Everything Civil War!

[Rebforever]

Fear strikes Hooker!!

 

[Eagle eye]

I'd worry that that one guy with the bullet would miss or hit a nonfatal area or otherwise be the Jonah of the squad. The idea is good, of course, similar to the idea of stoning--you can never say which person threw the fatal stone.

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I heard (read) that one rifle used a blank & the rest were loaded. Better odds of killing the condemned with the 1st volley yet still have the hope that you fired the blank (I would think that most any infantryman that ever fired a rifle would know if he fired a blank vs live round).

 

[Allie]

Above all, the Civil War produced great tragedy. Consider this little known fact:

"One tiny but poignant statistic of devastation may be found in the Mississippi budget: in 1866, 20 percent of all state revenues were spent on artificial limbs for Confederate veterans."

Welcome to the forum! Is your avatar anyone special to you?

 

[Bruce Vail]

 

[Bruce Vail]

From Encyclopedia Virginia:

Although never as draconian as in the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Braxton Bragg—where, according to memoirist Sam Watkins, deserters "were summarily shot without any trial"—punishments in the Army of Northern Virginia became more severe, and by the autumn of 1863 courts-martial for capital offenses had become a matter of routine. Several deserters were executed in the spring of 1864, and firing squads remained active until the evacuations of Richmond and Petersburg.

The example cited in the Richmond Daily Dispatch of September 10, 1863, seems fairly typical. At four o'clock on the afternoon of September 5, ten deserters from the 3rd North Carolina Infantry, a regiment in Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell's corps, were executed near Orange Court House. The condemned men's division was formed on three sides of a square, "with side arms and without colors," the paper reported, "whilst ten stakes ranged in a row on the fourth side" making the line where the execution would take place. The prisoners, under escort, followed the officer of the day into the square, followed in turn by the brigade band playing the 'Dead March.'"

"The bearing of the prisoners was calm and self-possessed," the Daily Dispatch continued, "and they marched to the place of their execution with a step as accurate in its cadence as that of the guard who conducted them." Before the assembled division, the officer of the day read their offences and their sentences. The regimental chaplain then knelt with the prisoners in prayer. Their comrades, "used as they were to the blood and carnage of twenty battlefields, beheld with uncontrollable emotion the solemn preparation for the execution of the condemned, and seemed to be penetrated with the solemnity of the religious services which were being carried on."

The prisoners were then tied to their stakes, their arms pinioned behind their backs. Ten firing squads, each led by a non-commissioned officer, advanced. The condemned men were blindfolded "to shut out the sight of the muzzles of the muskets leveled not more than ten paces from them," but, according to the reporter, the ten "broke out into loud and frequent appeals to the Almighty to have mercy on their souls and pardon their sins." But the officer of the day gave the command, "Ready!" and "the clicking of the locks alone broke the silence that prevailed; 'aim!' and the muzzles of the guns were pointed with unerring aim at the breasts of the miserable condemned, and the very breathing of the crowd seemed stopped in a terrible suspense; 'fire!' and the corpses of ten men hung in the horrible relaxation of death to the stakes where they were pinioned."

The division then filed past the dead, leaving the field to the burial detail. "So perish those who would betray their country in its hour of need and peril," the report concluded. "The sentence of these men was as just as their execution was prompt. Necessity demanded their blood—justice approved, and even tearful mercy sanctioned it."

 

[James_tiberous]

I still think it's horrible to kill your own soldiers. I understand, but it's still terrible

 

[Bruce Vail]

I still think it's horrible to kill your own soldiers. I understand, but it's still terrible

I agree. In fact, I think it is a real crime.

Particularly for the southerners who had their enlistments involuntarily extended by law, or who were conscripted out right.

I can understand the theory that desertion ought to be punished, but execution is too extreme a punishment.

 

[James_tiberous]

So, happened to be reading something from Bruce Catton on Atlanta campaign right after finishing my book on Chancellorsville. Oliver Howard was promoted to replace MacPherson after his death, and Hooker, in the same army there lost it. I get that. Howard had commanded the 11th corp at Chancellorsville and got rolled by Stonewall in his great flanking move and here he was getting promoted by over Hooker who just up and left after that. Hooker claimed he had ordered Howard to prepare for the attack but nothing happened. I do not blame Hooker for the loss against Stonewall, Howard should have been better prepared. And I bet Sherman did not like have an ambitious general with him in front of Atlanta.