The problem with all of these is that we don't really know what happened. Partisans for both sides make the other sound bad and absolve themselves of all blame. I fully acknowledge that the Union soldiers did bad things in conquering and occupying the south. But I can't accept the Lost Causers' refusal to acknowledge that the boys in gray ever did a single bad thing during the war.
They are far fewer than you may think. Take Fort Pillow for example. The majority of the most far fetched stories of torture, brutality, etc. came from people who were not even within 100 miles of the battle. The eyewitness versions on both sides generally don't contain that stuff. They note that it was a brutal and bloody battle. They note that killing was indiscriminate. And they also note that the yankee command was virtually non-existant with all sorts of contradictory disorganized orders being issued. But that's where the reliable witnesses stop.
At Lawrence, the tales aren't all of clean executions of the Jayhawker leadership. The stories are of 17 year old store clerks being ordered to open safes, then being shot.
I don't doubt that there were, however as I noted previously, Lawrence was not a wholly innocent town in the matter. There are always people who get caught in the crossfire and innocents who get killed in the heat of a battle like that.
At Andersonville, the stories aren't about disease and starvation, but about guards tossing a bit of food over the dead line, then happily shooting the starving prisoner who went for it.
Don't recall ever reading that one, though I do know of several witnesses at Point Lookout, reporters among them, who wrote about a game the guards played - fire some indiscriminate shots over the fence then accumulate points based on who had the most "hits." What I do know of Andersonville though is that the medical reports confirm stomach disorders were by far the largest cause of death.
As for Ft. Pillow, here's an except from a letter written home by one confederate soldier: "The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor, deluded negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The white men fared but little better.... I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued."
That's the supposed version of a soldier named Achilles Clark, which has never been considered reputable. It's material and authenticity has been disputed since the 19th century not long after it was first published. Virtually every other source on the battle, including some northern ones, say that Forrest arrived on the scene and almost immediately reigned in any brutality. One of them is Charles Fitch, the yankee garrison's surgeon, who stated that the confederate officers arrived on the scene, quickly called down any men who were engaged in brutality, and placed a guard around the medical area to ensure that his attempts to treat the wounded were not interfered with.
The problem with all of these is that we don't really know what happened.
Indeed we don't, but we can cipher through the credible stories and the non-credible ones to get a general idea. When you do that you will find that stories that portray Fort Pillow as anything more than an extremely violent route of the fort in which some brutalities occured, but seldom if any time beyond the heat of the battle itself.
in point of fact, NO CIVILIAN was injured there, much less killed.
EVERY SINGLE one of the dead were either Jayhawkers, 5th KS Volunteer Cavalry or a Redleg.
ALL of the dead were MURDERERS/RAPISTS/ROBBERS/ARSONIST, who had committed VERIFIED atrocites against CIVILIANS. EVERY ONE!
you have been LIED TO and made a FOOL of by the LIARS of the REVISIONIST school.
free dixie,sw