First, there were no documented atrocities by any Confederate field army. The commanders were manic on preventing looting, rape and theft. Second, Andersonville came about because Grant cancelled the policy of paroling prisoners. Yes, the conditions were horrible but not any more so than the federal prison near what became the Chicago Stockyards.
“First, there were no documented atrocities by any Confederate field army. The commanders were manic on preventing looting, rape and theft.”
——How sure are you of that statement...’no documented atrocities by any Confederate field army’? Please define atrocities, so I can understand what you mean,because I can name a several of what I would consider ‘atrocities’.
“Second, Andersonville came about because Grant cancelled the policy of paroling prisoners. Yes, the conditions were horrible but not any more so than the federal prison near what became the Chicago Stockyards.”
-——Agreed. My grgruncle was in one of the Unions prisons...he died a few years later from the treatment there.
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.
“First, there were no documented atrocities by any Confederate field army. “
Wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton_Laurel_Massacre