There was a certain need to instruct the Indians on what it meant to go to war. That was the purpose of the Ranger raids in the French and Indian war. Also the purpose of the Sullivan expedition in the American Revolution. It worked. The Indians were part of the forces of France and Britain, nominally civilized.
The prison ships used by the British to murder Continental POWs through sickness also indicate less than the usual care for civilized standards. By contrast, Gen Washington impressed on his officers that captured British soldiers should be given every care, to avoid inflaming passions that would prevent an early peace.
There was a certain disappointment in US Army commanders during the War of the Rebellion when so called confederate snipers used exploding bullets, or when Gen. Wheeler put infernal devices on roads. Certainly Gen. Sherman felt freed of the normal practice of keeping rebel prisoners safe, and quite publicly put them to work clearing the roads of mines. That order quickly ended the practice of planting infernal devices, and probably saved many southern civilian lives that would have be killed by Wheeler’s mines.
“There was a certain need to instruct the Indians on what it meant to go to war. That was the purpose of the Ranger raids in the French and Indian war. “
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“It worked. “
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There were widespread attacks against colonists AFTER the Sullivan attack in RETALIATION for that attack. If its purpose was to stop them, it failed.
“The prison ships used by the British to murder Continental POWs through sickness also indicate less than the usual care for civilized standards.”
The Brits regarded the Americans as traitors. Not to excuse it, but they felt the treatment CUSTOMARILY afforded to POWs needn’t be extended to traitors.
“There was a certain disappointment in US Army commanders during the War of the Rebellion when so called confederate snipers used exploding bullets, “
This is an unproven canard leveled at both sides by their opponents. In fact there is no proof to indicate either side ever used exploding bullets. It would seem that the .58 caliber minie ball, a soft lead projectile of about 500 grains, which could tumble if improperly cast, caused horrific wounds when it hit a bone. I have fired them at a shooting range and retrieved them from the backstop for remelting. They often mushroom out to over 1” across and I use a powder charge of about 45 grains of black powder when the service charge was about 70 grains. You do the math.
Viewing wounds caused by these weapons could clearly lead a surgeon or soldier to think the enemy was using “exploding” bullets.
“Certainly Gen. Sherman felt freed of the normal practice of keeping rebel prisoners safe, and quite publicly put them to work clearing the roads of mines.”
In the modern world this is considered a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Argue as you wish, but the deliberate actions of Sherman and Sheridan in the Civil War against the civilian population of a “civilized” nation was widely regarded as something novel in the theory of warfare of that time and place.