War Crime?

[CMWinkler]

An interesting question, Mr. Steele. Perhaps some of our ace researchers could tell us. The war in Tennessee was a dirty war. Opposing partisans killed each other, and innocents, with gay abandon. We've discussed Fort Pillow as well as Saltsville at length as to Southern atrocities, but no real discussion I recall about tribunals.

Maybe someone with the knowledge can help us.

 

[Georgia Sixth]

What surprises me is that the American Civil War was as civil as it was.

American Exceptionalism

 

[Pat Young]

Assuming the statement in the original post is true and correct we can examine this by reference to the Lieber Code General Order 100. The Code was promulgated in April 1863 and this killing took place in December 1863. The Code specifies that:
Art. 56.
A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.

There are clauses in the code that allow for the execution of prisoners in several cases. These include executing prisoners found to have committed war crimes, execution as retaliation (presumably if the CSA executed Union prisoners), and where a soldier belonged to a unit which did not offer quarter. The OP is silent on these issues, but if the exceptions did not apply, then the execution was a war crime.

I do note that there is a limited, but vague, "military necessity" exception in the Lieber Code, as well as a lack of protection for guerrillas.

 

[Dave Wilma]

Assuming the statement in the original post is true and correct we can examine this by reference to the Lieber Code General Order 100. The Code was promulgated in April 1863 and this killing took place in December 1863. The Code specifies that:
Art. 56.
A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.

There are clauses in the code that allow for the execution of prisoners in several cases. These include executing prisoners found to have committed war crimes, execution as retaliation (presumably if the CSA executed Union prisoners), and where a soldier belonged to a unit which did not offer quarter. The OP is silent on these issues, but if the exceptions did not apply, then the execution was a war crime.

I do note that there is a limited, but vague, "military necessity" exception in the Lieber Code, as well as a lack of protection for guerrillas.

Does the code provide penalties for violations of General Order 100?

 

[TerryB]

The biggest problem I have with labeling something a war crime based on slim evidence/personal accounts is that my avatar was so labeled but never tried. Since I took the trouble to thoroughly research the issue, I can say my own ancestor's case is wide open. Only a trial that brought out the facts or the discovery of documents/ CS reports would help resolve the issue. In Col. Pointer's case (he was a lieutenant at the time the raid in question took place), I uncovered several documents that would have resulted in a verdict of not guilty in a fair trial. However, I also believe that Col. W.W. Makall, who was the only person in a position to do so, destroyed all Confederate reports that he had access to, otherwise at least one would have made its way into the OR. Someone no doubt shot at least one Union prisoner that day, but who that might have been cannot be stated with certainty. A contemporary CS account published by an eyewitness in a newspaper the day after the raid names another officer, but not my ancestor, who I believe was the victim of mistaken identity.

I agree that the Union side should have been willing to prosecute its own, rather than turn a blind eye, otherwise all the evidence we have in most such cases might be as brief and lacking in details as the one in the OP.

If the allegations made in the OP are true, then, yes it was murder in the first case.

 

[Pat Young]

Here is another relevant section of General Order 100 which seems to cover the prohibition on punishing prisoners for refusing to inform against their own army.

Art. 80.
Honorable men, when captured, will abstain from giving to the enemy information concerning their own army, and the modern law of war permits no longer the use of any violence against prisoners in order to extort the desired information or to punish them for having given false information.

 

[Pat Young]

You can find the Lieber Code, as it applies to the treatment of prisoners here:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp#sec3