"Pro slavery forces cause worst civilian atrocity of the war"

[ironfoot]

 "...Lawrence, Kan., site of the Civil War's worst civilian atrocity. Lawrence had been founded by New England abolitionists and was staunchly anti- slavery. In the early morning of Aug. 21, 1863, Missouri bushwhacker William Clarke Quantrill led several hundred pro-slavery guerrillas into the orderly little town. The raiders went house to house, killing more than 150 men and older boys. Then they torched the place."



http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/123093573.html

[rio grande]

The burning of Atlanta and Sherman's cruel march to the sea, accompanied by murder, rape, theft and forced dispossession of many thousands of civilians from their homes just is nothing I guess compared to the attack on the sacred village of Lawrence.
And of course no mention of the Lawrence raid is complete without recalling the previous  jayhawker attack on Osceola. Many Confederates who participated in the the Lawrence attack were heard shouting "Remember Osceola".

From  http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mo-osceola2.html

"Enraged, (Yankee General) Lane ordered his men to pillage and burn the entire town. The courthouse was broken open and the county records destroyed, stores and private homes were pillaged and torched, and buildings were bombarded with cannon balls. It was not long before the city was a smoking mass of ruins.

If this was not enough of an atrocity, twelve men were given a farcical trial and shot on the town square. These men, who had tried to defend the town, were "convicted” of treason and condemned to death by firing squad, of which Lane himself took part. Amazingly, three of them would survive, but Lane was not aware of this or he probably would have returned to kill them.

Finally, Lane's men brought their frenzy of pillaging and murder to a close by celebrated by getting drunk, so much so, that according to reports, many of the men were unable to march when it came time to leave many and had to ride in wagons and carriages. With them, they took their plunder including Lane's personal share, which included a piano and a quantity of silk dresses. "

[BUGEYE]

you sure burst my bubble.  I thought only southern generals wore silk dresses

[subdjoe]

Gentlemen, remember that from the point of view of the original poster, and those who support him, the federal forces could commit no atrocity.  After all, they were, from the start, fighting to end slavery, so anything they did - rape, murder, torture, anything at all - was a fully justified tool of war.

Gang rape and mutilate a 12 year old?  Perfectly fine, just so it helps free the slaves.  Beat a man half to death and then rape his wife and daughters in front of him?  Good for them!  That will demoralize those dirty rebs!  Don't believe me?  Read through some of the other threads. 

Gotta love the moral high ground. 

[williamlayton]

Joe
That is the most illogical arguement I have heard in a while.
You do not comment on the statement but attempt to attack the thought by making a refrence to the North and saying if they can do it is OK for the South----all the while complaining what the Nort did was wrong.

[Casull]

William, since when is it "illogical" to point out the hypocracy of a post?

[ironglow]

Let's face it both rights and wrongs have been perpetrated by both sides.  There were both saints and sinners...some wore union blue while others wore butternut gray.
   Perhaps it is time we all grew beyond that...

[subdjoe]

Joe
That is the most illogical arguement I have heard in a while.
You do not comment on the statement but attempt to attack the thought by making a refrence to the North and saying if they can do it is OK for the South----all the while complaining what the Nort did was wrong.

Will, that is EXACTLY what you and other northern apologists have said on other threads.  Maybe not quite that bluntly, but when I brought up incidents such as what I posted in this thread, you and others brushed it aside as just a tool of war.

And, if you bother to note, I was not ... that is N O T... excusing what happened in KS.  I was pointing out to others the futility of trying to address federal atrocities with some of the people here since, according to them, the Federals were justified in using any means they deemed necessary to force the south back into the Union. 

[rio grande]

What's illogical is ironfoot claiming the attack on Lawrence was the "worst civilian atrocity" of the war in the face of clear historical evidence that it was not.
Also, I do not see where subdjoe claims if the north committed atrocities that it was OK for Southern forces to do so also.
Civilians should never be targeted, and two wrongs certainly don't make a right, but the terrorists in Lawrence brought the fire down on themselves. That's obvious.

[ironfoot]

Civlian casualties tend to occur where the battles are fought. Most battles in the Civil War occurred in the South, so that is where you would expect civilain casualties. In WW II, civilian casualties occurred mainly in Europe, not the US, because the war with Germany took place mainly in Europe. Before the beginning of the Civil War, in the fight over whether Kansas would be a free or a slave state, free state advocates were butchered by pro-slavery forces. Some say the Civil War actually began in Bleeding Kansas.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Bleeding_Kansas.aspx

[ironfoot]

By Jean Lundquist

Special to The Free Press

NEW ULM — Steeped in German heritage, many New Ulm residents are proud of their history. And an upcom­ing installment of the “Civil War and More” series at the New Ulm Public Library may give residents a few more rea­sons to look back with pride.

At 6 p.m. Tuesdays, episodes of the Ken Burns PBS documentary “ The Civil War” are shown on a 6-by-9 screen, followed by a brief presenta­tion of other Civil War history by Library Director Larry Hlavsa. The one exception will be Jan. 18, when local histori­an Denny Warta will provide information on the role German Americans played in the Civil War — the only pres­entation that will have a local angle considering New Ulm’s German heritage.

Warta says the importance of German-speaking soldiers in the war has been ignored because of the role of Germany in the two world wars. He said it was a combi­nation of beliefs, culture and personal history that made the Germans good soldiers.

“Germans were anti-slavery as a group, and (President) Lincoln’s strongest support came from Germans in America. They could not imag­ine a free country with slav­ery,” Warta said.

Warta calls the mass emi­gration of Germans to America after a 1848 revolu­tion “ the first German brain drain to the United States.”

That year, many German intel­lectuals gathered in Europe hoping to create a German state modeled after the United States, complete with its Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Prussian Kaiser sent his army to quash the effort, Warta said, and many of the people involved fled to America. Some found their way to Minnesota and founded the German city of New Ulm.

Other so- called “1848- ers” settled in southern states, where they found life much more difficult when the Civil War erupted, Warta said. In addition to being against slav­ery, Germans also take the swearing of an oath very seri­ously. These people had taken a vow to support the Union when they arrived in this country and were not in favor of secession, he said.

As such, they refused to fight against Union soldiers.

The combination of beliefs and culture led to the lynching of a total of 150 German men and boys in Fredericksburg, Texas, when they refused to take a new oath to the Confederacy, Warta said. In Comfort, Texas, 36 young German-her­itage men decided to escape across the Rio Grande, make their way to New York and join the Union army. A traitor learned of the plans, Warta said, and informed the Confederate Army. All 36 were killed and later buried in a mass grave.Warta said a monument to the men was placed at the gravesite, with the words “ Treue der Union,” or True to the Union, engraved on it.
Warta said it is the only monu­ment dedicated to the Union in the former Confederate ter­ritory.

Meanwhile, the Germans who had settled in New Ulm were quick to organize and go to war for the Union, many fighting at Gettysburg.

“New Ulm area soldiers fought heroically at Shiloh,” Warta said, where a monu­ment recognizes their contri­bution.

The Battle of Shiloh is among the bloodiest of all American battles; nearly 24,000 soldiers died during two days of fighting in April of 1862.

Warta said shortly after the battle, New Ulm soldiers head­ed back to Minnesota to defend their own homes, as the Dakota Conflict was break­ing out.

Both Warta and Hlavsa say the “Civil War and More” series is a chance to add more depth and understanding to a time that still fascinates Americans.

“ There are Civil War re­enactors all across the coun­try,” Hlavsa said.

[ironfoot]

Everybody knows about Sherman's march to the sea. Not many know of all the atrocities committed against civilians by pro slavery forces that lead up to it. And I mean atrocities against white abolitionists, not the obvious atrocities committed by slaveholders against blacks.

[subdjoe]

Darnit, I hit reply rather than  edit.

[subdjoe]

Civlian casualties tend to occur where the battles are fought. Most battles in the Civil War occurred in the South, so that is where you would expect civilain casualties. In WW II, civilian casualties occurred mainly in Europe, not the US, because the war with Germany took place mainly in Europe. Before the beginning of the Civil War, in the fight over whether Kansas would be a free or a slave state, free state advocates were butchered by pro-slavery forces. Some say the Civil War actually began in Bleeding Kansas.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Bleeding_Kansas.aspx

Yeah, and people like John Brown and other anti-slavery types were just hugging trees and singing Kumbaya, right?

Yes, there will be some civilian deaths in any war.  But when the POLICY of the federal government was to specifically target civilians, to starve them, to rape them, to murder them, to destroy their homes, to brutalize them in every way possible, that takes it beyond the unfortunate but unavoidable civilian deaths that happen in any war.

Yet again, you are justifying pillage, rape, and murder with an "end justifies the means" argument.

[williamlayton]

It was not a policy of the Federal government to rape anyone---you need to post some verification if you are stateing that as a fact Joe.
Yes, it was a policy to destroy all means of support for the war by Southerners.
That is war Joe.
Bloody kansas was a reprisal and made Shermans march appear as a picnic.Shermans march had a military objective.
You get in a fight and it is to win.
Blessings

[rio grande]

It was not a policy of the Federal government to rape anyone---you need to post some verification if you are stateing that as a fact Joe.
Yes, it was a policy to destroy all means of support for the war by Southerners.
That is war Joe.
Bloody kansas was a reprisal and made Shermans march appear as a picnic.Shermans march had a military objective.
You get in a fight and it is to win.
Blessings

williamlayton, do you honestly believe that "to win" trumps all moral considerations? 
That satanic concept is exactly why rape was permitted and, indeed, encouraged.

Here is an example of official sanction of violence against women....and there are many contemporary accounts of oppression of all kinds against Southerners as official policy.

From http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/rape-and-the-civil-war/

"Union Gen. Benjamin Butler, decreeing that any New Orleans woman showing contempt for his occupying troops “shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation” — i.e., the city’s outspokenly Confederate belles were to be treated as prostitutes. Feimster (author of reviewed article linked to) sifts evidence that the order was a green light for Union soldiers to threaten sexual violence if not commit rape itself. "

[BUGEYE]

Let's face it both rights and wrongs have been perpetrated by both sides.  There were both saints and sinners...some wore union blue while others wore butternut gray.
   Perhaps it is time we all grew beyond that...

agreed, and maybe I have missed it somewhere, but I would like a rebels take on the treatment of slaves.  I've heard all the "happy slave" BS.  but would like an "honest" appraisel about enslaving another human.
If I can't get that, I would like to be like IG and really bury the hatchet.
edited to add- please don't up the stuff about who sold them in africa.  if people here didn't buy them, there wouldn't have been a market for them.

[rio grande]

Let's face it both rights and wrongs have been perpetrated by both sides.  There were both saints and sinners...some wore union blue while others wore butternut gray.
   Perhaps it is time we all grew beyond that...

agreed, and maybe I have missed it somewhere, but I would like a rebels take on the treatment of slaves.  I've heard all the "happy slave" BS.  but would like an "honest" appraisel about enslaving another human.
If I can't get that, I would like to be like IG and really bury the hatchet.
edited to add- please don't up the stuff about who sold them in africa.  if people here didn't buy them, there wouldn't have been a market for them.

I'm not a 'rebel', just a believer in the State's right to secede.  Would you like a Southerner's take on the treatment of slaves in the north or the south? 
There were lots of slaves in the north, indeed the Emancipation Proclamation freed only southern slave, not northern ones.

This is from http://www.slavenorth.com/index.html
"The elements which characterized Southern slavery in the 19th century, and which New England abolitionists claimed to view with abhorrence, all were present from an early date in the North. Practices such as the breeding of slaves like animals for market, or the crime of slave mothers killing their infants, testify that slavery's brutalizing force was at work in New England. Philadelphia brickmaker John Coats was just one of the Northern masters who kept his slave workers in iron collars with hackles. Newspaper advertisements in the North offer abundant evidence of slave families broken up by sales or inheritance. One Boston ad of 1732, for example, lists a 19-year-old woman and her 6-month-old infant, to be sold either "together or apart."



Slaves were expensive, the cost of a slave was comparable to the cost of a new car today.
Why would you mistreat such an investment?

Robert E. Lee vigorously opposed slavery and as early as 1856 made this statement: “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”

Most people in the south did not own slaves and did not fight for slavery, but to defend their homeland.

Besides, who would want a slave anyway?  I doubt they would be worth the cost, as they would be highly unmotivated workers.  The myth of blacks'  innate laziness came from the slaves natural and justified reluctance to work in such unfair and unhappy captivity.
If I were a slave I'd do everything I could to avoid working, happily take whatever goods I could from my owner when he was not looking, and run away at the first opportunity.

For a good period take on slave/white relation just read Mark Twain's poignant story of the slave Jim and Huckleberry Finn friendship.

I would not own another human being. If I lived then and inherited  slaves, I pray that I would have been good enough to free them, as General Lee did  before the war.

BTW, 'burying the hatchet' is really good.  Forgiveness is good.  But let's not give up the search for truth in history.

[ironglow]

  It would be an advancement if the terms "pro-slavery" and "anti-slavery"  were not even used..and for the following reasons.
     
      A) Few Confederate soldiers, particularly in the enlisted ranks..even owned slaves.

      B) Northern troops who enlisted were probably most concerned with "preserving the union".

[subdjoe]

Let's face it both rights and wrongs have been perpetrated by both sides.  There were both saints and sinners...some wore union blue while others wore butternut gray.
   Perhaps it is time we all grew beyond that...

agreed, and maybe I have missed it somewhere, but I would like a rebels take on the treatment of slaves.  I've heard all the "happy slave" BS.  but would like an "honest" appraisel about enslaving another human.
If I can't get that, I would like to be like IG and really bury the hatchet.
edited to add- please don't up the stuff about who sold them in africa.  if people here didn't buy them, there wouldn't have been a market for them.

Read "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938"  for the words of the former slaves themselves.  Yes, there are some accounts of brutality and atrocity.  But there are more accounts of slaves being well treated and well cared for.

By the way, the African slave trade existed for at least 1000 years before the trade to the Americas started.  The path went overland to the east.  Historians estimate that between about A.D. 650 and 1900 close to 20,000,000 slaves went the Trans-Sahara route.  Of the slaves sold in the Atlantic slave trade, most (something like 90%) were sold in other than the 13 colonies/United States.  So your argument against the southern states of " if people here didn't buy them, there wouldn't have been a market for them" pretty much crashes and burns of its own absurdity. (added: overall, it is true, if there is no market, then there are no sales.  But to direct it against only the south is absurd)

And, again, the oh, so enlightened and abolitionist north had as bis a stake in the slave trade, actually a bigger stake in the trade, than the south did.

While not 100% accurate, much more truth in this than fiction:

[SouthernByGrace]

William, since when is it "illogical" to point out the hypocracy of a post?

Amen to that!!

[SouthernByGrace]

It was not a policy of the Federal government to rape anyone---you need to post some verification if you are stateing that as a fact Joe.
Yes, it was a policy to destroy all means of support for the war by Southerners.
That is war Joe.
Bloody kansas was a reprisal and made Shermans march appear as a picnic.Shermans march had a military objective.

WL, you need to look at Sherman's OWN estimates of the destruction he caused just in Georgia. By his own estimates, some $80,000,000 was "effected on the residents of Georgia." That's $80 million, in 1860's dollars. By today's standards, that would come to around $80,000,000,000 ( that's 80 BILLION). Just what was the military objective that Sherman had?
According to the 1860 Census, Georgia had the 3rd largest Gross National Product in the entire WORLD. Georgia's economy did not return pre-war levels until 1968!!! It took 108 years for the economy to just get back to square one!
It is my contention that ANY amount of devastation committed by Southerners is Absolutely warranted, because this was a war of invasion on the part of the North. The South had the right to defend itself at any cost, just as the individual has the same right to protect his/her family against any aggressor. 

SBG

[BUGEYE]

Rio, lol, I knew you would mention northern slave owners.   I don't care who it is, I want to hear how anyone can justify enslaving another human.
a few slaves stayed where they were but I think most stampeded to the north.  which could be why the north is mad at the south.   of course, now that I'm old and have to pay for everything that's done around here,,,,, nah I won't say it.

[subdjoe]

Rio, lol, I knew you would mention northern slave owners.   I don't care who it is, I want to hear how anyone can justify enslaving another human.
a few slaves stayed where they were but I think most stampeded to the north. which could be why the north is mad at the south.   of course, now that I'm old and have to pay for everything that's done around here,,,,, nah I won't say it.

No, most stayed put.  Many became share croppers on their former owners land. 

I don't think anyone is trying to, as you put it, justify slavery.  But slavery is an historic fact and has existed for thousands of years, and still exists.  Get over it, and don't try to judge our ancestors by current egalitarian standards.  Might as well condemn them for not using electric cars at to condemn them for having slaves.  That was how the world was then.  It was changing, yes, and for the better.  But a major change in societal thinking and economics doesn't happen at the snap of the fingers. 

[ironfoot]

"In May 1862, he (General Butler) commanded the force that conducted the capture of New Orleans after its occupation by the Navy after the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. In the administration of that city he showed great firmness and political subtlety. New Orleans was unusually healthy and orderly during the Butler regime. Many of his acts, however, gave great offense, such as the seizure of $800,000 that had been deposited in the office of the Dutch consul and his imprisonment of the French Champagne magnate Charles Heidsieck. Most notorious was Butler's General Order No. 28 of May 15, issued after some provocation, that if any woman should insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and shall be held liable to be treated as a "woman of the town plying her avocation", i.e., a prostitute. This order provoked protests both in the North and the South, and also abroad, particularly in England and France, and it was doubtless the cause of his removal from command of the Department of the Gulf on December 17, 1862.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Butler_(politician)

If Lincoln approved of Butler's order, why did Lincoln remove Butler?

[Brewster]

"Get over it, and don't try to judge our ancestors by current egalitarian standards"

I'd tell you to practice what you preach, Joe. 

[subdjoe]

Care to elaborate on that, Brewster?  Or are you just going to sling that with no explanation?  My "get over it" comment had some context.  Yours - well, it seems to have just been thrown out as an attack because you have nothing to offer in rebuttal of my comments?

All I'm attempting to do here is to show that there is more to the history of the Civil War era than the simplistic "Slavery!" that gets taught in the 5th grade level history books that teach people all they know about it.  And that many here seem to toss out as the sum of the Civil War.

Since the reeducation of the nation, and the demonization of the South continues, it is kind of hard to "get over it."  Look at the revisionist propaganda that Iron keeps posting here. 

Oh, and I'm not a southerner.  My moms people came here in the late 1800s and early 1900s from eastern Europe, settled in the hard coal region of PA.  My dads people were in KY, most seem to have worn blue, but a few grey.  He stayed in CA when he left the Corps in '47.  I'm a good California boy, been here for almost 54 years.  I used to buy into the finger pointing "Slavery!" point of view, and the worship of St. Abe.  Then I started to read.  And the more I read, the more I dug.  The more I dug, the more I found that the standard text books in public school didn't quite tell the whole story - not all white southerners owned slave and beat and/or raped them every day.  Fancy that!  And did you know that some blacks owned slaves and worked them on plantations?  Somehow that doesn't make it into the history books.  And for some strange reason this doesn't get into the standard text books either,  Mr. F. Douglass, from a letter to Pres. A. Lincoln: ", “There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the…rebels.”  Wow!  Blacks fighting FOR the Confederacy!  And, judging from the letters home from various federal soldiers, in various actions, over a long period of time, it wasn't at all unusual, no matter what the northern apologists and revisionists say.

[Brewster]

and mine came from Ireland before the war, didn't fight for abolition, despite what you continually rag on.

And we still despise the reb traitors as much as they did then.

[subdjoe]

and mine came from Ireland before the war, didn't fight for abolition, despite what you continually rag on.

And we still despise the reb traitors as much as they did then.

OK, so you have no intent on expanding on your statement.  Thank you for passively admitting that you have no rebuttal to my comments. 

I challenge you to find where I posted that the federals were fighting for abolition.  I think you will find that I am pretty consistent in saying that the federal government was fighting to keep the revenue flowing into the federal coffers. 

[billy_56081]

Heck it all sounds like alot of fun to me. Raping, looting and pillaging. A time when men were men.