Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Outside of Eastern Tennessee and the Wheeling region of Virginia (which wasn't really southern to begin with - it's north of the mason dixon line) the number of union troops from the south is virtually non-existant. Save for those two states, they numbered a couple thousand on average and in some cases a couple dozen. South Carolina sent zero recorded union troops for example. Mississippi sent 500, Georgia is unknown but estimated at less than a hundred, and the rest sent a couple thousand each.
So after all your whining you still got only a couple thousand, or in some cases a couple dozen, northern troops per southern state save the two anomolies I mentioned.
Tell me more about what "you read." Tell me about the "positive good" of human slavery and how the ante-bellum South represented the pinnacle of human society.
Post your stats and sources then. We already know that a higher percentage of the southern population fought in the armies than did the northern population.
the places of worship had MANY items of value stolen/vandalized/destroyed, such as irreplaceable manuscripts,bibles, prayer books,bells,doors,baptismal fonts,silver & gold serving pieces,menorahs,stained glass windows,crucifixes,money from parishioners,etc,etc,etc.
NONE of the looted/damaged/destroyed religious items had any MILITARY,TACTICAL or other similar significance. they were just "available" & thus were taken/destroyed for "FUN & PROFIT"!
FACT!
free dixie,sw
The natural right of self-preservation. Jefferson was a big advocate. You know who Jefferson is, don't you? "No man has a right to unjustly take the life and property of an innocent other ..."
Back to your original statement. The first part is a truism. However, it has no relation to the issue. I said, in war, one had the right to destroy the enemy's war-making capacity. If you take up arms against the rightful government, either as a civilian or in uniform, you can be killed. If you have a factory thats makes munitions, or a shipyard that repairs vessels, or a ranch that supplies horses, or a farm that grows food, or any activity that is used in making war, it can be destroyed.
"But intentionally going out of ones way to wage warfare upon innocent civilians like Lincoln and his henchmen did is out of the question."
Gratuitous accusations. No one who actively supports a war effort is an "innocent."
Interesting. So by that argument, HIroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and the rest of the strategic bombing of cities during WW2 would be war crimes. Is that what you're saying?
You live in a fantasy world.
"Of the colored soldiers who joined the Union effort, more than 5,000 were recruited from the state of South Carolina."
Look up the history of the 1st S.C. Colored Volunteers.
Oh, sorry. I forgot. You don't consider Africans to be people.
That one doesn't apply either. Nice try though.
Citation? Even southern propaganda will do as a starting point.
It would all depend you how you define non-existant I guess. But then I'm often puzzled by your definitions and how much they differ from the rest of the world's.
Happily. There's a huge file at the National Archives called the Union Provost Marshall's Records. It contains most of the non-battle related military correspondences from the yankee army - the day to day routine stuff that didn't make it into the Official Records series. The UPM records are loaded with orders and reports of pillage, plunder, and death all over the south. I have a photocopy of a series of orders by Gen. Robert Milroy, one of Sherman's underlings at the time, from his activities in Tennessee. One of them is a "death list" of over 50 civilians that literally looks like something out of Stalinist russia. There are three or for others over the days following that first one where he adds a couple dozen more names to the death list. The instructions on them are explicit right down to what to steal and, in some cases, the manner in which the victim should be executed.
He gave the things to bands of soldiers under his command and they spent most of January 1865 carrying it out. They note which houses have furniture that can be pillaged, which persons on it were hunters and therefore had firearms that could be confiscated in violation of the 2nd amendment, which farms had animals that could be stolen, and directions in virtually every case to torch the place after it was stripped bare of valuables. Remember that this was in the dead of winter - January - and they burned these people out of their homes.
The "execution" methods are even more bizarre. One of Milroy's instructions tells the soldiers to hang two civilians in doorframes by a slipknot - an old medieval torture method! Another house on the list has directions to shoot the husband and then dispose of the wife "by accident" while they were there. Some of this was detailed in a recent book by Michael Bradley - "With Blood and Fire"
Your original post specifically excluded slaves. As for the blacks who fought on the northern side, identification of their states - even when they were assigned to units bearing a state name - is a very difficult process. There were blacks from Massachusetts who technically fought under units bearing the names of southern states. There were also probably southern blacks who fought under units bearing the names of northern states. The best estimates suggest that just over half of the 178,000 blacks who fought came from CSA states and the rest came from the north, so the mix was very even and widespread.
Oh, sorry. I forgot. You don't consider Africans to be people.
Taking lessons from Jesse Jackson again? Or do you simply dream up a gratuitous slander upon anybody who gets the better of you in an argument.
Each must be considered individually. A "war crime" is a further subdivided category entailing specific charges against specific persons for specific acts of unnecessary brutality. It differs from an "unjust" act of war in its specificity and relative isolation around a single perpetrator or set of perpetrators to the event.
I will say though each of the cases you mentioned falls, at minimum, into that gray area between just war and unjust practices in a war. And in saying that I'll even concede that they were strategically convenient and generally helpful to winning WWII. One thing is certain though - not one of them may be clearly cited as a morally just act, which places them all among the less-than-stellar events of WWII as opposed to countless other clearly defined and clearly just actions taken by the allies.
Word games. There is no greater act of self preservation than defense of the self and home. The right to pursue that act necessarily trumps any other act of invasion, even when the invader falsely cloaks himself in self preservation or claims to be preserving something of the larger picture.
I said, in war, one had the right to destroy the enemy's war-making capacity.
And I asked you, "who gave you that right?" Did Hitler have a "right" to destroy his enemy's war-making capacity and blow up all those ships in the atlantic? By your bizarre reasoning it sounds as if he did. Did Tojo have a "right" to blow up the war-making capacity of the americans at Pearl Harbor? By your bizarre reasoning it sounds as if he did. Sorry capitan, but simply calling an act of injustice a "right" does not make it so.
If you take up arms against the rightful government,
Rightful government! BY WHAT "RIGHT" DOES IT GOVERN ANYBODY, CAPITAN? Who gave it that "right" and where did it come from? Answer me that and we'll test your little theory.
If you have a factory thats makes munitions, or a shipyard that repairs vessels, or a ranch that supplies horses, or a farm that grows food, or any activity that is used in making war, it can be destroyed.
Pearl Harbor was used for a lot of those things in 1941. Do I take it that Japan had a "right" to destroy it?
You are puzzled by a great many things, non-seq, hence your namesake's descriptive value. Sorry I can't help you any more than that, but sooner or later you'll simply have to come to terms with your impaired mental abilities.
What part of this don't you understand?
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.
also look up the memoirs of Leticia Clark Gomez of New Orleans for (her elder sister was one of the several NUNS who was assaulted at their convent in 1863.) a 1st person account.
i know you don't want to believe what federal troops did to INNOCENTS, particuliarly Roman Catholics & Jews, "the poorest of the poor", persons "of color" (particuliarly slaves!) AND recent immigrants; nonetheless the accounts are CORRECT!
the "filth that flowed down from the north" were MUCH better at ABUSING the helpless than they were at anything else.
the highest ranking union officer, that i know of, who was PERSONALLY involved in MASS ROBBERY & THEFT was MG Benjamin "The Beast" Butler, who sent BOXCAR loads of loot home to MA.
free dixie,sw
There are ruins today to the north of the Mannassas battlefield of a house once occupied by a free black farmer. During the first battle his house was temporarily occupied by the confederates. It survived unscathed and was returned intact to its owner after the battle.
When the second battle came along his house was inside the yankee lines. They "thanked" him for its use by burning it to the ground as they pulled out.
It's funny how you'll accept any account of a yankee atrocity at face value and trumpet it far and wide, but anything that casts the south in an other-than-perfect light--like Lawrence, Andersonville, or Ft. Pillow, or the extent of slavery--is all yankee lies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.