Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
Boys, I'm not the constitutional scholar some of you all profess to be.
Blue.Raider88, very few of us are "constitutional scholar(s)" although there are some of us with more educational background than others. But a backhand slap compliment does not make us any less aware of history than the other.
I ain't an arm chair general neither.
That's true, but post here long enough and you can qualify for such a position.
But I reckon I know what's right and what's wrong and I ain't afraid to call a spade a spade.
Make sure you emphaize "I" whenever you use it in like a statement you have made above. This way we know clearly that this is what "YOU" think is right and what "YOU" think we should think. People who see things in such black and white, right and wrong terms, on the issue you have brought up seem to want to overlook one set of wrongs in order to be "right" about another. It just isn't that simple, nor should it ever be. IMO.
The Provost Marshal was not a good thing for US. No way. No How. It wasn't American. On the contrary, it was un-American and had ought to have been rebelled against and fought against tooth and nail.
Sorry, Raider, but the office of Provost Marshal and its actions during the war as is American as Mom, Apple Pie, and Fireworks on the 4th of July. So is segregation, the KKK, American Nazi Party and White Supremeism. They are home-grown Americans and they are an ugly part of our Nation. And the same actions you accuse the Union Provost Marshal of doing the Confederate Provost Marshal did the same thing to Unionist citizens of the Southern States. Would you have fought against both evils or would you have only fought against one and justified the other because they were on "your side?"
My old Pap use to quote Ben Franklin, "them that would sacrifice personal liberty for national security deserve neither!" or somthing like that.
Problem was, some folks Father's read old Ben to one side and refuse to do so to their own.
If your's truly had been at the head of that column in Kentucky .....
We can be only thankful you were not alive during that time to head such a column, because what you imply you would have done in such a situation was make an already bad situation much, much worse.
We'd have a lot more to write about.
Be thankful the actions we read about aren't expanded into more chapters of a sad history.
THE PROVOST-MARSHAL AND THE CITIZEN (In The American Civil War)
" No graver question was ever considered by this court; nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole people; for it is a birthright of every American citizen charged with crime to be tried and punished according to law. . . . If there was a law to justify the military trial it is not our province to interfere; if there was not, it is our duty to declare the nullity of the whole proceedings."-Decision UnitedStates Supreme Court, ex parte Milligan.
Which has very little or nothing to do with the charges you have brought.
Anything to say about the hurtful and harmful actions of the Confederate Provost Marshal?
I didn't think so.
Sincerely,
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
Still nothing specific about Kentucky-based Provost Marshalls. Does this mean you have nothing to offer to back up your earlier claims?
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
Still nothing specific about Kentucky-based Provost Marshalls. Does this mean you have nothing to offer to back up your earlier claims?
All right ole, I'll point out some specific federal autrocities for you and the Blue Horde to knock down. No doubt you will find plenty of reasons to justify the Yankee Devil's behavior, but we all know the truth.
Let's start with the "Butcher of Kentucky". He pales in comparison to the monster in Missouri, McNeil, but 4 for 1! Butcher Burbridge's infamous Order No. 59 is widely considered outrageous.
How about Private Marc Clarke from Franklin, Kentucky enlisted in the 4th Kentucky Infantry CSA in 1861. He was captured at Ft. Donelson but escaped.
He rode with Morgan's Men on the Great Raid. After Gen. Morgan's death, he returned to his homeland. On March 12, 1865, he was captured in Breckinridge County with two companions. The US Provost Marshall's kept his capture and trial a secret, because their verdict was a foregone conclusion. Private Clarke was not allowed counsel nor witnesses for his defense. He was convicted and condemed and hung by the neck untill dead on March 15, 1865 for being a guerilla, but he wore his Confederate uniform and witnesses cut off the Kentucky buttons for souvenirs.
Later that summer, they did the same thing to one of his fellows. Private Henry Magruder.
Last edited by Blue.Raider88; 05-06-2008 at 09:31 AM.
__________________ 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
No one has denied that attrocities were committed. Any time you give men power, some will abuse that power.
However, you have alleged that every Provost Marshall should have been summarily executed.
ole and unionblue have rightly pointed out that there were attrocities on both sides. For every particular instance you drag out, I am sure they can drag out another on the Confederate side (although I am sure it is harder to show Confederate depredations because Confederate records are sketchier).
By making such an outrageous statement, you assume the burden of proof to back it up. You have a long, long way to go to meet that burden.
As the Jackson Five said "One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, girl."
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Hold on there just a minute Flower Mound. This here's a "what if", not a prove your point or else thread.
I reckon it ain't right for the federal government to have all that much authority in the very first place. My ancestors placed severe limits on the power of the federal government. How many times is the word "NOT" mentioned in the Constitution? As in the government shall not .... The government shall not ... The government shall not.
I propose to you that the government shall not appoint Provost Marshals with omnipitant powers over the civilian population even in times of war.
I'd rather suffer a hundred wild eyed southern boys running wild in the country rather than endure one Butcher of Kentucky.
If Gen. Morgan had put them devils to the knief, he'd a been within his right and we'd all be thanking him for it today.
It's more like fifty innocent people were shot under Burbridge’s Order Number 59 ole.
For example, in retaliation for the death of one Federal soldier at the hands of Sue Munday’s guerillas, four Confederate prisoners: Wilson Lilly, a member of Company G, First Missouri Volunteer Infantry, Sherwood Hatley, a seventy-year-old Presbyterian minister, Lindsey Duke Buckner, a Confederate captain in Colonel Chenoweth’s regiment, and William Blincoe, a member of Company D, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, were taken from a military prison by Captain Rowland E. Hackett and fifty Union soldiers and shot.
Four other men, part of whom were on their way to join the Confederate army, were taken from Lexington, Kentucky to Henry County, Kentucky and shot to death in retaliation for the death of two black men at the hands of the guerillas.
Two other Confederate soldiers were taken from prison and hanged on the Lexington fair grounds; six Confederates were executed in Green County in retaliation for the killing of two Union men. The most unnerving and brutal execution was when Burbridge took four prisoners from the Lexington jail and shot them to death on the outskirts of Frankfort: Kentucky’s capitol.
People were in fear for who would be next to be called a Confederate sympathizer. Before all was said and done, Burbridge executed fifty people, earning him the name “Butcher” Burbridge.
Last edited by Blue.Raider88; 05-06-2008 at 12:58 PM.
I'll bet you hate Camp Gitmo, too. And monitoring the internet and ******** calls for terrorist activity. And black helicopters and government plots to foment wars to secure power. And keeping Area 51 active in deluding us into thinking we're safe from extraterrestrial invasion.
A shooting war in one's backyard must change one's view of government activities. Primarily, our concern must forgoe freedoms in favor of protection. Theirs did as well.
You can sit in your comfy chair and lament on what you perceive to be violations of the constitution while bombs are going off. It is a disturbing thought, but there is an axiomatic override: When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
When a dirty bomb is exploded in Atlanta, will you be on the stump complaining why the government didn't know about it?
Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights did take a back seat during the Civil War -- in the north and in the south. The southern provosts may or may not have exceeded the zeal of their northern counterparts. But you choose to hold up as a model, Burbridge. (It might here be mentioned that, at the time, the First Amendment guaranteed that the Federal Government couldn't interfere. It was not a guarantee that a state couldn't. Nor was it a guarantee that armed forces in active service couldn't either.)
So you have one whom Morgan might have considered executing. I repeat, any others?
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
Hold on there just a minute Flower Mound. This here's a "what if", not a prove your point or else thread.
I reckon it ain't right for the federal government to have all that much authority in the very first place. My ancestors placed severe limits on the power of the federal government. How many times is the word "NOT" mentioned in the Constitution? As in the government shall not .... The government shall not ... The government shall not.
I propose to you that the government shall not appoint Provost Marshals with omnipitant powers over the civilian population even in times of war.
I'd rather suffer a hundred wild eyed southern boys running wild in the country rather than endure one Butcher of Kentucky.
If Gen. Morgan had put them devils to the knief, he'd a been within his right and we'd all be thanking him for it today.
If you make statements such as "The Provost Marshal was not a good thing for US. No way. No How. It wasn't American. On the contrary, it was un-American and had ought to have been rebelled against and fought against tooth and nail" you have left the realm of what-if and are making a positive assertion with regard to history. You can and should be called upon to account therefore.
Further, if a country is under martial law, what do you propose intead of Provost Marshalls? The provost marshalls served numerous necessary functions. Their powers were not "omnipotent" as you allege, although I admit, as I have previously, that some no doubt abused their power. Their power was not omnipotent in that they were answerable to higher authorities, just as are sheriffs, policemen, etc.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
So you have one whom Morgan might have considered executing. I repeat, any others?
You ... you ... you!
You guys haven't changed your tactics much.
Step #1. Admit it happend but blame the South for worse autorcities.
Step #2. If you can't refute the message, attack the messenger.
Standard policy in neo-abolitionist blue-age revisionist historical chat policy.
We're talking about the evils of the federal government here ole. You don't have to defend 'em. They can afford the best advocates money can buy and they've had 150 years to purge the Offical Record of any references otherwise.
I'd glady suffer one thousand wild-eyed Southern Boys rather than endure one Butcher of Kentucky. The federal government hadn't ought to have that much power and authority. No Way! No How!
Last edited by Blue.Raider88; 05-06-2008 at 04:36 PM.
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