Military Justice & Other Oxymorons Abraham Lincoln v the Sioux

The Texas Mercury ^ | March 26, 2002 | Paul Weber

[Restorer]

http://www.civilwarhome.com/prisons.htm

The Dix-Hill Cartel failed by midyear, for reasons including the refusal of the Confederate, Government to exchange or parole black prisoners. They threatened to treat black prisoners as slaves and to execute their white officers. There was also the problem of prisoners returning too soon to the battlefield. When Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, most of those Confederate prisoners who were paroled were back in the trenches within weeks.

The discussions on exchange lasted until October 23, 1862, when Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton directed that all commanders of places of confinement be notified that there would be no more exchanges. This decision would greatly affect the large numbers of prisoners in northern and southern prison camps. The so-called "holding pens" now became permanent prisons.

[rdf]

Thanks, but I won't get in on this one. I know less than I would like to about the Sioux question, and I think it less important than slavery/secession.

On the current question, I do think we should be careful about the use of Military Tribunals.

I am more concerned just now about DF business [the wonderful civics legislation, for instance] and the gross errors in the writing of Dr. DiLorenzo about the central issues of slavery and secession.

Best to you,

Richard F.

[Colt .45]

My ... myyyyyyyyyyyy! How convenient it is that you forget to mention the Sand Creek Massacre, and Wounded Knee which were both committed by troops under the auspices of the U.S. Army. And how about those thousands of small pox infested blankets the government gave to the Indians under the guise of "taking care of them". Let's not forget the good old Indian pacification of the Western States. The numerous treaties that were made by the US Army and the US Government only to be broken a few short years later.

But I digress ... its only us Southerners who are capable of atrocities according to you Yankee types.

[Restorer]

What makes you think I'm a Yankee?

We were discussing the particular events surrounding the Great Minnesota Sioux Uprising. If you want to get into a recitation of the competitive atrocity-committing of white vs. red men over the last 400 years, we are going to be here a LONG time. If one were to total it all up, it's probably very close to a draw, with the white men winning on quantity (number of killings) and the red men winning extra points for quality (brutality of many of the deaths).

I find the sympathy of some for the murderous activities of many Indians somewhat amusing, when they have none at all for present-day Muslim terrorists. Most of them at least are just trying to kill, not developing the most creative ways to torture their captives to death as slowly as possible. I wonder how they would feel if it were their own family members who had been tortured to death.

[Twodees]

So, let's simply come all the way home and admit that mostof the people killed in that uprising were combatants, what do you say? Let's also stipulate that the 600 included Dakota deaths as well.

I'll accept that you didn't mean to imply that 600 innocents were tortured and killed. That wasn't an implication on your part, it was a bald statement and a lie. That being the case, I would guess that you meant to silence someone by simply telling a lie to make them shut up. Are you quite sure now that you have your story straight? It doesn't matter now, you know. You've shown that the facts don't matter to you.

[aimlow]

Being in the military I find it kind of disturbing that so many would think that somehow the military is to corrupt to be able to have any justice.

[Twodees]

The exchange policy may have been defensible ( not that I would try to defend it) but the policy of declaring medicines contraband for the entire Confederate nation certainly isn't defensible. Another indefensible policy was that of cutting Confederate POWs rations to 1/4 and denying them medical treatment.

The Confederates asked only that Lincoln approve accepting the union POWs back because there was no food (POWs at Andersonville were being issued the same rations as Confederate soldiers in the field) and no medicines at all for them. This was because there was no medicine or anasthetics available to the CSA surgeons for their own soldiers thanks to the illegal blockade.

Union soldiers were ill and starving in Confederate prisons because the Confederates couldn't give them what they didn't even have for themselves. What was the excuse of the union prison administrators? The US was suffering from no shortage of food or medicines. They were just deliberately witholding it from the POWs in their care. Want to defend that?

[Restorer]

Despite what you say, I never said that the Sioux had killed over 600 innocents. I stated that the Sioux had tortured and slaughtered 600 men, women and children. I did not say that all of these were innocents. Many were indeed innocents, I've been unable to locate the number that were women and children and therefore presumably qualified as innocents.

You are correct. I made a mistake when I stated that the Sioux had killed over 600 men, women and children. The actual number was over 500 men, women and children. In your world, does a 20% error in a remembered number always constitute lying?

For instance, if I said the 9/11 terrorists killed 3,500 people, would I be lying or just off in my number by 20%?

How many women and children do you think need to be intentionally killed before it becomes something to be upset about? 500? 200? 100? 50?

[Restorer]

As I stated earlier, there are many things about the Union policy that I believe were morally wrong.

The fact that I believe one side was more in the right overall than the other does not necessarily imply that I agree with everything that they did. The US did a great many evil things during WWII, for instance, in order to win the war. Intentional bombing of civilians, for example. This was done, rightly or wrongly, in the belief that it would shorten the war and that almost any act that would do so was justifiable.

BTW, I believe the US has embargoed at least certain medicines to Iraq. I know they did not allow shipments of medical supplies to their enemies in WWII. Penicillin, for instance, was very carefully restricted to Allied use only, although if the secret of how to produce it had been made available to the Germans it would have saved many lives.

On what basis was an embargo against medical supplies to the South illegal, but that against other enemies of the US legal?

[Restorer]

I've looked up some additional info on the massacres. Of the 113 listed as having died in present Brown County, 47 were women and children. That's about 40%, indicating that not all the Sioux killed indiscriminately, but that some certainly did.

Extrapolating that 40% to the about 540 killed, there would be about 216 women and children killed.

Personally, I consider that enough to get upset about.

BTW, I'm equally upset by the killing of Indian women and children by American soldiers or civilians.

[one2many]

Wirz's descendants, safe in Europe, are still trying to get a pardon for this hero.
Ape Linkum would be as a booger on his boot.

[one2many]

"On another part of the line of invasion the Federal Twentieth corps, opposed only by desultory skirmishing of small Confederate bands, had made a path of destruction through Madison and Eatonton. Geary's division destroyed the fine railroad bridge over the Oconee, and the mill and ferryboats near Buckhead. On the 19th he also destroyed about 500 bales of cotton and 50,000 bushels of corn, mostly on the plantation of Col. Lee Jordan. This corps entered Milledgeville on the 20th, and Davis' corps, accompanied by Sherman, arrived next day.

I guess the stupid sh*t eats cotton along with his imbibements ;^)

[one2many]

Some degenerates liked the "facts" of Clinton, Gore, and Dukakis.

[Restorer]

http://www.si.edu/harcourt/npg/col/native/litcrow.htm

On August 5, 1851, Santee Sioux chief Little Crow signed a treaty with the federal government, ceding nearly all his people's territory in Minnesota. Though not happy with the agreement, he abided by it for many years. But in 1862, goaded by militants in his tribal council and angered at the delay in some federal payments to the Sioux, he launched a war against white settlements, which resulted in the pillaging of many farms and the deaths of more than a thousand whites. The uprising was quickly put down, and Little Crow fled to Canada with some of his followers. But he soon returned to Minnesota, and he was killed by a settler in 1863 while foraging for food in a forest outside of St. Paul.

From a Smithsonian website. So the 600 I spoke of is not unreasonable. There is considerable confusion about the exact number killed.

I request that you retract your accusation of lying. My original comment was made in good faith. It may be correct, and in any case was not an intentional mistatement of fact.

[one2many]

FYI, this may shed some light on the actions of the Sioux.

======================

http://www.civilwarhome.com/cherokeecauses.htm

CHEROKEE NATION
DECLARATION OF CAUSES; 1861

Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America.

When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever the ties which have long existed between them and another state or confederacy, and to contract new alliances and establish new relations for the security of their rights and liberties, it is fit that they should publicly declare the reasons by which their action is justified.

The Cherokee people had its origin in the South; its institutions are similar to those of the Southern States, and their interests identical with theirs. Long since it accepted the protection of the United States of America, contracted with them treaties of alliance and friendship, and allowed themselves to be to a great extent governed by their laws.

In peace and war they have been faithful to their engagements with the United States. With much of hardship and injustice to complain of, they resorted to no other means than solicitation and argument to obtain redress. Loyal and obedient to the laws and the stipulations of their treaties, they served under the flag of the United States, shared the common dangers, and were entitled to a share in the common glory, to gain which their blood was freely shed on the battlefield.

When the dissensions between the Southern and Northern States culminated in a separation of State after State from the Union they watched the progress of events with anxiety and consternation. While their institutions and the contiguity of their territory to the States of Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri made the cause of the seceding States necessarily their own cause, their treaties had been made with the United States, and they felt the utmost reluctance even in appearance to violate their engagements or set at naught the obligations of good faith.

Conscious that they were a people few in numbers compared with either of the contending parties, and that their country might with no considerable force be easily overrun and devastated and desolation and ruin be the result if they took up arms for either side, their authorities determined that no other course was consistent with the dictates of prudence or could secure the safety of their people and immunity from the horrors of a war waged by an invading enemy than a strict neutrality, and in this decision they were sustained by a majority of the nation.

That policy was accordingly adopted and faithfully adhered to. Early in the month of June of the present year the authorities of the nation declined to enter into negotiations for an alliance with the Confederate States, and protested against the occupation of the Cherokee country by their troops, or any other violation of their neutrality. No act was allowed that could be construed by the United States to be a violation of the faith of treaties.

But Providence rules the destinies of nations, and events, by inexorable necessity, overrule human resolutions. The number of the Confederate States has increased to eleven, and their Government is firmly established and consolidated. Maintaining in the field an army of 200,000 men, the war became for them but a succession of victories. Disclaiming any intention to invade the Northern States, they sought only to repel invaders from their own soil and to secure the right of governing themselves. They claimed only the privilege asserted by the Declaration of American Independence, and on which the right of the Northern States themselves to self-government is founded, of altering their form of government when it became no longer tolerable and establishing new forms for the security of their liberties. **

Throughout the Confederate States we saw this great revolution effected without violence or the suspension of the laws or the closing of the courts. The military power was nowhere placed above the civil authorities. None were seized and imprisoned at the mandate of arbitrary power. All division among the people disappeared, and the determination became unanimous that there should never again be any union with the Northern States. Almost as one man all who were able to bear arms rushed to the defense of an invaded country, and nowhere has it been found necessary to compel men to serve or to enlist mercenaries by the offer of extraordinary bounties.

But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated Constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all the rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In States which still adhered to the Union a military despotism has displaced the civil power and the laws became silent amid arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. The right to the writ of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the Constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was set at naught by the military power, and this outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the Constitution. War on the largest scale was waged, and the immense bodies of troops called into the field in the absence of any law warranting it under the pretense of suppressing unlawful combination of men. The humanities of war, which even barbarians respect, were no longer thought worthy to be observed. Foreign mercenaries and the scum of cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized into regiments and brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and to commit the basest of outrages on women; while the heels of armed tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion and without process of law in jails, in forts, and in prison-ships, and even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and Cabinet ministers; while the press ceased to be free, the publication of newspapers was suspended and their issues seized and destroyed; the officers and men taken prisoners in battle were allowed to remain in captivity by the refusal of their Government to consent to an exchange of prisoners; as they had left their dead on more than one field of battle that had witnessed their defeat to be buried and their wounded to be cared for by Southern hands.

Whatever causes the Cherokee people may have had in the past, to complain of some of the Southern States, they cannot but feel that their interests and their destiny are inseparably connected with those of the South. The war now raging is a war of Northern cupidity and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against the commercial freedom of the South, and against the political freedom of the States, and its objects are to annihilate the sovereignty of those States and utterly change the nature of the General Government.

The Cherokee people and their neighbors were warned before the war commenced that the first object of the party which now holds the powers of government of the United States would be to annul the institution of slavery in the whole Indian country, and make it what they term free territory and after a time a free State; and they have been also warned by the fate which has befallen those of their race in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon that at no distant day they too would be compelled to surrender their country at the demand of Northern rapacity, and be content with an extinct nationality, and with reserves of limited extent for individuals, of which their people would soon be despoiled by speculators, if not plundered unscrupulously by the State.

Urged by these considerations, the Cherokees, long divided in opinion, became unanimous, and like their brethren, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, determined, by the undivided voice of a General Convention of all the people, held at Tahlequah, on the 21st day of August, in the present year, to make common cause with the South and share its fortunes.

In now carrying this resolution into effect and consummating a treaty of alliance and friendship with the Confederate States of America the Cherokee people declares that it has been faithful and loyal to is engagements with the United States until, by placing its safety and even its national existence in imminent peril, those States have released them from those engagements.

Menaced by a great danger, they exercise the inalienable right of self-defense, and declare themselves a free people, independent of the Northern States of America, and at war with them by their own act. Obeying the dictates of prudence and providing for the general safety and welfare, confident of the rectitude of their intentions and true to the obligations of duty and honor, they accept the issue thus forced upon them, unite their fortunes now and forever with those of the Confederate States, and take up arms for the common cause, and with entire confidence in the justice of that cause and with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, will resolutely abide the consequences.

Tahlequah, C. N., October 28, 1861.

THOMAS PEGG,
President National Committee.

JOSHUA ROSS,
Clerk National Committee.

Concurred.
LACY MOUSE,
Speaker of Council.

THOMAS B. WOLFE,
Clerk Council.

Approved.
JNO. ROSS.

**WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. --FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

[Twodees]

Allright, I apologize for saying it was a lie. Here's the problem with what Lincoln did:

Lincoln ordered that 39 (some accounts say 38) men should hang for participation in the uprising. No such thing had been proven against any of them. Justice wasn't done for the murdered people of Minnesota because the killers most likely walked away free. Lincoln also gave the people of the state $600k more than what our government owed the Santee and promised that he would remove or kill every indian from the state. That's in direct violation of the Constitution which sets treaties on the same footing as the Cosntitution as the supreme law of the land. Lincoln ignored that treaty for the rest of his life, in fact.

Lincoln can't be excused for very much of what he did. Any real examination of his record, if his flowery prose is ignored, reveals that he was an extremely amoral man. He dithered and blundered his way through life, succeeding at nothing and leaving a swath of destruction in his wake everywhere he went. There's no good reason to revere this man. He was a common criminal, differing from Bill Clinton only in that he apparently had little to do with women.

[Restorer]

You don't think that the Santee attack rather vigorously repudiated the treaties?

I have done considerable research lately on this topic and none of the sources I've examined make a serious claim that most of the 38 hanged (with probable exception of three who may have been misidentified) were innocent of the crimes of which they were accused.

There were claims that the trials were too fast, that improper procedures were used, etc. But general unanimity that the right men were hanged.

You are also ignoring the stark fact that his refusal to hang the original 300 was wildly unpopular in Minnesota. The settlers wanted the entire tribe wiped out and made a couple of serious attempts to do so, which had to be repelled by US troops.

Other than moral considerations, he had no logical reason to limit the number of executions.

I realize you loathe and despise Lincoln, but I think you veer into truly silly territory when you claim he succeeded at nothing. He succeeded in holding the Union together (or in rebuilding it, depending on your point of view). This is something that the greatest military minds of the time almost unanimously believed to be impossible at the start of the war.

You believe, no doubt, that this was accomplished thru criminal means, but that does not reduce its nature as a truly impressive political/military/naval/diplomatic feat.

Most who have studied him are in agreement that probably nobody else could have accomplished this.

You know, it does your side no good to denounce him as incompetent. If he was, why was the South unable to defeat him? Very few Northern partisans deny the competence of Southern generals, simply because they lost. In propaganda, it's always better to talk up your enemies' efficiency and talk down their morality and honor. :)

[Vigilantcitizen]

"In 1864 Georgia was such a cornucopia of food Sherman's men couldn't begin to carry it off, let alone eat it."

My mothers ancestors, the Carsons, had a 50 acre spread, on what is now a big cemetary off of US19/41, just south of Dobbins AFB, Marietta, Ga.

As Sherman moved south from Allatoona pass toward Atlanta, he took the same route that US19/41 follows today.

My ancestors had no slaves. They were farmers who traded what they did not eat for things they couldn't produce. They were not rich, and did not own much of consequence.

Being that my Great, Great, Grandad and most of the other males who worked the farm went to fight in the war 2 years before Sherman came through, and it was July when Sherman visited, the fields weren't exactly full of ripe veggies.

But I can tell you that after he came through, there was nothing. What couldn't be eaten or sold was destroyed.

Sherman sent a calvary regiment 15 miles west of Atlanta, to a mill town called New Manchester. This site is now Sweetwater State park. The only thing left of the town is the crumpled ruins of the mill.

The story of New Manchester.

I don't know how pow's were treated, but I do know that at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, a Confederate officer called for his troops to cease fire, and signaled to his Union counterpart to get his wounded off the battlefield and escape the flames from the grass fire started by gunfire.

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

Even though I'm a Southerner, I don't hold a grudge or think what Sherman did to Georgia was wrong, war is dirty business.

But as I have posted to you before, us white southerners do not hold the exclusive license of sinfull acts.

Many things our govt. has done since, under the stars and stripes, shame me too.

An article in Townhall.com about Lincoln

[WhiskeyPapa]

But, you idiot, your response only serves to establish the destruction wreaked by the demon Sherman which resulted in the starvation of Southern women and children and old folks of Georgia, and the starvation of the prisoners at Andersonville.

"According to David Conyngham of the New York Herald, the army's best forager was a lank Tennessean by the name of Joe, a half-breed Cherokee. As he led a party of bummers across an open field one day, Joe abruptly Jerked his bony horse to a halt. "I'm damned if I don't smell hog," he said. There was no sign of an animal in the field. "Hell," said one of his companions, "let's ride on. We're too far from the army." "Nary a step until I make sure," Joe said, "A fat hog would be a mighty good change from chicken and turkey." ' "They ‘s no damn hog here, let’s git on.”

A hog grunted and Joe dismounted to search the ground. He kicked at a hollow spot, and the men soon dug out a fat pig, cleverly buried in a cave roofed with boards and covered with earth. The animal was butchered on the spot and borne away behind Joe's saddle. Most foragers raided farms in the spirit of carnival, heedless of the distress of victims. One band that found a few chickens under a house was assailed by a sobbing woman: "No! they're all we've got left. They've been coming by all day, stealing everything—but they said we could have those to. keep my little ones alive. A soldier bowed and smiled. "Madam, we're going to suppress this rebellion if it takes every last chicken in the Confederacy." The little flock was borne away.

After two days of looting, the army had more food than it could possibly use, and tons of fresh supplies were piled along the roadsides to go to waste. It was inconceivable, in this rich harvest country, that the troops would ever go hungry. The roads were littered with corn and fodder, and especially sweet potatoes, gigantic yams from a miraculous crop. Soldiers marveled at potatoes so large that they "started from the ground" as they were dug. Colonel Charles D. Kerr claimed he saw one three feet long, and his men reported yams "so large you can sit on one end while the other end roasts in the fire." No rations had been issued, and butchers had killed none of the cattle brought from Atlanta. Captain Charles Wills of the 103rd Illinois, in Howard's wing, said, "Our men are clear discouraged with foraging, they can't carry half the hogs and potatoes they find right along the road."

--"Sherman's March", by Burke Davis, p. 41

Have you guys never even read a general survey history of the American Civil War?

You sound totally ignorant.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Lincoln ordered that 39 (some accounts say 38) men should hang for participation in the uprising. No such thing had been proven against any of them.

Prove it.

Walt