Civil War History - The South & Western TheatersCheck this forum for all South and Western Theater Questions. Included are the Western, Pacific, Trans-Mississippi, & Lower Seaboard and Gulf Approach Theaters.
Instead, RebProf has made a statement of thousands civililans being killed, I presume not in combat, and begun to list supporting evidence. Let's check the sources and discuss.
Precisely, Matthew. My post sounded like duelling atrocities, but that was not my intention. I was aiming for looking at the "behind the scenes" activities on both sides without using the "oh yeah, you're another" arguments. RebProf has done well to dig up a subject that is very unfamiliar to most. I want to see it played out.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
It is intresting just how both sides viewed the guerrillas. From the OR series 2 vol. 8 page 325: General Forrest is being quoted as saying that he hopes the General Thomas hanges every one that he captures And that he is anxous to rid the counrty of them. This was taken from an interview that Col. Parkhurst had with General Forrest
Feb 23, l865
__________________ Located near Indianapolis, home of Col. Eli Lilly and the Eli Lilly Civil War Museum
There is a quote out there somewhere showing Genl Forrests VERY contemptuos views of Quantrill, Bloody Bill Anderson & guerillas in general.
Suffice it to say he stated thyey were not Confederates, soldiers or men but cowards of the lowest order. IIRC he said something similar about Booth... I'dappreciate it if anyone who might have either quote would put them on the CW A-Z page.
My own experiance rading about guerrillas & bushwackers was that they were dealt w/ very harshly especially as tyheir targets were often the defenseless wounded, I wonder if any of these "men", and I use the term loosely, were identified bushwackers & guerrillas. I suppose I would like to see the context.
__________________ Shane Christen
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For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
August 2, 1863
Report of Brigadier W. C. Whitaker, 1st Reserve Division, Army of the Cumberland
"Colonel Galbraith's cavalry is giving me excessine trouble, worryhing and plundering through the country wherever they go out. They are under no control or discipline at all as far as I can learn. Several instances have come to my attention of their assaulting females."
This unit was the 5th Tennessee, U.S., and was part of the Provost Marshal troops.
Are we talking "bushwackers" here? If so, maybe they deserved what they got.
General Order #100 called for trials by military commission for those apprehended although "bushwhackers" were often massacred. You will please note, however, that the evidence from James Chadd of the 2nd Ky Artillery, U.S., notes the killing of civilians who were unarmed. Also, please note the order to kill Mrs. Cynthia McCullum. The murders of Southern civilians by Union soldiers cannot be passed off as exterminating "bushwhackers." Civilians were massacred.
Brevet Brig. Genl S.A.M. Dudley, U.S. Provost
Report, July 8, 1865
"My name is Matthew Mullins. On July 4 Captain Shipp ordered me and Tyler Harrison to go to the plantation of William Bonner. We were joined by two other men of the Home Guard. We took out one of the Negro's on the place and tied him face to a tree and fastened his hands on the other side with a bridle rein. We whipped him with elm switches two in a bunch with spangles on them. I can not tell how long the switches were. We did not count the blows but I think they could not exceed one hundred and fifty.
"Capt. Shipp ordered myself and private Harrison to report to the Capt of the Home Guard for this duty. Capt. Shipp told us to go out with home guard and settle a difficulty between Wm. Bonner and a negro. I have known soldiers sent out before to settle difficulties where negros have been whipped by soldiers." Provost Marshal Records, RG345, roll 263
The "home guard" mentioned in this account was a paramilitary organization set up by the U.S. Provost Marshal to replace the civil administration of justice since no civil law existed in the South under Reconstruction for a consideable period of time. General Dudley did not approve of the home guard.
This account is another piece of the picture of a war which few know and fewer today recognize.
Here is a bibliography for those who would like to learn more of the situation behind Union lines.
Ash, Stephen. When the Yankees Came. Chapel Hill: U of N C. Press, 1995.
Bradley, Michael. With Blood and Fire. Shippensburg: Burd Street Press, 2003.
Durham, Walter. Rebellion Revisited. Franklin, TN: Hillsboro Press, 1999.
Fisher, Noel. War at Every Door. Chapel Hill: U of N C Press, 1997.
Grimsley, Mark. The Hard Hand of War. London: Cambridge University, 1995.
Rice, Charles. Hard Times. Huntsville, AL: Old Huntsville, 1994.
Rice, Charles. The Sword of Bushwhacker Johnston. Huntsville, AL: Flint River
Press, 1998.
Sutherland, Daniel. Seasons of War. N.Y.: The Free Press, 1995.
Most of these sources do not referrence the Provost Records and only Blood and Fire cites them extensively.
I notice a certain disdain for those labeled "guerrillas." I wonder if someone would define "guerrilla." There does not seem to be any adequate definition in the original sources. A person carrying a Confederate commission in the Partisan Rangers would be labled a guerrilla or bushwhacker by those who captured him if they disliked what he had done and such captives were often killed out of hand. However, why does being a guerrilla qualify one to be massacred? Does being a house burner, looter, and rapist allow one to be massacred? Or does the idea of massacre depend solely on "whose ox is gored?"
However, the United States Army did not just kill guerrillas. The letters and official papers cited show unarmed civilians, women, children, and those merely suspected of being hostile were killed without charges and without trial. The unlawful killings are clearly war crimes and should be called what they are, massacres.
Guerrilla: (noun) A member of the military forces of a patriotic or revolutionary movement that seeks to immobilize and isolate the superior forces of an occupying enemy, strategically by means of the political mobilization of the local peasant population and tactically by means of sudden acts of harrassment executed by small bands recruited in part from the able-bodied section of this population.
(from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)
2- A war fought with in accordance with these tactics, (adj)
Of or relating to guerrillas or their methods of fighting; ie., 'guerrilla warfare.'
Rebprof has a most viable point requesting definition of guerrilla warfare and it's relativity to the War Between the States. "Patriotic" and "Able-bodied" men recruited in small bands during a "revolutionary" movement (ex. southern rebellion of 1861) using "sudden acts of harrassment" attempting to "immobilize and isolate" superior" US forces as was the case in Union held territories of the Southland. Guerrilla warfare seems a viable, effective and legal warfare utilized when a country is overran, oppressed and occupied by a 'superior' enemy. Today's Green Beret Special Forces comes to mind, teaching an oppressed people how to fight the occupying oppressor successfully and beneficially.
But...here is "guerrilla" warfare properly defined as RebProf requested.
Alfred T. Dalton deserted the Confederate army, returned to his home in Gallatin, TN, to take the oath to the U. S. On the day he arrived General Paine, the U.S. Provost, arrested Dalton and ordered him shot in retaliation for the death of a Union man. He was taken about 500 yards from his home and shot six times.
The next day a 16 year old resident of Gallatin was shot because he was sympathetic to the Confederacy.
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