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"
Really? Cause Sherman directly sanctioned murder in multiple cases, not to mention many other things such as arson, theft, and looting. In one case he even went so far as to assert he would protect his sanctioned looters life for life if anybody tried to stop them. Granted, I don't think Sherman ever sanctioned rape, though Butler did in New Orleans. Here's just a small sample of the many, many yankee sanctions and concessions of atrocities by northern commanders:
"I will not only retaliate as I have already mentioned, but there shall not be a house left standing within reach of my scouting parties along my line of march, nor will I be responsible for the conduct of my soldiers, who will not only be allowed but encouraged to take a fearful revenge." - Gen. J. Kilpatrick, US, notifying confederate command of his explicitly ordered retaliation against southern civilians who had shot at the yankee looters and arsonists, February 22, 1865
"You speak in your communication of my threat to burn houses, &c., as being "too brutal for you or your Government to entertain." No matter how brutal it may seem, I have the power and will enforce it to the letter , and more, lf this course is persisted in, I will not only allow but encourage my people to retaliate man forman. I shall take no action for the present." - Gen J. Kilpatrick, US, responding to the confederate answer to the previous quote in which it was pointed out that his men were engaging in warfare against civilians, February 23, 1865
"I hold about 1,000 prisoners captured in various ways, and can stand it as long as you; but I hardly think these murders are committed with your knowledge, and would suggest that you give notice to the people at large that every life taken by them simply results in the death of one of your Confederates. Of course you cannot question my right to "forage on the country." It is a war right as old as history. The manner of exercising it varies with circumstances, and if the civil authorities will supply my requisitions I will forbid all foraging. But I find no civil authorities who can respond to calls for forage or provisions, therefore must collect directly of the people. I have no doubt this is the occasion of much misbehavior on the part of our men, but I cannot permit an enemy to judge or punish with wholesale murder. Personally I regret the bitter feelings engendered by this war, but they were to be expected, and I simply allege that those who struck the first blow and made war inevitable ought not, in fairness, to reproach us for the natural consequences. I merely assert our war right to forage and my resolve to protect my foragers to the extent of life for life. " - Gen. W.T. Sherman, US, to Gen. W. Hampton, CS, informing him of his ordered continuation and sanction for northern looting of southern civilian property, February 24, 1865
"I expect Kilpatrick here this p.m. and will send him well to the left. He reports that two men of his foraging parties were murdered after capture by the enemy and labeled "Death to all foragers." Now, it is clearly our war right to subsist our army on the enemy. Napoleon always did it, but could avail himself of the civil powers he found in existence to collect forage and provisions by regular impressments. We cannot do that here, and I contend if the enemy fails to defend his country we may rightfully appropriate what we want. If our foragers act under mine, yours, or other proper authority, they must be protected. I have ordered Kilpatrick to select of his prisoners man for man, shoot them, and leave them by the roadside labeled, so that our enemy will see that for every man he executes he takes the life of one of his own." - William T. Sherman to Major-General Howard, Commanding Right Wing, February 23, 1865
"Send over about Fairmount and Adairsville, burn ten or twelve houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random, and let it be known that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon rom Resaca to Kingston" - Gen. William T. Sherman, orders to Gen. Louis Watkins, 1864
"Our armies traverse the land and waves of disaffection, sedition and crime close in behind and our track disappears. But one thing is certain, there is a class of people, men, women, and children who must be killed or banished before we can hope for peace and order even as far South as Tennessee." - Gen. William T. Sherman, letter to Stanton, June 21, 1864
"Every time the telegraph wire is cut we would burn a house; every time a train was fired upon we would hang a man; and we would continue to do this until every house was burned and every man hanged between Decatur and Bridgeport." - Col. John Beatty, US, recollection of events in Paint Rock, Alabama
"As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insult from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." - Gen. Benjamin Butler, orders to federal troops to use female civilians meeting the said qualifications as prostitutes, May 15, 1862
"For five days, ten thousand of our men worked hard and with a will, in that work of destruction, with axes, sledges, crowbars, clawbars, and with fire, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing the work well done. Meridian with its Depots, Storehouses, Arsenals, offices, Hospitals, Hotels, and Cantonments, no longer exists." - Gen. William T. Sherman to Gen. Grant, 1864
"My movement to Meridian stampeded all Alabama. Polk retreated across the Tombigbee and left me to break railroads and smash things at pleasure ...We lived off the country and made a swath of desolation 50 miles broad across the State of Mississippi" - Gen. William T. Sherman to Gen. Henry Halleck, 1864