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Still no comment on the sign research provided about the Grant County Reprisal? No rethinking on your part? No thought that you might have remembered wrong or simply been mistaken?
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
Is there a way to determine if the sign just outside of Grant County might be the one suwanee remembers seeing? I'd start searching myself, but on this computer and my lack of skill in web research, I don't have enough years left.
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
Laws of War 101 ...
>> Napoleonic War
Wellington: Soldier - where did you get that pig?
Soldier: found him wandering lost taking him home, Sir.
Wellington: Soldier, do you know the penalty for looting?
Soldier: ninety days loss of grog Sir?
Wellington: it's hanging **** you Sir!
Wellington: return the pig, Soldier.
Wellington: I don't know if they frighten the enemy, but they certainly frighten me.
(statement attributed to Duke of Wellington)
In 1812, Wellington's Army took by assault the city of Badajoz after a siege. They suffered some 5,000 casualties in doing so, including about 3,000 in the actual assault on the night of April 6-7.
The soldiers of the British Army then spent 3 days running wild in the city. Drunken soldiers raped, murdered and plundered wherever they went. Since the inhabits were Spaniards, they were citizens of a British ally. British officers sent into the city to restore order were threatened by packs of armed soldiers. Only after the troops had worn themselves out was Wellington willing to try to re-assert order and authority.
Men like Wellington were largely against looting and such activities because of the lack of discipline, the impediment to order, and the waste of resources involved. The French army of the day looted by policy to feed their men -- unless you happened to be in Davout's command. The "Iron Marshal" enforced his will on anyone foolish enough to challenge it; he would also strip a province to the bones if he felt he needed to do so, and do it with an efficiency the others could not match.
Napoleon, who could control any body of troops he ever saw, was rarely accused of attrocities. But go check the accounts of the Turkish POWs he had murdered when he retreated back to Egypt from Palestine.
As I told you at the beginning, there was no set of "laws of war" accepted by everyone except what armies/nations enforced upon themselves. Armies had regulations and orders to do it with, but in the end what mattered on campaign was logistics and the specific commander in charge. Having Cossacks come through, or Prussians, was a well-and-truly feared event. The French stole anything not nailed down, but were fairly mild about executions, rapes and murders in most places (except Spain and the Tyrol).
The German Army, by policy and regulation, selected and seized civilian hostages as a means of control. The practiced reprisal executions by their manuals. They did this in WWI. They did it in WWII. They did it in the East and they did it in the West. They did it under the Kaiser and they did it under Hitler. They did it even though they were signatories to the Geneva Convention and other agreements. Imagine what they might do before there were such agreements.
The Russians, well, they took their own revenge when Berlin fell. Some historical accounts seem to feel there was not a woman in their occupied part of Germany who was not raped at least once in 1945. I have never seen any account of a Russian soldier being punished for it, although I assume there must have been some.
This is what war is like sometimes. By the actions and behavior of other nations, the American Civil War was very civilized as wars go. So was Reconstruction, no matter how harsh it looks in US history.
Is there a way to determine if the sign just outside of Grant County might be the one suwanee remembers seeing? I'd start searching myself, but on this computer and my lack of skill in web research, I don't have enough years left.
Ole
Well what are the odds that there were 2 Grant County Reprisal signs, each referring to a separate incident?
sunannee, distinctly remembers the sign he saw 20 years ago near a gas station or an exit or someplace, about 13 rebs murdered, which he took a photo of, which he conveniently now tells us was an illegible photo.....
Don't waste your time.
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
amhistoryguy, in post #17, indicates a similar marker in Owen County. It sounds like it may refer to the same incident. It's just an annoying loose end, but if there's any chance at all to show that suwanee's 20-year memory is accurate, I'd like to see something come up on his side.
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
County:Owen Location: 2 mi. E of Lusby's Mill, Jct. KY 1330 & Keefer Rd.
Description: Three Confederates, imprisoned at Lexington, were executed at Williamstown, Aug. 15, 1864, in reprisal for guerrilla murder of Union sympathizers, Joel Skirvin and Anderson Simpson. Victims were from this area: William P. and John L. Lingenfelter, brothers of Mrs. Simpson, and George Wainscott. Lingenfelter graves are quarter mile north."
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Williamstown is the county seat of Grant County. Looks as if Owen county erected their own marker cause the 'victims' were from owen County ("this area")?
Looks like the same incident. I'll leave it to Owen and Grant counties to sort it out.
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
Three Historical Markers; Two Reprisals in Kentucky
I found three Civil War Reprisal signs in Kentucky. One each in Owen, Grant, and Franklin County, Kentucky. Grant and the Owen signs are duplicates of the same reprisal.
Three Confederates were brought here from prison at Lexington and executed Aug. 15, 1864; reprisal for the guerrilla murder of Union sympathizers, Joel Skirvin and Anderson Simpson. Those executed: Wm. P. and John L. Lingenfelter, brothers of Mrs. Simpson, and Georget Wainscott, 1st Batt. Ky. Inf. CSA. Lingenfelter graves N.E. of Lusby's Mill, Owen County.
County: Owen
Location: 2 mi. E of Lusby's Mill, Jct. KY 1330 & Keefer Rd.
Description: Three Confederates, imprisoned at Lexington, were executed at Williamstown, Aug. 15, 1864, in reprisal for guerrilla murder of Union sympathizers, Joel Skirvin and Anderson Simpson. Victims were from this area: William P. and John L. Lingenfelter, brothers of Mrs. Simpson, and George Wainscott. Lingenfelter graves are quarter mile north.
**************** http://www.historyquest.com/cgi/webd...70804.state=KY
A Civil War Reprisal -Near here on Nov. 2, 1864 four innocent Confederate prisoners were executed in reprisal for the murder of Union supporter, Robert Graham of Peak Mill, Franklin Co. All Kentuckians: Elijah Horton of Carter, Thomas Hunt and Hohn Long of Mason, Thorton Lafferty of Pendleton counties. Hunt's body reburied at Maysville, others in the Franfort Cemetery.
Reprisals usually occurred in states where the Confederate army could at best, field guerrilla units. Such is seen in western Virginia, Missouri and Kentucky.
Kentucky was dominated by the Union army late in the war. Except for the guerrillas, the Confederate had no effective way of supplying a large army.
Guerrilla actions eventually lead to counter-action in Kentucky.
Note below the CSA, which was incorrect. General Burbridge was a Union general, a native of Kentucky, who was put in charge of putting down the guerrillas. Nasty work, probably overdone.
An example of the great mistake of the Confederate founding fathers. They sought too much territory, which they, even early in the war, could not protect.
18. Thompson & Powell Martyrs Monument
St. Alphonsus Catholic Church Cemetery, St. Joseph (Daviess County)
Limestone double headstone, circa 1864
Inscription: Charles W. Thompson Pierman Powell Confederate Soldiers Executed in the City of Henderson Ky. July 22, 1864 by Order of General Burbridge. C.S.A.
General Stephen Gano Burbridge issued a retaliation policy in 1864, known as Order No. 59. It stated that four guerrilla prisoners would be shot for each Union soldier killed. More than 50 prisoners were executed as a result of this order, including the two for which this monument was erected. This is one of four monuments to "martyrs" executed under Order No. 59.
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