Well, let's just read the judge's account [paragraphs mine]:
In 1865, just after the surrender of the last Confederate forces, Wilson's Federal raiders were abroad in Middle Georgia. A detachment of these plunderers visited Meriwether County, headed for Judge Warner's home. The substance of what happened was afterwards related by him as follows:Under the Lieber Code Article 38, "Private property, unless forfeited by crimes or by offenses of the owner, can be seized only by way of military necessity", and even then, "the commanding officer will cause receipts to be given." Furthermore, Article 44 specifically stated "all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death."On the first appearance of the blue coats, all the whites on the place fled except Judge Warner and his daughter. The latter was in bed with a two-weeks-old infant and could not leave. Her father remained with her. During the next few hours some cavalry detachments stole all the property they could carry with them. About noon, another party arrived, and stopping, fed their horses, stole the silverware and all other valuables they could find. And robbed the smokehouse and pantry of all contents.(See paper by Hon. John W. Akin, "Hiram Warner," in Report of the Fourteenth Annual Session of the Georgia Bar Association ... 1897).Judge Warner helpless, witnessed all this in silence, when suddenly the leader put a pistol to his head and ordered him to accompany them. Between the mansion house and the negro quarters was a small piece of woodland. To this the captain conducted the Judge and there the leader, wearing the uniform of a Federal caption, took from his pocket his watch, and said: "I will give you just three minutes to tell where your gold is hidden." Judge Warner protested that he had no gold. To this the reply was that they had been informed that he did have it and that he must deliver it up. He again denied that he had any. They then searched him.
They found on his person some four thousand dollars in Confederate money and fifteen thousand in Central Railroad bills, of which they relieved him. At the end of three minutes the captain gave a signal. One of the troopers took from a horse a long leather strap with a running noose at the end. Some of the others beat down the end of a near-by pine sapling. With an oath, the officer said the sapling was too small, and ordered them to select a large and stouter tree for their lynching bee. This was done, the judge remaining silent.
One of the straps was adjusted about his neck, and the other securely fastened to the tree. The sapling being held by several of the uniformed soldiers, was gradually released until the line became taut, when they let go the tree, and the body of this great and good man was suspended in the air. When he revived, he was on the ground, but with the hangman's noose still around his neck. The men still surrounded him. Again he was ordered to give up his gold, under penalty of death. He made the same brief reply to this demand, that he had made to the others of like import.
Again, he was strung up and the sapling released. Judge Warner related that this was about 2 o'clock in the day. When the sun was nearly down he recovered consciousness. He lay at the foot of the tree. The noose had been removed from his neck. The dry leaves of the preceding autumn had been fired and were burning within a foot or two of his head. The soldiers had left him for dead and had set fire to the woods. He was barely able to make his way back to the house and to the bedside of his sick daughter. He himself lay ill for many days thereafter. He was confident that those soldiers belonged to a regiment of Wisconsin cavalry. Such, substantially, is Judge Warner's own account of this experience.
Warren Grice, Georgia Through Two Centuries, E. Merton Coulter, ed., New York, NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Co. (1965), vol. I, pp. 304-306.
Sherman wrote, "There is a class of people [Confederates], men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." And "the war will soon assume a turn to extermination not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people." In 1863 he wrote, "I and every commander must go through the war justly chargeable with crimes."
Please refer back to the original post on this subject - the claim was thousands, not tens of thousands.
According to Beverly & Thomas Lowry (authors of numerous books and creators of the courts martial database), of the 100,000 Union courts-martial, some 350 men were officially found guilty of rape (as an aside, in their review of over 5,000 Confederate courts-martial, 0 were for rape). Of the Union courts martial, 24,188 were guily of desertion. Additionally, they note that not all rapes are reported as such, many are cited as 'conduct prejudicial'. Furthermore, that is only those officially charged, just as today, far more incidents occur than are reported. And even then, what Southern woman could expect justice from the Yankees that just destroyed their farm and stole all their property?