War Crimes Against Southern Civilians

Walter Brian Cisco's War Crimes Against Southern Civilians is the first book-length survey of the Union's "hard war" against the people of the Confederacy--one that included the shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering, and murder. In a series of compelling chapters, Cisco chronicles the St. Louis massacre, where Federal authorities proceeded to impose a reign of terror and dictatorship in Missouri. He tells of the events leading to, and the suffering caused by, the Federal decree that forced twenty thousand Missouri civilians into exile. The arrests of civilians, the suppression of civil liberties, theft, and murder to "restore the union" in Tennessee are also examined. Women and children were robbed, brutalized, and left homeless in Sherman's infamous raid through Georgia. In South Carolina, homes, farms, churches, and whole towns disappeared in flames. Civilians received no mercy at the hands of the Union invaders. Thoroughly researched from sources including letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts of the time, Walter Brian Cisco's exhaustive book notably pays careful attention to the suffering of African-American victims of Federal brutality, revealing that wherever Federal troops encountered Southern blacks, whether free or slave, they were robbed, brutalized, belittled, kidnapped, threatened, tortured, and sometimes raped or killed by their blue-clad "liberators." Apologists for Lincoln's hard war continue to downplay the suffering endured and the damage done, blame the victims, or call some of the above incidents "accidents" or "mistakes." Many also cling to the Lincolnian myth that only by the most horrendous of wars could the slaves be freed, ignoring the fact that the rest of the Western world managed to bring an end to the institution without bloodshed. This book serves to set the record straight and to show that the war on Southern civilians was not justified, despite the convictions by many that such a war was necessary to save the union. Walter Brian Cisco's first book, States Rights Gist: A South Carolina General of the Civil War, a biography of the little-known general, was a 1992 selection of the History Book Club. He is also the author of Taking a Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement, Henry Timrod: A Biography, and Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman, considered the definitive biography of Hampton and the 2006 winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award. He lives in Orangeburg, South Carolina. "Of all the enormities committed by Americans in the nineteenth century--including slavery and the Indian wars--the worst was the invasion of the South, which destroyed some twenty billion dollars of private and public property and resulted in the deaths of some two million people, most of whom were civilians--both white and black." --David Aiken, editor of A City Laid Waste: The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia

Deep in the Ozarks of Southeast Missouri a battle still raises about a massacre committed on Christmas Day, 1863 in Ripley County, Missouri by members of the 3'rd Missouri State Militia Cavalry led by Major James Wilson. While naysayers state that the "massacre" was nothing more than a rescue mission to free Union troops captured days before by Colonel Timothy Reeves and his 15th Missouri Cavalry, CSA, local historical documents, newspaper articles and military records prove bias on their part, painting a picture of a government cover up and the needless slaughter of men, women and children along with Confederate soldiers on the holiest day of the year. In this Expanded Second Edition the reader will find more photos, newspaper archives and other sources of information that paints a clearer picture of this tragedy.

By Clint Lacy. Deep in the eastern Ozarks of Missouri, a battle still rages about a massacre that happened on Christmas Day of 1863. While some call it a simple rescue mission to liberate captured Union soldiers, others claim that it was mass murder, which included women, children and the elderly.The Civil War (or the War of the Rebellion as many Southerners prefer to call it), was a bitter and brutal conflict, but perhaps never more so than in the state of Missouri, where the wounds of the Kansas border wars were still open and festering.Though no famous battles were fought in Missouri, there was severe fighting across the state. In fact, Missouri ranks third in the number of battles and skirmishes during the war. Most of the 1,162 military encounters that took place in the Show Me State were smaller and much more personal than in the Eastern Theater of the war.The brutality of the conflict was punctuated with multiple Union war crimes, especially in the eastern Ozarks. There, Southern patriots like Joe Shelby, Timothy Reeves and others raised regiments and did the best they could to halt the advance of the better-armed and better-supplied Union juggernaut, conducting lightning raids and surprise attacks--and even beating the Union in pitched battles.But rather than take their frustrations out upon the rebel forces, Union commanders in the area--Maj. James Wilson, Capt. William Leeper and others--preferred instead to target the civilians of the Ozarks as a way to subjugate the Southern sympathizers of the region. As a result of this policy, 27,000 Missouri citizens were killed during the war.Starvation, theft, looting, torching homes and outright murder were not uncommon tactics used by this bevy of Federal miscreants whose criminal tactics culminated on Christmas Day 1863 at Tom Pulliam's farm in Ripley County. It was there, on one of the holiest of Christian holidays, a day universally regarded as a day to avoid bloodshed between even the most bitter of enemies, that the Confederates and their families were set upon by a group of Union cavalry under the command of the aforementioned Maj. Wilson.According to eyewitnesses and numerous other sources, 34 of the attendees were killed and 100 more wounded by the berserk Union Missouri State Militia Cavalry.To this day, local historians with an axe to grind have worked diligently to cover up this heinous war crime--perhaps the worst of the Civil War--to protect local reputations. Historian Jerry Ponder, who was the first modern historian to expose this Christmas Day massacre--was relentlessly defamed for his pioneering reports on the tragedy. But, despite the recriminations, Ponder never backed off his research or his story.Sadly, Ponder passed away in 2005, but author Clint Lacy has taken up Ponder's torch of truth and, in this book, Lacy presents all the known evidence, making a strong case that the Wilson Massacre, as it has come to be known, did in fact occur as Ponder claimed, despite the denials of those looking to sweep it under the rug.But the Wilson Massacre was not the only Union war crime in Missouri. Lacy also discusses many others committed by Union forces in Missouri in his attempt to bring history into accord with the facts and shine the light of truth on one of the darkest periods of American history. This is a Seconde Edition contains 143 pages of new information which includes personal biographies, newspaper archives of what life under Union occupation and select stories from the Slave Narratives and additional photos.

In light of recent controversies and legal actions related to America's treatment of enemy prisoners in the Middle East and Guantánamo Bay, the regulation of government during wartime has become a volatile issue on the global scene. By today's standards, Lincoln's adherence to the laws of war could be considered questionable, and his critics, past and present, have not hesitated to charge that he was a war criminal. In Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War, Burrus M. Carnahan conducts an extensive analysis of Lincoln's leadership throughout the Civil War as he struggled to balance his own humanity against the demands of his generals. Carnahan specifically scrutinizes Lincoln's conduct toward Southerners in light of the international legal standards of his time as the president wrestled with issues that included bombardment of cities, collateral damage to civilians, seizure and destruction of property, forced relocation, and the slaughter of hostages. Carnahan investigates a wide range of historical materials from accounts of the Dahlgren raid to the voices of Southern civilians who bore the brunt of extensive wartime destruction. Through analysis of both historic and modern standards of behavior in times of war, a sobering yet sympathetic portrait of one of America's most revered presidents emerges.

Carnahan explores a range of historical materials from accounts of the Dahlgren raid to the voices of Southern civilians who bore the brunt of extensive wartime destruction. Through analysis of both historic and modern standards of behaviour in times of war, a sobering yet sympathetic portrait of one of America's most revered presidents emerges.