if they disrespected union forces. At the time, those women were openly defiant and would even go so far as to empty their chamber pots on union soldiers walking the streets below them. For this “atrocity” the South put a bounty on the “beast”, Gen. Butler. I guess this was a pretty severe way to treat women in that day and age, judging by the south’s response. Again, the effect was that the women stopped being openly disrespectful and hostile towards the Union.
FYI, the Wolverines in Germany who were resisting occupation in 1946 that you refer to, also stopped their activity when German men were rounded up at random and executed for attacks against Americans.
You can be mad about such tactics, but in all three cases above, the Union/America achieved its goals with such use of force. As for the German officers being executed for similar acts, I can only say we had a double standard. I guess that is a luxury you have when you are the victor.
I wasn’t referring to the postwar Wolverines of Germany.
I was referring to the Nazi policy of executing villagers in areas where partisans were active.
That was a war crime that resulted in the execution of German officers. And it was no different than the murder of Southern civilians by Sherman.