Posted on 05/23/2002 8:52:25 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Yeah, and the same claim was made as an excuse for dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mack's boyfriend left at the same time...some folks thought he/she was running a double username split gender identity....LOL.
I appreciated her candor but her affection for the ol pocketbook gave me pause. She was likable ....and quite young...it was hard to hide. I remember the bleariness of youth....sort of..LOL
WAR DEPARTMENT, C.S.A, Richmond, November 22, 1861. John Letcher, Governor of Virginia:
SIR: Will not your convention do something to protect your own people against atrocious crimes committed on their persons and property? There are in the Army, unfortunately, some desperate characters - men gathered from the outskirts and purlieus of large cities - who take advantage of the absence of the civil authorities to commit crimes, even murder, rape, and highway robbery, on the peaceful citizens in the neighborhood of the armies. For these offenses the punishment should be inflicted by the civil authorities (...) There are murderers now in insecure custody at Manassas who cannot be tried for want of a court there, and who will escape the just penalty of their crimes. The crimes committed by these men are not military offenses. If a soldier, rambling through the country, murders a farmer or violates the honor of his wife or daughter, courts-martial cannot properly take cogniance of the offense, nor is it allowable to establish military commissions or tribunals in our own country. I appeal to Virginia legislators for protection to Virginians, and this appeal will, I know, be responded to by prompt and efficient action.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, J.P. Bemjamin, Secretary of War
Now stop and think about this for a moment. This is the confederate secretary of war complaining about the inability of the army to control its men and keeping them from robbing and raping civilians - their OWN civilians. You complain about the Union army when it is clear that the southern womanhood had more to fear from the confederate army.
My brother-in-law was slated to be in the first wave in the invasion of Japan. He'd probably have died, as would many, many others.
If you scale up from the example of Okinawa, Japanese deaths would have probably numbered in the millions.
As it was, the bombs killed a couple hundred thousand -- a hell of a lot of people, but fewer than would have died otherwise.
And lest we forget, that invasion was already a scheduled event. The "saved lives" argument is valid.
Lincoln's words as a young man.
Yup. And I'm sure you've noticed how all of those nice boys were executed for their trouble. Executed by the victorious North, at that.
and his exit at Gettysburg(thievery) wasn't impressed with the southern culture--'cause'!
COVINGTON, VA., December 26, 1863. Maj. Gen. SAMUEL JONES:
DEAR SIR: The enemy escaped through this place on the evening of the 19th and morning of the 20th. Great indignation is expressed by the citizens, (...) that instead of gathering up stragglers the soldiers were running about plundering and gathering up property abandoned by the enemy, and that almost every crime has been perpetrated by the command from burglary down to rape. (...)Unless you order an investigation of these matters, the people here will demand it from the War Department, as the whole community are in a state of great excitement, augmented no little by the many petty crimes, and increased at last to fever heat by the rape on a most respectable lady. If you think it right to order an investigation, I will furnish the names of witnesses--all respectable men. So much for what you happened. (...)
EDWARD McMAHON, Major, and Quartermaster. CSA
October 13, 1864 St Louis Missouri democrat, article by "Waldo" upon Price's Missouri campaign of 1864: "Mrs Charles Schmidt (...) whose husband is in the 26th Missouri regiment was ravished and her person violated by a number of the fiendish ghouls. This was done while Price had his headquarters in this town. Mrs S. Is now nearly dead. Mrs Schmich (...) was assaulted in her house not more than a square from Price's headquaters, by some of Shelby's men who took improper liberties with her and attempted to ravish her , but her cries excited the sympathies of some rebel soldiers less brutal than their fellows, who rescued the poor woman from their clutches. The cries of this woman must have reached the ears of Sterling Price but no guard was sent to arrest the brutes. (...) Mrs Frank Schryvor (...) whose husband died in the army , was another lady upon whom an outrage was attempted. Being a woman of great spirit and agility, she succeeded, by flight, in escaping from the fiends, and hid from them in the woods."
CAMP CALVERT, London, Ky., October 31, 1861. [General THOMAS :]
GENERAL: (...) I have this moment learned that there [are] at Barboursville 100 cavalry of the enemy. If I had two companies of cavalry I could secure them. This band of Zollicoffer's are said to be a hard set---plundering, violating women, and such other rascalities.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. SCHOEPF, Brigadier-General.
In his book "The life of Johnny Reb", I. B. Wiley speak about a "Texas cavalryman apprehended in the act of rape was, even while officiers were taking counsel as to his disposition , removed from the guardhouse by his comrades , hanged, buried, and his effects distribued among the most needy of the company"
TULLAHOMA, May 12, 1865. Maj. Gen. GEORGE H. THOMAS:
A guerrilla who on the night of the 6th instant murdered two of my scouts, shot a number of loyal men, robbed them of everything they had, even women's and children's clothes, ravished one loyal lady, with fifteen of his gang, and made a similar attempt on an orphan girl sixteen years of age in the same room with the corpse of her cousin, whom they had killed, and who has taken the oath several times, has sent in to know if he comes under your orders. I consider him and his gang demons incarnate.
R. H. MILROY, Major-General.
NEWPORT BARRACKS, KY., February 14, 1862. Capt. J. B. FRY, Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff.
SIR: I have the honor to report that to-day five more prisoners were sent here by Colonel Warner, Eighteenth Kentucky Volunteers, and are now confined here for safe-keeping, viz: (...) Alexander Webster, charged with having "once started to join the rebel army," but "was captured and brought back and subsequently released after which he committed a rape on the wife of a soldier, and fled to Owen County for protection."
J. P. SANDERSON, Lieutenant-Colonel Fifteenth Infantry, Commanding.
The Richmond examiner (june 13/ 18 1861) report a visit of a detachment of McCulloch rangers of New Orleans, in the establishment of Clara Coleman at Richmond. The soldiers : "blew out the parlor and passage lights, broke up the furniture, scattered the shrieking woem like New York Zouaves before the bristling bayonets of North Carolina infantry, and to crown their unfortunate exploits, committed, it is alleged, an outrage upon the person of a "phrail phair one" named Eliza Liggon". Three men were held for rape. Cited by E.B.Ferguson in " Ashes of Glory, Richmond at war" About the same time, a member of the Ouachitas blues of Louisiana was arrested for attempting an outrage upon a woman tending store while her husband was away in the army. (Same newspaper cited by same book)
Archibald Wilkinson, a Confederate marine, was arrested and transfered to the custody of provost-marshal for raping Margaret Willis, a free black woman of Richmond, during november 1862. (Richmond Enquirer november 4, 1862) Dillard McCormick, member of the same city police force, was charged with the rape of Ann Eliza Wells, a crime witnessed by his fellow officers in july 1862. (Daily Richmond Examiner july 25 1862) Both cited by E.L Jordan Jr in "Black Confederates & Afro-yankees in CW Va"
It is certainly true that such acts were committed by Union soldiers, as they are committed by soldiers in all armies and wars.
You apparently do not appreciate the significance of the fact that these men were hanged or shot. It is proof that these acts were not tolerated by the Union, and basically refutes your stupid claim that such behavior was in accordance with Sherman's policy.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Your claim, in essence, was that Sherman sent his men (including at least two of my direct ancestors) on a child-killing and mother-raping spree.
Your "proof" is actually proof that your claim is exactly false.
I seem to recall you opining about my "credibility." Physician, heal thyself.
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