Posted on 02/16/2013 9:48:32 AM PST by Davy Buck
One of the things that was apparent as I researched the book on Lexington, Virginia and the Civil War, was the mistreatment of Lexington's citizens (Union and Confederate) by Union general David Hunter's army. As my memory was refreshed, I also recalled how a number of Civil War bloggers have downplayed this aspect of the war, even questioning the veracity of some of the claims of Southern civilians; while others took a "so what?" attitude and, in some cases, actually became cheerleaders in justifying such treatment for the "slave-holding rebels." They often sound more like advocates of revenge than they do objective historians . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
I hadn't heard about the 6th Tennesee Cavalry. Can you post a link about the incident? Some of those Southern Unionist vs. Southern Confederate battles got really mean for local reasons.
Your definition of atrocity wins you a “global alarming” award. I bet ya also want to ban guns.
The CSA had some excuses for poor conditions in its POW camps. The North had none. And the North treated black refugees fleeing slavery with savage indifference, and overt hostility, bordering on genocide. Those here who decry the deliberate devastation policies in the Shenandoah Valleys and elsewhere wouldn't know real evil if it kissed them. Read:
Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Jim Downs.
http://www.amazon.com/Sick-Freedom-African-American-Suffering-Reconstruction/dp/0199758727/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
Disease was rife in any large assembly of soldiers or prisoners. Medical knowledge wasn't what it is today. Doctors were needed at the front and in medical hospitals. Heating cost and sanitation much money at a time when the army was the top priority.
Even with good heating, those who weren't accustomed to Northern climates would suffer. So far as I know, though, you didn't see men reduced to ragged skeletons in Northern prisoner of war camps as they were at Andersonville.
And the North treated black refugees fleeing slavery with savage indifference, and overt hostility, bordering on genocide.
Compared to what? Compared to slavery? Providing for thousands of runaway slaves can't have been easy. Still, they were fed and housed and even taught to read and write. I'd go easy with the "genocide" if I were you.
More ex-slave refugees died of disease, exposure and starvation (@ 400,000 total) than soldiers died on either side from any cause (250,000 CSA, 350,000 Union). Union neglect of ex-slaves fleeing behind their lines was at least as lethal as Civil War combat to both sides combined.
Sick From Freedom explains this in detail. Or read the review at the Journal of Military History.
Better, buy the book from Amazon - the Kindle edition is only $12.09, and you can read it on your computer with the free Kindle application.
Thud...F-105....my Father destroyed Colonel Miller's nose film after he strafed Haiphong Harbor and the Russian ships...Little personal history. Dad was the crew chief for Miller's F-105.
“In response, all I can say is, “War is hell.””
As a Southerner, Gotta agree. We can study the war for future reference but war is Hell and there is no such thing as “war crimes”. War is nothing but what would be crimes outside of war.
Yes, Yankees Were “Far Too Ruthless”
That’s why they won. Were it fought by today’s “Rules of Engagement,” the Civil War would not yet be over.
Total war is wrought with depravity.
War should be executed in a manner which is vicious, brutal and short. Viciousness and brutality will ensure it is short.
I would have been in a pickle.
Slavery bad. Andersonville horrible. Secession fine. Plus I live in Texas... I’d probably just shut up on politics
Absolutely true. More men died from 'camp disease' in the Civil War than from combat. Measles, mumps, etc. that young men from the farms who had never ventured more that 20 miles from their birthplace with no acquired immunity suddenly thrust into camps with thousands of other people. The diseases ran rampant.
Medical knowledge wasn't what it is today.
Again totally true. But they knew very well then that you don't build latrines upstream of a drinking water supply. That was well known but exactly the situation that existed at Andersonville, and exactly the cause of the high mortality rate there. It was dysentery that killed thousands, entirely preventable, well understood at the time, and entirely the result of intentional neglect on the part of the camp commanders.
Do math much?
Before you get all wee wee upped about Andersonville read about a little place called Point Lookout Maryland.
The latrines were built properly at Andersonville. The problem was everything was overwhelmed by numbers.
As the prisoners got sick they just went wherever they were.
Historians have been looking at the death estimates from the Civil War and there is a general agreement that they are far too low. A study was done recently that compared the men to women ratio from the 1860 and 1870 censuses, and they discovered that the actual number is likely somewhere between 950,000 and 1,200,000.
I can believe they treated the Southern Unionists badly, but it you believe the Black POWs were treated well in any way, you should read this from the official US Army history.
They were not treated well in any way, and their white officers were treated even worse.
Personally, I think I would have killed myselfe before I allowed them to take me prisoner if I had been them. But I guess they didn't know what was in store for them. Young men, the fog of war and the desire to keep living.
War is always ugly.
What happened to Southern slaves was ghastly. One in ten died.
Yes I have seen that debate. The South was so devastated that records are lost and incomplete. We will never really know. BUT we can be sure that a 6 to 7 million KIA list is not unreasonable if a mass rebellion against Washington happens. But I don’t think it will as people have a lot to lose. Cable TV, NBA games, NFL, pretty good lifestyle. But if the economy collapses and food shortages take place all bets are off.
My Freep name comes from that of an old, notably clumsy, cat I had. OTOH, my paternal ancestors were Quakers and pre-war Abolitionists, one of whom lost the use of an arm in the Crater serving as a captain of colored infantry, was captured and imprisoned at Andersonville. There's an old family photo of him just after his release, and he was stick thin, with pipestem arms and legs.
Old books in my church library, published about 189-1900, detail the experiences of church members in the Freedmen's Association during and after the Civil War. I was aware of the US Army's neglect of escaped slaves from those, and their suffering, but had no idea that 10% of the prewar slave population died. Historians would do well to investigate old books of the Quaker churches for that sort of data.
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