Fort Pillow and more.....

[coloradoclyde]

When a decision is laid out weeks or months before the event it CAN be despicable.

That's what I was referring to....And, That what Lee did in his letter....Those kind of actions may rally your troops but, when you say it to the other side, things aren't going to get better. War just turns into murder....

 

[tenngun]

Please note I said CAN not will. There is no substitute for victory after all. The south was fighting off what it considered to be an invading army, an army better in almost every way. Numbers, supplies, qulity of weapons, only in morality was the two nations equal.
I would show a black flag to any home invader, I don’t see the south as much different. However the north only had one thing to do to avoid atrocities.... go home.
My this looks like a well beaten path... oh look a dead horse on the way :wink:

 

[coloradoclyde]

:surrender: .......

 

[tenngun]

:haha:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Now pay close attention to the color of my flag.....It's white..... :wink:

 

[tenngun]

I ”˜spect it’s a false flag as I’m sure that the ghost of that dead horse will rise again. Unlike vampires no stake through the heart will stop that ol’nag.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Change your mind with positive thinking.... :grin:

 

[tenngun]

Well I am positive.... I’m positive this subject will come up again.
I think we just have like three or ten or some such small number of topics we kick around, but like chess, just sixty four squares and endless variation.
Arthur Clark wrote a short story infact about a space invader against whom earth had no defense. But the entities discovered chess and it confused all their computers.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I'm not familiar with that story.

 

[tenngun]

It was called ”˜Quarantine’. It’s only one page long. And looking it up it had a bad outcome for earth and the aliens. It was published in 1977. It was part of an idea to put a sci-fi story on a post card

 

[Artificer]

Not having the resources of Lt. Col. Kennedy, nor even access to the Official Records and a host of other period information I had when I was able to access the Historical Records at the Chatham Manor Library of the NPS in Fredericksburg, VA back in the 1980’s; this is the most information I could find on the War Crimes done by the Bradford’s Cavalry prior to the Battle of Fort Pillow and from where the information came. Note: This does not mean it is all of the War Crimes committed by Bradford’s Cavalry, just what I have been able to document from Internet Resources.

“On February 2, 1864, Major Bradford, commanding the 13th Tennessee Cavalry, was ordered to move with his entire command and occupy Fort Pillow. Adjutant Leaming reported they reached Fort Pillow on February 8, where they were instructed to use all diligence in recruiting and mounting, with authorization “to impress horses from both the loyal and the disloyal, giving vouchers only to those who might furnish unmistakable evidence of their loyalty to the Government of the United States.”
http://tngenweb.org/civilwar/14th-tennessee-cavalry-regiment/

Though the above information does not deal with any other War Crimes that Bradford’s Cavalry may or did do during the period, this is factual evidence of War Crimes that they did, according to both period Constitutional Law and the testimony of local citizens they supplied to General Forrest before the Battle.

Ordering subordinate Cavalry Commanders to impress horses by itself, would not have been a War Crime, as long as the owners were given a legal voucher of payment. However, the order that vouchers be given only to “those who might furnish unmistakable evidence of their loyalty to the Government of the United States” WAS INDEED a War Crime. This because since the Federal Government did not recognize the Confederacy, any citizen in the South was still a legal citizen of the U.S. and thus was entitled to a payment voucher for impressed horses UNLESS it was proven they were actively supporting Confederate forces and THAT in a Court of Law - that followed the U.S. Constitution. So that is the first Illegal Order/War Crime.

Second and subsequent War Crimes would have been each and every case that Bradford’s Cavalry impressed horses without payment vouchers given to the owners.

Some people may think/argue that Constitutionally Illegal impressment of horses was not a big deal, but they would be quite wrong. Huge numbers of horses were used by both the Confederate and Union Armies not only for all manner of transport, but also as Cavalry Mounts. Horses got killed or seriously wounded in battle and had to be replaced in huge numbers throughout the War and of course many were broken down, worn out or lost to disease. By 1863, it was already extremely difficult for Confederate Cavalry to replace the horses lost and that was going on for at least a year before Bradford’s Cavalry was given the Constitutionally Illegal Order on impressing horses. (Though the quoted order does not specifically include mules, mules could and were impressed for transport/pack animals as well.)

We sometimes forget that though Mules were often used as “farm tractors” in that age, horses were also used for that purpose and of course as transport for the farmers and other people. Taking the last horse/mule from a farmer meant that family could/would be seriously in trouble of raising enough food for the winter and/or transporting their crops to be sold to feed their families. So when the last horse or mule was taken without a payment voucher, this adds a whole additional element to the War Crime and could rise to almost the level of what we would call Crimes Against Humanity.

Constitutionally Illegal Orders and War Crime actions of impressing horses without payment, could and most likely did become “A license to steal.” This is exactly how it would have been seen by ANY U.S. CITIZEN in the entire country at the time, when and if it had been done anywhere else. Naturally, the U.S. Citizens who had their property taken without payment and more importantly their survival so threatened, would have been extremely upset when their property was so STOLEN by the Armed Forces of the United States.

Though of course I cannot document any further War Crimes done by Bradford’s Cavalry at this time, it was not only quite possible to downright probable that further War Crimes were committed against U.S. Citizens when they objected to this outright THEFT of their property and threat to their wellbeing and survival.

(Though not in Tennessee, much worse War Crimes happened to my own family and other families in Kentucky when U.S. Soldiers came to impress food, animals and supplies. This though my family had been totally against the War from the start and supported neither side UNTIL that event.)

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

This because since the Federal Government did not recognize the Confederacy, any citizen in the South was still a legal citizen of the U.S. and thus was entitled to a payment voucher for impressed horses UNLESS it was proven they were actively supporting Confederate forces and THAT in a Court of Law - that followed the U.S. Constitution. So that is the first Illegal Order/War Crime.

Is that a legal opinion or is it simply your opinion?

If it is a legal opinion, can you please cite it?


What about, The first Confiscation Act, passed on Aug. 6, 1861, authorized Union seizure of rebel property?

 

[Artificer]

"Landmark Legislation: The Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862

Lyman Trumbull


As the Senate met in extraordinary session from July 4 to August 6, 1861, one of the wartime measures it considered was the Confiscation Act, designed to allow the federal government to seize property, including slave property, being used to support the Confederate rebellion. The Senate passed the final bill on August 5, 1861, by a vote 24 to 11, and it was signed into law by President Lincoln the next day. Although this bill had symbolic importance, it had little effect on the rebellion or wartime negotiations.

When Congress again convened in December, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, proposed a more comprehensive confiscation bill. On December 2, 1861, Trumbull introducted the Confisctation Act of 1862 to allow for seizure of all Confederate porperty, whether or not it had been used to support the rebellion. Before long, however, Trumbull's bill stalled due to ideological difference over the issue of confiscation. Radical Republicans called for a vigorous confiscation bill to seize property and free slaves, but more conservative members worried about expanding the reach of the federal government while denying property owners their constitutional rights.

Early in 1862, a group of moderate senators, led by Ohio’s John Sherman, produced a compromise bill that authorized the federal government to free slaves in conquered rebel territory and prohibited the return of fugitive slaves, while allowing for confiscation of Confederate property through court action. It also allowed the Union army to recruit African American soldiers. Although more aggressive than the first act, the Confiscation Act of 1862 also lacked enforcement capabilities. Loosely enforced by the Lincoln administration, the law was actively undermined by Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson."

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/ConfiscationActs.htm

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Now, what is clear from the above is that even the U.S. Congress at the time the more stringent confiscation act was written, did not see confiscation of most of the property of U.S. Citizens in the South, as being legal by the Constitution without it coming from a legally constituted court.

I don't know if the Confiscation Acts would have stood up to a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court at the time, if either included confiscation of most other property of U.S. Citizens in the South with the exception of slaves. I would like to think in that case it would have been found Constitutionally Illegal, but other Illegal Acts done by the U.S. Government were not struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court during the period.

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

Did you answer my question(s)?
That's an awful long way of not saying yes or no.

It's kind of funny how you sometimes say the confederation was sovereign and other times you say they were U.S. citizens when it suits your argument.

 

[54ball]

It was a world turned upside down.

A whole economy,culture was swept away. A large portion of the united States (the South) was in turmoil and impoverished and in many many ways has yet to recover.

The law....what law?

The men in grey were not immune from "Crimes". The Appalachian people suffered greatly under both Union and Confederates.

One of Lee's direct subordinates was directly involved in depredations against the highland (NC) people. In this instance a elderly woman was tortured....not unlike the torture shown in the film "Cold Mountain".

What went on in the mountains is a replay of the bloody feuds from 1780-81. Sometimes over the very same reasons.

Winston County AL...a mountain county seceded from the State of Alabama and proclaimed themselves the Free State of Winston. Winston County had both Confederate and Union units.

Lore says it was the 1980s before the State of Alabama fixed a pot hole or cut the State Right of Way in Winston County.

The Trammell Plantation 1864...

Trammells are part of my family history. This is what my Great Grandfather Trammel told me personally about his grandfather's place in North Georgia...

They knew the Yankees were a coming Trav. They tried to hide all the hogs and chickens in pits they dug. They dug these and covered the holes with logs and earth. It did not do any good. There was fight close to the home.
The Yankees came through and burned all the barns,
all the slave quarters, even the smokehouse, everything but the house. The house they used as a hospital. They took the doors off the hinges and used them to tote the wounded. They used the doors as liters.
You know Trav, when they left, they nailed those bloody doors back up.
They were starving after that, Those were hard times. They had to dig up the dirt from where the old smokehouse was and boil it to get the salt.

When the brothers returned from the war, they left that place. They loaded up one wagon and dug up a little boxwood bush that was planted at their new place in Alabama.

It's interesting about the Trammells. Tracing them from indentured servitude in 17th Century VA through VA, and the Carolinas to Georgia....
They were always middling level society. They had Small to mid level plantations and in military service....late 17th Century...Captains...Cherokee War 1761..Captain ...Rev War.... Captain...1812...He was a Captain...Civil War...Robert E Trammell enlisted as a LT, 1 st Ga Calvary he was a Captain throughout most the war.

I think that is interesting. Mid level Southerners...Mid level rank throughout several generations.
The Attaways on the other hand My GG grandmother's people were Corporals and Sergeants. :hmm:

This must have been the Atlanta Campaign and Sherman's March.
I had another GGGG Grandfather, a Tidwell, he was killed at Kenesaw. He was sergeant in the Army of Tennessee. As a matter of fact...
The Trammells, Tidwell and Attaways were all in the Army of Tennessee. The Tidwell was from Alabama.
The Tidwell Family were small Alabama farmers...That family never really recovered from the losses of that War.

With that being Sherman's March,...his path of destruction. All resources were burned. All the slave and most the of white homes were burned. Horses mules hogs....all livestock was taken.

With no livestock. No slaves. No..nothing and most of the able bodied men gone, how were these people able to feed and protect themselves?

As Sherman marched toward Savannah a Large group of refugees followed. These were ex-slaves and their families.
Remember, The Yankess had burned their homes. Just like the Trammell Plantation, the slave homes were targeted.
These people had nowhere to go other than to follow their "liberators". They numbered in the thousands.
At Savannah, before Sherman Turned North, He ordered the bridges burned over the Savannah River stranding all these refugees...leaving them to their fate.
It must be remembered, the whole countryside was devastated.
I wonder what became of them. :hmm:

 

[coloradoclyde]

You're right, it was a crazy time.
I recently bought a book with letters written during around the civil war. in one account a letter is written back home(north) warning that people with anti-slavery views were being harassed. (paraphrasing from memory the account was more detailed.) literally tarred and feathered and run out of town.

Put that in today's context. :shocked2:

 

[Artificer]

I provided the link from the U.S. Senate demonstrating at the time the Second Confiscation law was written that even the Majority of U.S. Senators could not pass that bill until they changed the initial bill from “a vigorous confiscation bill to seize property and free slaves” to "while allowing for confiscation of Confederate property through court action,” because “more conservative members [of the Senate] worried about expanding the reach of the federal government while denying property owners their constitutional rights.”

Did it not seem clear that U.S. Senators would not and did not pass the second Conscription Law allowing wholesale confiscation of the property of private citizens in the South without “court action,” because they did not believe it would be Constitutional to do so?

There is no doubt the U.S. Senators realized The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution read:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. “

So it absolutely was legal opinion in the time period and by the U.S. Senate and in accordance with the Constitution.

It's kind of funny how you sometimes say the confederation was sovereign and other times you say they were U.S. citizens when it suits your argument.

I choose not to respond to your opinion/characterization of the discussion.

I have made the case that Bradford’s U.S. Cavalry was given a Constitutionally Illegal Order and thus by the U.S. Constitution, it was a War Crime. I have also noted every time Bradford’s Cavalry followed that Constitutionally Illegal Order, they committed further War Crimes. The standard applied in this case was the Constitutional Rule of Law the U.S. Government and U.S. Soldiers were supposed to be governed by, operating under and defending. It had/has nothing to do with other subjects you now care to bring up.

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

I have made the case that Bradford’s U.S. Cavalry was given a Constitutionally Illegal Order and thus by the U.S. Constitution, it was a War Crime. I have also noted every time Bradford’s Cavalry followed that Constitutionally Illegal Order, they committed further War Crimes. The standard applied in this case was the Constitutional Rule of Law the U.S. Government and U.S. Soldiers were supposed to be governed by, operating under and defending. It had/has nothing to do with other subjects you now care to bring up.

Gus

At best, you might be able to argue that they improperly followed statute, Of which I'm not sure what the recourse would have been, other than to pay for the horses. But it was not a "war crime" by definition. That is a mischaracterization.

I think much of the changes and conservative attitudes towards the confiscation act were regarding confiscation of property by members of the union. Not rebels.

 

[Artificer]

I have made the case that Bradford’s U.S. Cavalry was given a Constitutionally Illegal Order and thus by the U.S. Constitution, it was a War Crime. I have also noted every time Bradford’s Cavalry followed that Constitutionally Illegal Order, they committed further War Crimes. The standard applied in this case was the Constitutional Rule of Law the U.S. Government and U.S. Soldiers were supposed to be governed by, operating under and defending. It had/has nothing to do with other subjects you now care to bring up.

Gus

At best, you might be able to argue that they improperly followed statute, Of which I'm not sure what the recourse would have been, other than to pay for the horses. But it was not a "war crime" by definition. That is a mischaracterization.

Is that your opinion or are you representing that as period case law? If you are representing it as period case law, then please provide period examples as I did.

[I think much of the changes and conservative attitudes towards the confiscation act were regarding confiscation of property by members of the union. Not rebels.

Is that your opinion or are you representing that as period fact? If you are representing that as period fact, please provide period evidence.

It seems you may not understand that when the U.S. Government did not recognize the Confederacy as a separate government/nation/entity and did not Declare War on the Confederacy, that all civilians residing in the "States in Rebellion," were LEGALLY "members of the union" or rather - still U.S. Citizens with all the rights afforded to them by the Constitution. The exception of course were those who were under arms against the U.S. and anyone directly supporting them.

Gus