Most Underrated General

[rpkennedy]

Keyser Soze,
I see you mentioned Ft. Pillow. A common belief is that CSA troops massacred black USA troops. Don't forget that the fort never raised the white flag and thus it was still a battle. You cannot say that a battle is a massacre, when black Union soldiers are falling. Same applies to Poison Springs, Olustee, the Crater and Saltville. Add Port Hudson too, for good measure. When a battle is fought, it is a battle.
Civil War Scholar.

Now, you're demonstrating that you don't know what transpired at many of these battles. In many cases, black troops attempting to surrender were killed or were killed after surrendering. It's fairly well documented.

R

 

[Civil War Scholar]

Now, you're demonstrating that you don't know what transpired at many of these battles. In many cases, black troops attempting to surrender were killed or were killed after surrendering. It's fairly well documented.

R

How do you surrender, apart from raising a white flag? If you don't raise one, you still have not surrendered.
Civil War Scholar.

 

[rpkennedy]

How do you surrender, apart from raising a white flag? If you don't raise one, you still have not surrendered.
Civil War Scholar.

Throwing down your weapons and putting your hands up? This was done by both sidesat nearly every battle. Yet, when black Union soldiers did it, they were killed in comparatively larger numbers. It is clear that many Confederate soldiers had no interest in taking black prisoners. Not all, but many.

R

 

[67th Tigers]

Now, you're demonstrating that you don't know what transpired at many of these battles. In many cases, black troops attempting to surrender were killed or were killed after surrendering. It's fairly well documented.

R

Here he is at least partially right. Many of the atrocities are at best doubtful. For example, it's commonly taken that the Confederates burnt the huts with black troops still in them. The building were in fact burnt by a party under Lt John D. Hill of the C company, 6th USCHA because they obstructed the line of sight and would allow the enemy to use them as cover, and yes, there were his regiments sick in there when he burnt them.

Not to say that extralegal killings did not occur at Ft Pillow (several are well documented), but there was certainly no organised massacre. However, these were killed whilst surrendering, which is always fraught with peril (no-one bats an eyelid in Saving Private Ryan when surrendering Germans are shot). Once surrendered there is no evidence of any killings in the "PW cage".

 

[KeyserSoze]

Keyser Soze,
I see you mentioned Ft. Pillow. A common belief is that CSA troops massacred black USA troops. Don't forget that the fort never raised the white flag and thus it was still a battle. You cannot say that a battle is a massacre, when black Union soldiers are falling. Same applies to Poison Springs, Olustee, the Crater and Saltville. Add Port Hudson too, for good measure. When a battle is fought, it is a battle.
Civil War Scholar.

You can say it is a massacre when there are official accounts of Black Union soldiers being murdered trying to surrender or after surrender. And when there is correspondence between Confederate commanders telling subordinates that Black prisoners were not to be taken. Of course, one has to take off one's blinders first.

 

[KeyserSoze]

How do you surrender, apart from raising a white flag? If you don't raise one, you still have not surrendered.
Civil War Scholar.

Raising one's hands and dropping one's weapons is generally seen and an indication of surrender. Or don't you think that counts?

 

[CSA Today]

One of the greatly underrated Confederate generals is Robert Hoke, a son of the Tarheel state, North Carolina.
When his home state seceded from the USA he was 24 years old. He enlisted in the 1st North Carolina Infantry and was elected to captain.
At the Battle of Big Bethel, General D.H. Hill praised Hoke for "coolness, judgment and efficiency". In September, 1861 he earned a promotion to Major.
He was afterwards promoted to Lt. Col. of the 33rd North Carolina Infantry, impressing friend and foe with his gallantry in New Bern. Being now the colonel of the 33rd, since its original was captured in the aforementioned battle, Hoke led the regiment in the Peninsula Campaign under General Lawrence O'Bryan Branch. He also fought with distinction at Second Manassas and Sharpsburg.
When the original commander of the 33rd, a Colonel Avery, returned from captivity, Hoke was transferred in the 21st North Carolina Infantry in Trimble's brigade, Early's division. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Hoke played a role in repulsing Meade's advance.
At Chancellorsville, he fell wounded defending Marye's Heights and was sent in his home state to recuperate.
In early 1864, Hoke, a brigadier now, took part in the Battle of Plymouth, in his home state, capturing almost 3000 Yankees. In late April, 1864, Hoke was promoted to major general. He was detached, alongside his division, to reinforce General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, a few days before the Battle of Cold Harbor, where he played a pivotal role in the utter defeat of Grant's attacks.
In December, 1864, Hoke and his men returned in North Carolina. The youthful major general led bravely his troops at Bentonville, repulsing several attacks by the Yankees, until their numerical superiority had the final word.
Hoke surrendered with the rest of Joseph E. Johnston's army.

View attachment 44849
General Robert Hoke, CSA, I salute you!
Civil War Scholar.

The county just north of me is named in honour of General Hoke.

 

[Copperhead-mi]

Keyser Soze,
I see you mentioned Ft. Pillow. A common belief is that CSA troops massacred black USA troops. Don't forget that the fort never raised the white flag and thus it was still a battle. You cannot say that a battle is a massacre, when black Union soldiers are falling. Same applies to Poison Springs, Olustee, the Crater and Saltville. Add Port Hudson too, for good measure. When a battle is fought, it is a battle.
Civil War Scholar.

Once again, you show that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Olustee:

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF FLORIDA,
Jacksonville, Fla., September 25, 1864.

Major General E. A. HITCHCOCK,
Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners:
GENERAL: Soon after the battle of Olustee, in Florida, a list of wounded and prisoners in the hands of the enemy was forwarded to our lines by the commander of the rebel army. The very small number of colored prisoners attracted immediate attention, as it was well known that the number left wounded on the field was large.

It is now known that the most of the wounded colored men were murdered on the field. These outrages were perpetrated, so far as I can ascertain, by the Georgia regulars and the Georgia volunteers in Colquitt's brigade.

As many of these troops are now in our hands as prisoners, an investigation of circumstances might easily be made. All accounts represent the Florida troops as not engaged in the murders.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JNO P. HATCH,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.
O.R. Series 2, Volume VII, part I, pg. 876



"In passing over the field, and the road ran centering through it, my attention was first attracted to the bodies of the yankees, invariably stripped, shoes first and clothing next. Their white bodies looked ghastly enough, but I particularly notice that firing seemed to be going on in every direction, until the reports sounded almost frequent enough to resemble the work of skirmishers.

A young officer was standing in the road in front of me and I asked him, 'What is the meaning of all this firing I hear going on.' His reply to me was, 'Shooting nlggers Sir. I have tried to make the boys desist but I can't control them.' I made some answer in effect that it seemed horrible to kill the wounded devils, and he again answered, 'That's so Sir, but one young fellow over yonder told me the nlggers killed his brother after being wounded, at Fort Pillow, and he was twenty three years old, that he had already killed nineteen and needed only four more to make the matter even, so I told him to go ahead and finish the job'. I rode on but the firing continued.

The next morning I had occasion to go over the battle field again quite early, before the burial squads began their work, when the results of the shooting of the previous night became quite apparent. Negroes, and plenty of them, whom I had seen lying all over the field wounded, and as far as I could see, many of them moving around from palace to place, now without a motion, all were dead. If a negro had a shot in the shin another was sure to be in the head."
William Frederick Penniman , 4th Georgia Cavalry

 

[Civil War Scholar]

Raising one's hands and dropping one's weapons is generally seen and an indication of surrender. Or don't you think that counts?

Dropping the weapon may seems the person is trying to escape. Raising hands is often not seen amidst the fog of battle. Other questions?
Civil War Scholar.

 

[rpkennedy]

Dropping the weapon may seems the person is trying to escape. Raising hands is often not seen amidst the fog of battle. Other questions?
Civil War Scholar.

And the fact that Confederate officers admitted to killing black men who had surrendered, attempted to surrender, or were left wounded on the field?

R

 

[KeyserSoze]

Dropping the weapon may seems the person is trying to escape. Raising hands is often not seen amidst the fog of battle. Other questions?
Civil War Scholar.

Yes, just one. Do you honestly, truly belive the drivel that you post?

 

[Civil War Scholar]

Yes, just one. Do you honestly, truly belive the drivel that you post?

Answer: Yes, I can't tell you a lie. And now, my own question: can we stick at the thread's topic?
Civil War Scholar.

 

[KeyserSoze]

Answer: Yes, I can't tell you a lie.

Well that explains a lot.

 

[IcarusPhoenix]

Answer: Yes, I can't tell you a lie.

In that case, your remarkable ability to lie to yourself is duly noted.

 

[Civil War Scholar]

In that case, your remarkable ability to lie to yourself is duly noted.

What I told in the post you quoted applies to y'all.
Civil War Scholar.

 

[diane]

Just a note: If anybody wants to discuss Ft Pillow, it's got a forum all to itself yonder in the Nathan B Forrest Forum.

 

[M E Wolf]

How do you surrender, apart from raising a white flag? If you don't raise one, you still have not surrendered.
Civil War Scholar.

There were several ways a soldier surrendered on the field. It can not be expected for every soldier to carry a white flag. The individual soldiers would have stopped, reverse arms or drop it to the ground, if bayonet affixed to spike the ground as the bayonet would have been in the ground and supporting the musket. Raise of hands, hands behind head, hands to side and various other ways of body language of non-aggression. Even dropping the elevation of a rifle, more frequently than not would cease the threat of being shot by the enemy. Those times, word of honor and posture meant a thousand words.

Running away, escaping ... was common and both sides shot at such soldiers. However, it is also relevant that if an honorable and military recognized protocol of surrender is not honored, they are duty bound to attempt an escape.

Official surrenders were organized and took place among officers -- soldiers were considered no part of the process as they follow orders.

Please remember that individuals surrendering is not to be lumped into a fort's/garrison's and or battlefield surrender as a unit. Any surrender is to be honored and all hostility, injury and or threat of death was to cease from that moment.

M. E. Wolf

 

[Civil War Scholar]

Yes, surely, M.E. Wolf. But, in the middle of battle, individual surrender is often not noted. In the smoke of the battlefield many of the soldiers that throw their rifles down are mistaken for potential deserters and are fired upon. Even cries of "I surrender!" are often drowned in the sounds of gunfire.
Civil War Scholar.

 

[cash]

And of course, no other source mentions it.

Wrong as usual. No actual scholar could be so ignorant of historiography.

http://books.google.com/books?id=mL...ge&q=Plymouth Massacre black soldiers&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=WR...ge&q=Plymouth Massacre black soldiers&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=UA...ge&q=Plymouth Massacre black soldiers&f=false

 

[cash]

Keyser Soze,
I see you mentioned Ft. Pillow. A common belief is that CSA troops massacred black USA troops. Don't forget that the fort never raised the white flag and thus it was still a battle. You cannot say that a battle is a massacre, when black Union soldiers are falling. Same applies to Poison Springs, Olustee, the Crater and Saltville. Add Port Hudson too, for good measure. When a battle is fought, it is a battle.

Wrong as usual.