[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.
Even a simple google search yielded:
Key Details of the Arrests
Total Numbers: While some estimates are lower (roughly 14,000), newer research suggest up to 38,000 individuals were detained in Northern-controlled areas, including political opponents, journalists, and civilians perceived as disloyal."

I'm certain you know that both google and AI are great assistants in looking up whatever information is out there on the web, but both can be wrong and sometimes ridiculously so.

In this particular case:

1. Neely's 14,401 number of "arbitrary arrests" is not an estimate; it's a count of all available records.
   Neely does not claim 14,401 is a total or an estimate, nor does he project from that number what the total might be.

2. None of the names you listed -- Johnson, Marshall, The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865, Columbia Law Review (1921) -- are recent and none based their (alleged) numbers on actual research or careful definitions.

3. There is no recent scholarship on the topic except Neely's.

4. Everyone else, such as your Abbeville Institute quote, is simply recycling numbers from old reports which were themselves based on nothing substantial.

Bottom line: Whatever the actual total number, Neely's reporting shows that the vast majority of Union "arbitrary arrests" happened in conflict zones for:

1. Trading with the enemy
2. Blockade runners
3. Guerillas & spies
4. Draft evaders & assisting deserters
5. Contractors cheating and supplying defective goods
6. Small numbers of copperheads, agitators, newspaper editors and anti-war politicians

Neely also identified 4,108 civilian Confederates arrested by Confederate authorities for:

1. Unionism
2. Harboring or sheltering Union sympathizers
3. Anti-conscription agitation, draft resistors and civilians aiding deserters
4. Religious conscientious objectors
5. Being labeled "disloyal", “disaffected,” “dangerous,” or “unreliable” by CSA authorities
6. Claiming the CW was a “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”
7. Writing letters to relatives in Union states
8. Domestic violence against Confederate authorities
9. Hiding goods from CSA impressment officials
10. Trading with Union smugglers or forces

As I read these numbers and reasons:

1. Both governments were very aggressive in asserting their requirements for loyalty and obedience to martial-type law.
   
2. Both governments engaged in "arbitrary arrests" of civilians for war-related reasons.
   
3. Given the different population sizes, the relative scales of such arrests were roughly equal.
   
4. So neither side can claim exceptional adherence to constitutional niceties in the midst of an existential civil war.

[Mr. K]

Wow! an intelligent discussion on FR without the name calling!

[FLT-bird]

I'm certain you know that both google and AI are great assistants in looking up whatever information is out there on the web, but both can be wrong and sometimes ridiculously so. In this particular case: Neely's 14,401 number of "arbitrary arrests" is not an estimate; it's a count of all available records. Neely does not claim 14,401 is a total or an estimate, nor does he project from that number what the total might be. None of the names you listed -- Johnson, Marshall, The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865, Columbia Law Review (1921) -- are recent and none based their (alleged) numbers on actual research or careful definitions. There is no recent scholarship on the topic except Neely's. Everyone else, such as your Abbeville Institute quote, is simply recycling numbers from old reports which were themselves based on nothing substantial. Bottom line: Whatever the actual total number, Neely's reporting shows that the vast majority of Union "arbitrary arrests" happened in conflict zones for: Trading with the enemy Blockade runners Guerillas & spies Draft evaders & assisting deserters Contractors cheating and supplying defective goods Small numbers of copperheads, agitators, newspaper editors and anti-war politicians

Neely's number is an actual count though he acknowledges there were more that were not accounted for in the spotty official records. Everything between 14,400 and 38,000 is an estimate. We'll never know for sure. Different historians have reached different conclusions though from everything I've read, few believe it was as low as 14,400 or as high as 38,000. It was somewhere in the middle of those two estimates.