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.
As I pointed out the photograph I had was illegible, so I have no idea about the names or dates involved.
However I will note that the marker I saw was on the roadside with a steep dropoff to the right, going downhill. As you can see this marker has level ground to the right. Roads and foliage may change considerably in 20 years; hillsides don't become level ground.
I also remember that the POW's were described as coming from a prison in Atlanta, not Lexington.
An unbiased observer might conclude that there is more than one of these plaques in Grant County.
What a relief to know only 3 POW's were executed in a reprisal killing (conjectures notwithstanding) - that makes it alright.
Here is confirmation that these men were not only POW's but regulars of a uniformed government organization. This was a war crime by Nuremberg standards - today those who did this either directly or indirectly would be liable to execution if convicted by an international court.
In the defense of these murdered men I point out that they were imprisoned by federal authorities, and I doubt they were given leave to return home and commit a murder. I discard the conjecture that these men were possibly murderers of their own kin.
Why were they murdered on a lonely roadside, rather then in a public place of execution?
Such executions were usually carried out in a prison yard - why were these sent back to the scene for killing? Was it an effort to frighten local citizens? If so this one ranks right up with Zarqawi sawing off heads for the camera - terrorism, state sponsored. Zarqawi was only a partisan thug.
I'm glad this matter is seeing the light of day. It has been an honor to speak on behalf of these men whose only crime was serving their country.
I hope I have given them some redress.
I will never offer excuses for murderers.
addendum; for those reading that one below this post, I point out that nowhere did I say anything remotely resembling that "the widow of one of the initial vicims was sister to two of those singled out" - I mentioned one.
More creative writing by a detractor.
Markers can also be cut off at the ground and removed entirely under cover of night.
Markers can be moved and painted. Suwanee remembers that the widow of one of the initial vicims was sister to two of those singled out, and the marker makes that clear as well
Notice also that there is no mention of US Military involvement, nor does it say that the three were POWs. The three prisoners might well have been in prison for the murders. However, it is quite likely that they were hauled home to discourage others from murdering civilians. Not much sense in bringing them back if they weren't to be used as examples.
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
Partisans, also known as Francs-Tireurs (I think it means French Assassins) can be executed without trial.
Execution of POW's is and has always been homicide. Even under the Black Flag you could only refuse to accept surrender - with prior warning - killing prisoners after their surrender was accepted has always been a violation of the rules of war.
Well, no. There were no official "rules of war" when the Civil War started, only customs generally accepted by and enforced by the combatants.
The "Lieber Code" was the first such set of instructions. Dr. Lieber, an internationally respected legal scholar, was recruited by Halleck to write them (Halleck making the suggestion to Lincoln with the Doctor in mind).
At about the same time in 1864, men in Europe were organizing to get their nations to adopt a code. The American "Lieber Code" was referred to often in drawing up what would become the first Geneva Convention a couple of years later.
The taking and sometimes shooting of hostages was a standard practice in those days. The Germans had it as part of their manuals for controlling occupied countries before WWI (and started shooting civilians on the day they invaded Belgium). The German Army did the same in WWII. The US, Britain, and France may have been quite a bit better by our standards, but US troops in the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War developed interrogation measures that turned the stomachs of veteran Spanish inquisitors serving with them. War gets very messy if you look at it long enough and hard enough down on the individual basis.
As far as hostages in the ACW, there were a number taken I have seen reference to, and I think particularly in Tennessee and maybe Missouri-Arkansas. When Forrest raids Murfreesboro in July, 1862 he freed several civilian hostages, including a minister who were about to be hanged at dawn in reprisal for some partisan acts.
Going the other way, it seems that after the Battle of Bentonville in NC, Sherman's men found the bodies of some wounded men who had apparently been taken and "questioned" by local civilians. Their feet had been removed with an ax. Treatment of local civilians immediately became quite a bit rougher.
Then there are those who say that whatever might have happened at Ft. Pillow to Major Booth's 13th Union TN Cavalry is justified by earlier actions like those of Union Col. Fielding Hurst, another TN Union cavalryman, who reportedly once ordered captured rebels shot and buried every mile along a road, shot another captive because he liked his boots, and left some of Forrest's men behind dead and mutilated after he captured them. The Union command in Memphis refused Forrest's demand that Hurst be given over for trial, but they did make him pay back the $5,000 he had extorted from one town. Hurst resented that.
There are some very nasty parts to almost any war. The American Civil War is actually very civilized when compared to common experience elsewhere. Even the actions of Sherman's men as they march through Georgia and the Carolinas are not very harsh when compared to what happened in similar situations in Euore in the 19th Century -- and certainly nowhere near as harsh as French actions in Spain (1808-14) or the Tyrol in Austria (1805 and again in 1809) and nowhere near what it was like to be plundered by Prussians or Cossacks.
If you find no reference to rules or laws of war (which predate your given references) there, I promise to deliver to you one gold Kruegerrand, of the weight of your choosing. This is not a wager.
I am good for it, and I undertake to have your prize in your hand as rapidly as possible should you prevail.
Your contention is utterly wrong. I only reply because you manage to be civil.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
I have checked out a few historical sites concerning Grant County.
The only signs I can find listed on the 'Signs of History' site in Grant County are the following:
Williamstown Raid (State Marker 188, Williamstown, Courthouse lawn, US 25, Grant Co.)
A Civil War Reprisal (State Marker 722, Williamstown, Jct. of US 25 & KY 36, Grant Co.) This is the one with the picture I have provided above and it is the only marker with the word 'reprisal' in it.
An Indian Massacre (State Marker 936, KY 491, west side of I-75, Crittenden, Grant Co.)
Grant County (State Marker 942, Williamstown, Courthouse lawn, US 25, Grant Co.)
The Old Church On The Dry Ridge (State Marker 1560, Warsaw Ave., Dry Ridge, Grant Co.)
I have also uncovered 'The Lynching of 1841' which took place in Grant Co., involving two men who attacked a stock drover. The two men thought they had killed the man and left him for dead, but had been observed by a peddler and were soon caught and the wounded man confirmed that the two were who assaulted him.
After they had been in jail three months and after uttering repeated threats that they would kill the man and anyone who assisted in their capture and convictions, a crowd of four hundred men from the counties of Pendleton, Harrison, Bourbon, Scott and Grant, marched into town (Williamstown) to lynch the men.
After hearing appeals from the mayor, a leading citizen, and the local preacher, the four hundred men broke down the door of the jail (the jailor had buried the keys in an effort to stop them) they hung the two men and buried their bodies by the roadside. Later that night someone dug up the bodies and cut off and took the heads but the bodies were then reburied in their graves.
Other than that, is it possible you have your markers confused? You state in your first post, "It is just off I-75 where an exit leads to a service station."
As you can see from the location of known state markers, the only one off I-75 concerns itself with 'An Indian Massacre.' Are you sure you are not combining the one with the only marker that has the word 'reprisal' in it and confusing the two?
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
There is a marker in adjoining Owen County, Kentucky marker #725, worded nearly the same as marker #722.
This marker states these same men were "executed at Williamstown."
The marker (725) is located 2 miles east of Lusby's Mill, at the junction of KY 330 & Keefer Road. Keefer Road intersects with I- 75 and KY 330 is a short drive west of that.
Judge a man by how he holds to a promise, Trice.
I refer you to Shakespeare, and Henry the Fifth.
If you find no reference to rules or laws of war (which predate your given references) there, I promise to deliver to you one gold Kruegerrand, of the weight of your choosing. This is not a wager.
I am good for it, and I undertake to have your prize in your hand as rapidly as possible should you prevail.
Your contention is utterly wrong. I only reply because you manage to be civil.
OK. I'll hold you to your promise. Send the money. Have your Boston College alumnus lawyer contact me (perhaps he was in my year there) and we will arrange the transfer. The others here online can be witnesses to your promise.
No "laws of war" existed in any formal legal sense, certainly not in any commonly recognized international agreement, before the ACW. People (such as Grotius) had thought about the issues before and armies/nations enforced traditions and behavior among themselves, but Leiber's code, drawn up at the order of President Lincoln in 1863, is universally accepted as the first written codification. It was specifically written because no other written codification existed to clearly outline to the Union armies how they should deal with these difficult issues. Halleck recommended Leiber as the man to do the job. You will find that the "Leiber Code" is always refered to in this fashion, and that it is often cited as the source for regulations on considering rape a war crime, or the basis for most international humanitarian laws of war (such as protection of civilians, art works, historical structures, etc.)
Shakespeare's Henry V is often cited as an example of Just War theory and attitude. It is a work of entertainment, but the author was clearly familiar with those concepts. Just War, however, was primarily concerned with whether or not it was OK to fight the war in the first place. Shakespeare is speaking of philosophical concepts, traditions, attitudes, and religious beliefs. He is not speaking of hard and fast laws -- he is speaking of exactly what I was telling you about, the network of tradition and custom the armies and nations enforced among themselves without formal written agreement.
Now if you want to say that Shakespeare's Henry V, covering a war in the 1400s, somehow lays out exact laws about how to treat civilians and prohibits the taking/execution of hostages, please explain for us which parts of it you are referring to, and how they would govern:
1) the actions of the English during the Cromwell years in Ireland, where by some measures one-third of the Irish population seems to have disappeared from Ireland (dead from various causes, sent to the Carribean plantations as slaves, etc.) and all the Irish landowners in some counties lost their property and were replaced by Englishmen. A good friend of Cromwell invented the science of demographics to record the changes, so there will be plenty of documentation for you to look at as you work your way through it. Transfer that same standard to the Confederacy (say 2 million white Southerners just vanished in the aftermath of the Civil War) if that is what you truly believe the "laws of war" accepted.
2) the actions of the Duke of Cumberland in 1745 after Culloden in Scotland, where he is known to this day as "The Butcher". If you find the English here were following the "laws of war", you should project the same standard onto the Civil War and give us an estimate of how many Confederate soldiers should have been slaughtered as a result, how many younger sons shipped brutally overseas, etc. by a Union following what you see as the "laws of war" here.
3) take a look -- a real look -- at what Napoleon's soldiers did to the Tyrol and Spain (and what the Tyrolese and Spanish did to them). Picture a war like that in America, the equivalent of Quantrill at Lawrence, KS spread across the South. The ACW was very mild overall, no matter how bad it actually was. Troops on both sides were amazingly well behaved by the standards of others.
4) Take another look at what happened in Europe immediately before the Civil War when the people rose up against their rulers. These were the reasons there were so many immigrants to America from Germany, Austria, and some other places in the 1850s. There is an incident that has always stuck in my mind there, in 1849 IIRR, where an Austrian general, suspecting the nuns in a convent were concealing partisans, had his soldiers haul them out, strip them, tie them to posts, and whip them. There are others much harsher than that if you want to look for them.
5) Look real hard at what the Germans did in occupied territories in France, Belgium, Russia, Rumania, etc. in WWI -- 50 years after the ACW. Compare and contrast their official regulations on the matter written before the war to the Union's Leiber Code and the various Geneva Conventions, The Hague Convention, etc. Explain what "laws of war" in Shakespeare you see that relates to their policy.
6) in Shakespeare's Henry V, the Bard gives us two incidents you should explain under these "laws of war" you say exist there:
--a) The ultimatum to the city of Harfleur, where he threatens the city's destruction, plunder, etc., including the rape of the women and the murder of the elderly and the children, if they do not surrender immediately.
--b) The order by King Henry to kill his French prisoners at Agincourt at a desperate moment (it seems the original stage direction had the soldiers/actors actually put them to the sword onstage)
The French attack the English baggage train and slay the baggage boys.
This is decried as a violation of the rules of war - apparently it was considered a crime to slay baggage boys because they were noncombatants.
As a result Henry subjects the envoy of the French king to physical violence and forces an immediate yield from him on those grounds. Montjoy orders the French to cease resistance. End of Agincourt, and French claim to throne of France.
You can tinker with stage details, but Shakespeare wouldn't have included laws that didn't exist; that would have made him a laughing stock.
There is your reference to laws of war in Henry the Fifth. You lose.
Ahem.
You lose Trice.
The French attack the English baggage train and slay the baggage boys.
This is decried as a violation of the rules of war - apparently it was considered a crime to slay baggage boys because they were noncombatants.
As a result Henry subjects the envoy of the French king to physical violence and forces an immediate yield from him on those grounds. Montjoy orders the French to cease resistance. End of Agincourt, and French claim to throne of France.
You can tinker with stage details, but Shakespeare wouldn't have included laws that didn't exist; that would have made him a laughing stock.
There is your reference to laws of war in Henry the Fifth. You lose.
Your contention is wrong.
Been nice talking to you.
You have an unusual way of thinking.
Yes, Shakespeare mentions the "Law of Arms" and describes this deed as "knavery". The "Law of Arms" was a concept developing in the Middle Ages, concurrently with the Catholic concept of a "Just War". The "Law of Arms" was closely connected with the "Code of Chivalry". That "Law of Arms" was closely connected with discipline in armies, and not particularly concerned with the rights of noncombatants, wounded, property, etc. -- which is what you were talking about when you started this. (Current-day references to the "Law of Arms" are generaly concerned with Heraldry.)
This "Law of Arms" was never written down in any codified form. It was merely a Christian/Chivalric code of conduct sanctified by tradition and custom -- exactly as I first said to you. If you want to research it, see if you can locate a copy of Honoret Bonet's Tree of Battle written in the 14th Century to start you off.
If you think this "Law of Arms" was in some way an international law or treaty accepted as controlling actions in the 1400s, please list the nations that signed it and the dates of the treaties, or refer to the text of it so we can see what you are talking about.
In particular, the US Army had no formal written policy on how to deal with those issues when the Civil War started. The Confederacy, which copied their regulations, laws, and manuals from the existing US ones for the most part did not have one either. No international treaty applying to either side addressed the issue, although the international community was starting to move that way.
This is why Lincoln and Halleck had Dr. Lieber draw up what is known as the "Lieber Code" in 1863. That is why generals on both sides were eager to get their hands on a copy, to have a clear code of conduct agreed upon. That is why all subsequent international law, starting with the First Geneva Convention in 1864 traces back to the "Leiber Code" of 1863.
Shakespeare was a dramatist, writing a play that might send a message but was intended to make money. He was not trying to write a detailed history of laws. In addition, the concepts Shakespeare included in his play are not those of Henry V's time. They are much closer to those of the brilliant Grotius, the father of international law, expressed after the end of the Thirty Years War around 1648.
There are real events he simply left out; events he probably invented for effect; events he probably didn't know enough about and got slightly or more than slightly wrong; events and facts that simply did not fit into his play and so were left out.
For example, when the English captured Limoges in 1370, they massacred 3,000 unarmed Frenchmen after surrender. Henry V himself, after the capture of Caen, spared only the women, children and priests; the adult males were massacred. Somehow Shakespeare doesn't tell you about that Henry V episode either. Even in Harfleur, where the town surrendered in response to Henry's blood-curdling ultimatum, the poor people were expelled from the town: much like Sherman at Atlanta in 1864.
In the play, the sequence goes like this:
===== KING HENRY V
I blame you not;
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.
Alarum
But, hark! what new alarum is this same?
The French have reinforced their scatter'd men:
Then every soldier kill his prisoners:
Give the word through.
Exeunt
SCENE VII. Another part of the field.
Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER
FLUELLEN
Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly
against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of
knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't; in your
conscience, now, is it not?
GOWER
'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the
cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done
this slaughter: besides, they have burned and
carried away all that was in the king's tent;
wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every
soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a
gallant king!
=====
In just that short sequence, you have Henry V deciding to have his men kill all his French POWs. Then you see a reference to the young English boys being killed. But the reason they are killed -- as Shakespeare also tells us in the play -- is that they have been sent to guard the trains and caught in the attack on them with no soldiers present.
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