Torture

[redst3]

Moderators, please forgive me if there is a thread for this topic, if so, please redirect or delete this…

I am reading Decision in the West and a question came to mind. Some Civil War battles were impacted by deserters or POWs spilling the beans about their respective side's plans for maneuvers and combat. How common was torture to get such information and what verifiable evidence do we have of it?

 

[brass napoleon]

I haven't heard of much use of it, but it would seem to me that if it was used it was pretty ineffective, because it seems that more often than not the information received from captured prisoners was wrong.

 

[Dave Wilma]

Torturing soldiers was rarely productive and took time. A soldier barely knew where he was let alone what the strategy was. Incidents of torture were probably for the entertainment of the captors rather than any real intelligence value.

 

[East Tennessee Roots]

Moderators, please forgive me if there is a thread for this topic, if so, please redirect or delete this…

I am reading Decision in the West and a question came to mind. Some Civil War battles were impacted by deserters or POWs spilling the beans about their respective side's plans for maneuvers and combat. How common was torture to get such information and what verifiable evidence do we have of it?

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/csa-scout-dewitt-jobe-died-horrible-death.109502/page-2#post-1051555

 

[leftyhunter]

Moderators, please forgive me if there is a thread for this topic, if so, please redirect or delete this…

I am reading Decision in the West and a question came to mind. Some Civil War battles were impacted by deserters or POWs spilling the beans about their respective side's plans for maneuvers and combat. How common was torture to get such information and what verifiable evidence do we have of it?

T.J. Stiles book "Jesse James the last rebel of the Civil war go's into detail about Union soldiers hanging Jesse James Step-Dad to get the whereabouts of his brother Frank James who was one of and arguably the best fighter in Quantrills gang. Little Archie Celments and Bloody Bill Anderson who where CSA guerrillas did more then their fair share of mutilations.
Confederate home guards tortured women in Tn to obtain the whereabouts of deserters . Their was torture also committed elsewhere in the the South. I have the info with sources in my thread "union vs CSA guerrillas" if you can't find it let me know I can repost it here. Torture is common in guerrilla or counterinsurgency war by both sides in a conflict. The CW is no exception to the rule. I doubt it was common in conventional conflict in the CW. However the guerrilla or Counter-insurgency conflict occurred on both sides was often fought without the need for rules.
Leftyhunter