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One hundred thirty-six years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fascinated with the War for Southern Independence. The larger bookstores devote an inordinate amount of shelf space to books about the events and personalities of the war; Ken Burnss "Civil War" television series and the movie "Gettysburg" were blockbuster hits; dozens of new books on the war are still published every year; and a monthly newspaper, Civil War News, lists literally hundreds of seminars, conferences, reenactments, and memorial events related to the war in all 50 states and the District of Columbia all year long. Indeed, many Northerners are "still fighting the war" in that they organize a political mob whenever anyone attempts to display a Confederate heritage symbol in any public place.
Americans are still fascinated by the war because many of us recognize it as the defining event in American history. Lincolns war established myriad precedents that have shaped the course of American government and society ever since: the centralization of governmental power, central banking, income taxation, protectionism, military conscription, the suspension of constitutional liberties, the "rewriting" of the Constitution by federal judges, "total war," the quest for a worldwide empire, and the notion that government is one big "problem solver."
Perhaps the most hideous precedent established by Lincolns war, however, was the intentional targeting of defenseless civilians. Human beings did not always engage in such barbaric acts as we have all watched in horror in recent days. Targeting civilians has been a common practice ever since World War II, but its roots lie in Lincolns war.
While what they did may be considered war crimes today, there was no Geneva Conventions until 1864. The treaties affecting treatment of civilians during wartime were not adopted until 1949. It wasn't against international law until then. The USA had been placed under martial law, so the law was basically what Lincoln said it was.
So technically speaking, there were no war crimes during the civil war.
The discussion of the loss of states rights, loss of individual rights and the federal power grab is more interesting. These issues are directly related to the topic you posted.
While what they did may be considered war crimes today, there was no Geneva Conventions until 1864. The treaties affecting treatment of civilians during wartime were not adopted until 1949. It wasn't against international law until then. The USA had been placed under martial law, so the law was basically what Lincoln said it was.
So technically speaking, there were no war crimes during the civil war.
The discussion of the loss of states rights, loss of individual rights and the federal power grab is more interesting. These issues are directly related to the topic you posted.
That's ridiculous. War crimes are war crimes, and the law was not "basically what Lincoln said it was." Lincoln had no jurisdiction over the Confederate States. Destroying southern towns and murdering, raping, and pillaging southern slaves and civilians are war crimes.
A discussion I had earlier this morning prompted me to create this thread. During the War for Southern Independence Lincoln and his generals used the strategy of total war to fight the Confederacy. In other words, no southern civilian be they man, woman, or child or any southern slave was safe from northern aggression.
One hundred thirty-six years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fascinated with the War for Southern Independence. The larger bookstores devote an inordinate amount of shelf space to books about the events and personalities of the war; Ken Burns’s "Civil War" television series and the movie "Gettysburg" were blockbuster hits; dozens of new books on the war are still published every year; and a monthly newspaper, Civil War News, lists literally hundreds of seminars, conferences, reenactments, and memorial events related to the war in all 50 states and the District of Columbia all year long. Indeed, many Northerners are "still fighting the war" in that they organize a political mob whenever anyone attempts to display a Confederate heritage symbol in any public place.
Americans are still fascinated by the war because many of us recognize it as the defining event in American history. Lincoln’s war established myriad precedents that have shaped the course of American government and society ever since: the centralization of governmental power, central banking, income taxation, protectionism, military conscription, the suspension of constitutional liberties, the "rewriting" of the Constitution by federal judges, "total war," the quest for a worldwide empire, and the notion that government is one big "problem solver."
Perhaps the most hideous precedent established by Lincoln’s war, however, was the intentional targeting of defenseless civilians. Human beings did not always engage in such barbaric acts as we have all watched in horror in recent days. Targeting civilians has been a common practice ever since World War II, but its roots lie in Lincoln’s war.
Targeting Civilians
A discussion I had earlier this morning prompted me to create this thread. During the War for Southern Independence Lincoln and his generals used the strategy of total war to fight the Confederacy. In other words, no southern civilian be they man, woman, or child or any southern slave was safe from northern aggression.
One hundred thirty-six years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fascinated with the War for Southern Independence. The larger bookstores devote an inordinate amount of shelf space to books about the events and personalities of the war; Ken Burnss "Civil War" television series and the movie "Gettysburg" were blockbuster hits; dozens of new books on the war are still published every year; and a monthly newspaper, Civil War News, lists literally hundreds of seminars, conferences, reenactments, and memorial events related to the war in all 50 states and the District of Columbia all year long. Indeed, many Northerners are "still fighting the war" in that they organize a political mob whenever anyone attempts to display a Confederate heritage symbol in any public place.
Americans are still fascinated by the war because many of us recognize it as the defining event in American history. Lincolns war established myriad precedents that have shaped the course of American government and society ever since: the centralization of governmental power, central banking, income taxation, protectionism, military conscription, the suspension of constitutional liberties, the "rewriting" of the Constitution by federal judges, "total war," the quest for a worldwide empire, and the notion that government is one big "problem solver."
Perhaps the most hideous precedent established by Lincolns war, however, was the intentional targeting of defenseless civilians. Human beings did not always engage in such barbaric acts as we have all watched in horror in recent days. Targeting civilians has been a common practice ever since World War II, but its roots lie in Lincolns war.
Targeting Civilians
Thank heaven for google... What possible credibility should some revisionist who calls Abraham Lincoln "dishonest Abe" have? Answser: None. Thanks anyway.
BTW, it was the Civil War... not the war for southern independence; not the war against northern aggression....
wanna go there? we could call it the "war against southern traitors".
And another word to the wise: NOTHING is a crime unless a law makes it illegal. You can talk about ethics; you can talk about morality; you can even opine about the wonders of philosophy...
but a war CRIME is only a CRIME if a law has been written against it.
And if I sound a bit harsh? It's because I REALLY hate bogus scholarship and revisionist history.
"Killing innocent civilians remains a war crime regardless of how you want to spin it."
Your right, it's been a crime since 1949.....
"Killing innocent civilians remains a war crime regardless of how you want to spin it."
Your right, it's been a crime since 1949.....
Well, I hate to bring it up, but under that thinking any Jews killed by Nazis during WW2 must have simply been casualties of war and it wasn't really a tragedy. Right?
Aside from this obviously biased source, do you have reliable evidence that Lincoln knew about civilians being raped and murdered and that he condoned or permitted such behavior?
It seems rather curious that only those "crimes" committed in the South by Union soldiers are remembered when, in fact, there were some just as nasty inflicted by Southerners on Southerners. I suppose the worst part of this is when some of these same Southerners could have been considered neighbors. Union soldiers did not corner the "market" on incidents of horror inflicted on Southern civilians during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers and officials can also be added to the list of perpetrators.
It seems rather curious that only those "crimes" committed in the South by Union soldiers are remembered when, in fact, there were some just as nasty inflicted by Southerners on Southerners. I suppose the worst part of this is when some of these same Southerners could have been considered neighbors. Union soldiers did not corner the "market" on incidents of horror inflicted on Southern civilians during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers and officials can also be added to the list of perpetrators.
Did you have any incidents in particular you wanted to share with us?
It seems rather curious that only those "crimes" committed in the South by Union soldiers are remembered when, in fact, there were some just as nasty inflicted by Southerners on Southerners. I suppose the worst part of this is when some of these same Southerners could have been considered neighbors. Union soldiers did not corner the "market" on incidents of horror inflicted on Southern civilians during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers and officials can also be added to the list of perpetrators.
Did you have any incidents in particular you wanted to share with us?
Andersonville Prison
The administration’s battle plan was known as the "Anaconda Plan" because it sought to blockade all Southern ports and inland waterways and starving the Southern civilian economy. Even drugs and medicines were on the government’s list of items that were to be kept out of the hands of Southerners, as far as possible.
In October of 1864 he ordered a subordinate, General Louis Watkins, to go to Fairmount, Georgia, "burn ten or twelve houses" and "kill a few at random," and "let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon."
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Another Sherman biographer, Lee Kennett, found that in Sherman’s army "the New York regiments were . . . filled with big city criminals and foreigners fresh from the jails of the Old World." Although it is rarely mentioned by "mainstream" historians, many acts of rape were committed by these federal soldiers.
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]The University of South Carolina’s library contains a large collection of thousands diaries and letters of Southern women that mention these unspeakable atrocities.
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]Shermans’ band of criminal looters (known as "bummers") sacked the slave cabins as well as the plantation houses. As Grimsley describes it, "With the utter disregard for blacks that was the norm among Union troops, the soldiers ransacked the slave cabins, taking whatever they liked." A routine procedure would be to hang a slave by his neck until he told federal soldiers where the plantation owners’ valuables were hidden. [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
After the Confederate army had finally evacuated the Shenandoah Valley in the autumn of 1864 Sheridan’s 35,000 infantry troops essentially burned the entire valley to the ground. As Sheridan described it in a letter to General Grant, in the first few days he "destroyed over 2200 barns . . . over 70 mills . . . have driven in front of the army over 4000 head of stock, and have killed . . . not less than 3000 sheep. . . . Tomorrow I will continue the destruction."
Sherman himself admitted after the war that he was taught at West Point that he could be hanged for the things he did.
Do I or any of YOU doubt that War crimes happened duing EVERY WAR that Americans EVER fought?
I surely don't.[/FONT]
It seems rather curious that only those "crimes" committed in the South by Union soldiers are remembered when, in fact, there were some just as nasty inflicted by Southerners on Southerners. I suppose the worst part of this is when some of these same Southerners could have been considered neighbors. Union soldiers did not corner the "market" on incidents of horror inflicted on Southern civilians during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers and officials can also be added to the list of perpetrators.
Did you have any incidents in particular you wanted to share with us?
Andersonville Prison
