This fact that no one was executed by federal authorties makes a striking contrast with rebel actions, where hundreds of loyal southerners were executed simply for standing by the old flag.
Stand Watie wrote:
name ONE!
Wernell, Richard Martin, Burch, H.J. Esmond, Ward, Evans, Clem Woods, Wolsey, Manon, Leffel, A.B. McNiece, Wash Morris, Wesley Morris, Thomas Floyd, John CRisp, James Powers, Rama Dye, J. Dawson, Wiley, Barnes, Milburn, W. Anderson, Gross, Ward, Dr. Johnson, Childs, Sr., Childs, Jr. Hampton, Locke, Foster, Fields, D. Anderson, D. Taylor, R. Manton, Jones, Carmichael, Henry Cochran
These are some of the loyal Union men hanged in Texas simply for being loyal to the old flag.
There is no parallel to this on the Union side.
Walt
those people were criminals, whose loyalty to the union was not in question, but who had planned terrorist acts against citizens of the state of TX.
sorry, but as usual you're wrong, scalawag.
free dixie,sw
They were hanged for involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow Texas. Some were even reported to have bragged of their plot's continuation in other hands as they were being readied for execution.
There is no parallel to this on the Union side.
Yes there is, and in fact it was far worse. Yankee Gen. Robert Milroy's murder lists from Tennessee dispatched troops to track down civilians in their homes and execute them without trial. Some of those lists contained in excess of 50 names a piece. They also ordered the civilians to be executed in bizarre, excessively cruel, highly unusual, and indisputably unlawful manners.
One of the orders had them hang civilians from a door frame with a slip knot to ensure a slow and painful death. The soldiers even tugged at the legs of their victims during the process to make it more painful. Some of the execution victims had their bodies publicly displayed and guarded by yankee troops in the style of medieval Europe. One unit stood guard over a pile of rotting corpses in a pond for a week, forcing local civilians to endure the site and smell while refusing to even let them bury the dead. Another of Milroy's death lists orders his troops to turn over some victims to a local unionist civilian and permit him to execute them in the manner of his choosing - it was Milroy's "thank you" gift to the guy for helping the yankee cause. Perhaps the most bizarre is an order from Milroy for the execution of an elderly woman for the "crime" of encouraging her son to enlist into a confederate guerrilla division. Milroy ordered that she be shot "by accident" when the soldiers arrived at her house so as to make it look like they didn't intend to execute her.