RETALIATION (From the Richmond Inquirer, Jan. 22 [1864])
The following is a copy of the letter sent to Gen. Wilde by the colonel commanding the forces on the Blackwater, relative to the late measures of retaliation adopted by our military authorities in Eastern North Carolina:
Headquarters Forces on Blackwater Franklin, Va, January 1864
Gen. Wilde, commanding Colored Brigade, Norfolk, Va. Sir – Probably no expedition, during the progress of this war, has been attended with more utter disregard for the long-established usages of civilization or the dictates of humanity, than was your late raid into the country bordering the Albemarle. Your stay, though short, was marked by crimes and enormities. You burned houses over the heads of defenseless women and children, carried off private property of every description, arrested non-combatants, and carried off ladies in irons, whom you confined with negro men. Your negro troops fired on Confederates after they surrendered, and they were only saved by the exertions of the more humane of your white officers. Last, but not least, under the pretext that he was a guerrilla, you hanged Daniel Bright, a private of Company L, 62d Georgia Regiment (cavalry), forcing the ladies and gentlemen whom you held in arrest to witness the execution. Therefore, I have obtained an order from the general commanding for the execution of Samuel Jones, a private of Company B, 5th Ohio, whom I hang in retaliation. I hold two more of your men -in irons- as hostages for Mrs. Weeks and Mrs. Mundin. When these ladies are released, these men will be relieved and treated as prisoners of war.
Col. Joel R. Griffin
Now the next report. RETALIATION The following is from the Richmond Examiner of the 12th. It will be recollected that some weeks ago a Georgia cavalryman, Daniel Bright, of the 22d Georgia, was hanged by the Federals as a guerrilla. It now appears that retaliation has been sternly executed by our troops. We learned that, at the spot of the tragic execution, a few days ago, our soldiers hung in retaliation, a negro soldier from Ohio, and that his body was left swinging on the very beam from which Bright was suspended. The victim was a bright mulatto; he had been captured near Elizabeth City, and he must have been brought nearly seventy miles to the place of execution, that the retaliation might be executed on the very same spot where the atrocity which occasioned it had been committed. Our informant saw the corpse swinging in the wind at Hampton Cross-roads. The following label was attached to it: NOTICE – Here hangs the body of Sam Jones, of the 5th Ohio Regiment, executed in retaliation for Daniel Bright, hung in retaliation, hung by the order of Brig. Gen. Wild. By order of GEN. PICKETT. We have, also, information on the hanging of another free negro soldier, the day before yesterday, by our troops, at Franklin. He was executed for burning houses. The wretch belonged to a Massachusetts regiment. He is said to have been much affected by his fate, protesting that he never had any idea of such consequences of his enlistment. In addition to these fearful and determined acts of retaliation, we learn that two hostages were yesterday committed to Castle Thunder, under the orders of Col. Griffin – one white man; and the other a bright mulatto; and they will be held to await the threat of Gen. Getty, who commands at Portsmouth, to hang two women, who are already in irons, in retaliation for the execution of the negro Jones. The first? [the word is hard to read] seems to have gone forth for stern and terrible work on the North Carolina frontier, in this dark and melancholy of swamps, overrun with negro banditti, and now the special theater of war’s vengeance. Our informant states that Capt. Maffit, of Burrough’s Battalion, had recently come out from Princess Anne county and joined Col. Griffin’s command; and he is entirely certain from what he heard from our officers that seven of Maffit’s men, taken by the enemy, were hung.
From what I could find on the web, Burrough’s Battalion fought with other regular Confederate Army units under the command of Confederate officers. I don’t know whether it was a state unit or a regular army unit.
Gen. Wilde (or 'Wild', his name is spelled both ways in reports) issued a warning that he considered the NC state troops to be guerrillas even though they were paid by the state to defend their home counties. I'm not sure he had the legal or moral authority to do that. If he hung NC state troops, how is he any different from Pickett?
A special committee was formed by the Confederates to investigate outrages committed by the Federals. They reported that Daniel Bright, a citizen of Pasquotank County, was taken from his residence and hanged and that two most respectable married ladies were taken as hostages for a negro soldier captured by the Confederates. They report Bright was hanged close to his home a few miles from Elizabeth City. I don’t have the date on this committee investigation other than 1864.
That seems at odds with the newspaper report above that mentions that Bright was hung some 70 miles from Elizabeth City. Perhaps there were two hangings by Union troops, one of a local near Elizabeth City and one of a Georgia soldier 70 miles away. Perhaps the names of the hung were the same or similar, or just reported in error. It’s hard to tell through the mists of time.
Union Gen. John Peck corresponded with Gen. Pickett about yet another hanging. He sent a copy of a Richmond Examiner article to Pickett concerning the hanging of a Union negro soldier who had shot and killed a Confederate colonel. He enclosed a copy of Lincoln’s order stating that a rebel soldier would be executed for each Union soldier killed in violation of the rules of war.
Pickett replied that the news story was a fabrication. He then went on to say that “had I caught any negro who had killed either officer, soldier, or citizen of the Confederate States, I should have caused him to be immediately executed.”
In response to Peck’s threat to hang a Confederate soldier, Pickett says, “I have merely to say, that I have in my hands, and subject to my orders, captured in the recent operations in this department, some four hundred and fifty officers and men of the United States army, and for every man you hang, I will hang ten of the United States army.”
This is similar to Union escalations of the number of Confederates to be killed for each Union man killed in Kentucky (I think it was Kentucky, I have a contemporary newspaper report of it somewhere).
Sorry. I typed the newspaper's words in incorrectly. It should read: "NOTICE – Here hangs the body of Sam Jones, of the 5th Ohio Regiment, executed in retaliation for Daniel Bright, hung by the order of Brig. Gen. Wild. By order of GEN. PICKETT."