If I had the power

William P. ("Parson") Brownlow, the radical Governor of Tennessee, who passed these laws, made the following statement at a Convention in New York City, during reconstruction:

"If I had the power I would arm every wolf, panther, catamount and bear in the mountains of America, every crocodile in the swamps of Florida, every negro in the South, every devil in Hell, clothe them in the uniform of the Federal army, and turn them loose on the rebels of the South and exterminate every man, woman and child, south of Mason and Dixon's line. I would like to see negro troops under Ben Butler crowd every rebel into the Gulf of Mexico, and drown them as the devil did the hogs in the Sea of Galilee." He said, at a public meeting in Philadelphia, just after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee: " I am one of those who believe the war ended too soon. We have whipped the South but not enough. The loyal masses constitute an overwhelming majority of the people of this country and they intend to march again on the South and intend that the "second war" shall be no child's play. The "second army" will, as they ought to, make the entire South as God found the earth, without form, and void."

"....'burn and kill! Burn and kill!" until the whole rebel race is exterminated."
......Parson Brownlow, at the post war convention in Philadelphia, 1866.

In 1865, the Methodist Rev. William G. Brownlow of Knoxville became the carpet bagger Governor of Tennessee as head of the minority Radical Unionists. He immediately started a second civil war against returning Confederates. Earlier as editor of Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig, he was pro-southern and pro-slavery. He became a fanatical Unionist and was expelled to the North.


Compatriots, behold some of the roots of the war against our heritage. ~

John Fisher
Dixie's Living Historians

BEFORE THE CARPETBAGGERS...

Most of eastern North Carolina lay open to the Union troops from early 1862, and by degrees they stripped the entire region of everything of value that was moveable and whole shiploads of booty were sent north. New Bern-native Edward Stanly was appointed military governor by Lincoln in late May 1862 and sent to occupied Morehead City to govern his subjects, but even he lost hope of restoring the Tarheel State to the Union after watching shiploads of loot heading northward. He resigned his appointment a year later.

Stanly wrote: "Had the war in North Carolina been conducted by soldiers who were Christians and gentlemen, the State would have long ago rebelled against rebellion. But instead of that, what was done? Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of property were conveyed North. Libraries, pianos, carpets, mirrors, family portraits, everything in short, that could be removed, was stolen by men abusing flagitious slave holders and preaching liberty, justice and civilization.

 I was informed that one regiment of abolitionists had conveyed North more than $40,000 worth of property. They literally robbed the cradle and the grave. Family burial vaults were broken open for robbery; and in one instance (the fact was published in a Boston newspaper and admitted to me by an officer of high position in the army) a vault was entered, a metallic coffin removed, and the remains cast out that those of a dead [northern] soldier might be put in the place.” (Hamilton, pp. 94-95)

~Robert~

Defending the Heritage

Prayer for Loved Ones on Confederate Memorial Day/Month

Wouldn't it be wonderful, if on the day of APRIL 26th at the stroke of 12:00 noon, all descendants of Confederates would take one moment to say a silent prayer for our beloved Confederate dead? Many of our ancestors lie, even this day, scattered in mass graves in the North---some, lie quietly under Southern skies in family graveyards in the South—--Some sleep on the land of a champion of States’ Rights at Arlington; some, in Confederate cemeteries throughout the forever and always land of Confederates.

A Prayer for Loved Ones on Confederate Memorial Day
 By, Joan Hough

Joan Hough is a Southern lady from an old Louisiana family now living in Houston, TX. She is the widow of two decorated military husbands.

A Prayer for Loved Ones on Confederate Memorial Day – Commentary by Joan Hough

Wouldn't it be wonderful, if on the day of APRIL 26th at the stroke of 12:00 noon, all descendants of Confederates would take one moment to say a silent prayer for our beloved Confederate dead? Many of our ancestors lie, even this day, scattered in mass graves in the North---some, lie quietly under Southern skies in family graveyards in the South—--Some sleep on the land of a champion of States’ Rights at Arlington; some, in Confederate cemeteries throughout the forever and always land of Confederates.

The years have gone by. All who lived then are dead now –all our Confederates—our soldier boys—all their parents and grandparents, their sisters, their brothers, their wives, their children, their sweethearts-- all our great grandfathers and all our great, great--all dead. All gone, but not forgotten.

Not EVER forgotten! For our Confederates, like the Jewish people in Germany, knew the horror of a lie-powered war waged against them –for our people, our Confederates (including all civilians---mothers and babies, old folks and the young) experienced their own Holocaust -- saw Genocide practiced against them by invaders, spurred on by Lincoln’s warmongering belligerence.2 (A belligerence which became shockingly evident when he refused to meet with Confederate representatives to discuss peace and even with Napoleon III of France for the same purpose,2 and when, after Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked Gustavus Fox, his naval commander, for helping to manipulate the South Carolinians into firing at Fort Sumter.2

Let us all pray then for the valiant men and women who gave their lives or suffered immensely in the fight for Southern Liberty, be they black Confederates (and there were thousands of those) whites, reds, or browns. Be they Christians or Jews or Indians, or Americans of Mexican origin, etc.--rich or poor or middle-classed.

Let us pray for our many thousands of brave Confederates who suffered life-altering, horrendous wounds in defense of our South when Lincoln's Republicans attacked Southern homes on Southern soil, as his Yankee armies invaded a sovereign Confederate republic.
Let us pray for the many thousands of Southern boys killed by the overpowering, thrice their number, Northern soldiers, egged on by the overpowering lies of the New England controlled Republican party whose avarice for money and control of the central government was cleverly disguised by their lying claims and their concerted propaganda that the war was being fought to free the slaves and to save the union.1 & 2 (Claims unmade until the war was half over and the South was winning it.)
Let us pray for our bitterly attacked, large number of Southerners who were brilliant, highly educated, seriously dedicated Constitutional scholars and well knew the Constitutional right of secession belonged to each and every state in the Union—--a union which, until Lincoln and his radicals, was always referred to in the PLURAL 2 —“The union are” , not “ the union is”—--meaning the states (the people) ARE superior to the union (the Central Government) and have the right to counter the union’s government and have the right to secede. Northern states (particularly the New England ones) had threatened secession long before the Southern ones even considered it --—meaning the PEOPLE are the BOSS of the central government, and not the central government the boss of the people.2

Let us pray for the Southern people--–folks who, just a couple of generations from an earlier secession (the first American Revolution) from the British Empire, heard at their grandfathers’ and great grandfathers’ knees, how Southerners had rebelled against unjust laws and unjust taxation and sought and obtained liberty.

"...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..." --Declaration of Independence.

Let us pray for the descendants of those first Revolutionary warriors who, seeing the identical type of enormous taxation loaded on them by the New England dominated Republican party, chose to depart from an association with it, and to refuse to participate in a government which had changed itself from a Constitutional one, in which States’ had rights, to one wherein the central government was ALL POWERFUL--- the States lost their rights, and the Constitution was gutted.

“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it." --Jefferson Davis

Let us pray for the young Southern boys killed before reaching the age of 13, because they found it necessary to defend the dirt their father had farmed before marching off to war.
Let us pray for all Southerners--women, babies, old folks who died from exposure and hunger after General Sherman's forces burned entire towns occupied only by civilians—destroying, intentionally, their homes, their stores and churches—and looting all, plundering all, even executing civilians.

Let us pray for all of the Southerners on their little farms who saw their few mules and horses stolen, saw the crops in their fields and gardens totally devastated to satisfy the Yankee desire to starve the women, the children, the old folks, the sick and the wounded and thus injure the morale of the South’s fighting men and, deliberately, depopulate the land of people considered to be "undesirable" by the all powerful empire, the Lincoln-created government of the North.

Let us pray for the Confederate women and children who saw Yankees kill the cows that gave the children their milk, and the hens that laid the eggs, and the pullets and the pigs that filled farm dinner plates.

Let us pray for the Southern women and children and old folks who saw stolen or destroyed the meat hanging in their smoke houses, and the jars of preserved vegetables and fruits needed to keep a family alive in farm lands far from towns—---at a time when there were no grocery stores, no super markets, no restaurants, no Pizza parlors and no hamburger joints.
Let us pray for all the Southerners who experienced Yankee atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by General Philip Sheridan --–an ever so moral Yankee, personally thanked for his deeds by Lincoln.2

Let us pray for the entire South’s people who lost everything --–and whose sad, terror-filled fate, when revealed to Abe Lincoln, caused him to laugh (as reported by General Sherman in Sherman’s memoirs).2

Let us pray for the citizens of Marion County, Missouri who voiced Southern sympathy and were persecuted by Yankee backed officials.2

Let us pray for the folks in Palmyra, Missouri who, having said the least thing a bit pro-south, were thrown in jail by the general of the Yankee troops....so that he could have ten Southerners to execute if a Union Informer was not returned from his capture by Confederate military forces. General McNeil chose ten civilian men by lottery from the town’s people, choosing only the best educated, most influential and important men. The execution of these men and the manner of it made it one of the cruelest, most barbaric, massacres imaginable, arousing the horror and disgust of many Northerners as well as of all Southerners who learned of it. This was the second major act of murder in the area—--previously, sixteen surrendered Confederates had been brutally murdered by the Yankees. Torture and threat of torture was employed by the Yankees too many times to be counted. Lincoln, upon learning of McNeil’s atrocities, promoted him. 2

Let us pray for all the citizens in Alexandria, Louisiana, in the very center of Louisiana---- the women, children--the sick and the old, the entire civilian population of the city—-- forced to crawl, run, or hop—--some dragging loved ones behind them as they were forced to seek refuge in the waters of the Mississippi River; small children screaming because they were lost from their mothers----All knowing absolute terror, fleeing from the heat and burning of the fires set at the orders of General Nathaniel Banks because of his overwhelming desire for vengeance after losing the Battle of Mansfield. General Nathaniel Banks, withdrawing from the civilian occupied city, chose to burn it to the ground. He gave no warning. He left the women, kids and old folks with only the clothes on their backs.2 Nobody knows the civilian deaths he caused. (People in Alexandria had not forgotten and told me so when I lived there in 1950.)

Let us pray for the Southerners of Atlanta, Georgia where Abe Lincoln arranged a carpet bombing seige that destroyed 90 percent of their city, evicting thousands upon thousands of civilians from their homes, looting their private property---—waging total war against a defenseless civilian population in a pattern that was continued throughout the Republican Army’s invasion of the South.2

Let us pray and pray again for the civilians in the heartland of Georgia who knew the fury of General William Tecumseh Sherman who declared that there could be no peace in the country UNTIL LARGE PARTS OF THE SOUTHERN POPULATION HAD BEEN EXTERMINATED, and so made a deliberate effort to starve to death Georgia’s civilian population. It was a goal of the Republicans to see all Southerners dead or off the continent. Lincoln expressed the opinion that they should be allowed to leave.2

Let's pray, especially, for the civilians--—the women, the babies, the old folks in Marietta, Roswell and New Manchester Georgia where Sherman, with Lincoln’s approval, had his soldiers pull down and burn the homes, burn all their personal property—--steal all jewelry—--and leave the helpless civilians, starving, with only the clothes on their backs.2
Let us pray then for those long lost, OVER TWO THOUSAND weeping women in the Roswell, Marietta and New Manchester area who, at the orders of General Sherman, were kidnapped and thrown with and without their children on trains and shipped North, their services to be sold for literally pennies making them, in truth, WHITE SLAVES FOR THE YANKEES! Poor, lost little Southern ladies and the defenseless terrorized children-- most of them were never to see their loved ones ever again. The Republican government during Reconstruction made no effort to return these kidnapped Southerners back to their homeland.2

Let us give a special prayer of thanks for the courage of Louisiana’s governor Henry Watkins Allen who collected testimonies from eyewitnesses of the Yankee invasion in Louisiana in an effort to preserve the truth of the North’s fiendish activities for future historians.2 (Truth telling, of course, was suppressed during the Republican-controlled Reconstruction’s ten years and by the central government thereafter and has been begun again only by recent scholars.)

Let us pray for the innocent young man named William Mumford who was hanged on the orders of Yankee General Benjamin Butler because the boy had taken down a Union flag from a flag pole in unoccupied New Orleans.2

Let us pray for all the virtuous Southern ladies in New Orleans who were treated like prostitutes by Yankee soldiers on the direct orders of Yankee General “Beast” Butler who, also, sent to prison without a trial New Orleans women and preachers and priests who refused to welcome the invaders. He closed churches and prohibited church attendance.2
Let us pray for the Confederate children who experienced the horrors deliberately forced on them by Yankee soldiers-- watching enemy soldiers kill and leave lying on the ground every single chicken the family possessed---–watching the deliberate killing of a beloved pony performed in front of a child’s young eyes by the Yankee Killer, so the child would always remember the day the Yankees won the war. 2

Let us pray for the sick, old gentleman confined to his bed in Lafayette, Louisiana, who had all of his worldly possessions stolen from him by Yankee soldiers, even his bed covers and for the ninety year old in Louisiana, who had soldiers take his everything--—including his clothes, and for the Goulas family in St. Mary Parish, who had Yankee soldiers steal all their clothes, their baby’s clothes and their beds-- and for Mrs. Vilmeau in Louisiana who had her wedding ring bitten from her finger and her pierced earrings torn from her ears—--and we should pray for her husband who was shot twice while trying to protect his crying, bleeding wife and for the families in New Iberia who watched Yankees open the burial vaults of the New Iberia dead and scatter the bodies upon the ground and use parts of the tombs for cooking and heating purposes.2

And let us pray for Dr. Brashear of Louisiana and his family. Even dead and buried in his tomb in Morgan City, Louisiana, Dr. Brashear was attacked. His body was tossed out and his metal coffin stolen by the Yankee soldiers.2

Let us pray for the citizens of Opelousas, Louisiana, who saw a Massachusetts Army unit turn the Opelousas Methodist Church into a brothel---and for the Catholics in New Iberia who saw the Yankees dance in the robes of their priest and steal their chalice from the Catholic Church-- and for the citizens of Franklin, LA, who saw the members of Mr. Lincoln’s Republican army tear up the Methodist Church there, and use the pews and other bits of the church as furnishings for a pool parlor.2

Let us pray for the grand children of Mr. Theodore Fay in Franklin, Louisiana who had Yankees steal all their little toys.2

Let us pray for the Southern women and old people who experience agonies, as they watched Yankee soldiers gleefully burn family bibles containing the records of Southern lives since the Revolution—--and for the civilians in Chesterfield, South Carolina who were forced to stand by as General Sherman’s men torched their Courthouse containing all of the records for the county, including marriage bonds and property records--—and burning my own Hough records. (Source: Telephone conversation with clerk in that County Courthouse)
Let us pray for the Southern women who were forced to scavage the woods for plants to eat and acorns to boil for coffee after the food in their homes and in their fields was taken from them.

Let us pray for all of the Southern Blacks who experienced many numbers of hideous Yankee atrocities including the rapes of their women by Yankee soldiers, the killing of young girls who resisted being raped, the abusing and robbing of black adults and even the shooting of some of them for no apparent reason, Yankee imposed starvation, being thrown out of their own homes, having loved ones die because of lack of medical treatment and nourishment, and Yankees, brutally chasing down and forcing black males into their army where they were seen to die by the hundreds.2

Let us pray for the helpless civilian citizens of Meridian, Mississippi where General Sherman had 10,000 of his men use axes and fire to make sure that Meridian no longer existed 2—--leaving the women, children, sick and the old to suffer from starvation and the elements.
Let us pray for the women, children and the old and sick in the Shenandoah Valley where Lt. General U.S. Grant, soon to become a U.S. President, ordered General Hunter to have his men totally wipe out everything there, 2 leaving many thousands of innocents to death by starvation.

Let us pray again and again for our stolen Republic wherein each state possessed rights that made it supreme to a central government---Rights recognized during the Revolution and after the secession from the British Empire—--Rights acknowledged by the writers of the U.S. Constitution.
Let us pray for a long dead President by the name of Abraham Lincoln, whose greed for money and power destroyed a Republic and replaced it with an all powerful Central Government lacking checks and balances--–a government our later Presidents called a 'Democracy.'
Let us pray for Abe Lincoln who decided to go against the rules of all civilized nations and wage a war of horrendous nature against women and children.

Let us pray for all the boys, young and old men who fought in that War of Northern Invasion, Northern Aggression against a sovereign nation by name of the Confederate States of America.

Let us pray for all fighters on both sides of that war--- and especially, for those who died---three times the number killed during all the years of war in Viet Nam.

And let us pray a very special prayer that three modern historians by the names of James Ronald Kennedy,2 Walter Donald Kennedy,2 and Thomas J. DiLorenzo,2 who have dedicated much of their lives to digging up the long hidden truths about the horrors perpetrated by Lincoln and his mighty Republicans against the South. The Kennedy and DiLorenzo books have furnished most of the information covered in this request for prayers. Let us pray that their books will be read by millions of Americans who will be awakened to the monstrous lies long told by our all powerful Central government and to the need for its mighty reformation.
And for Walter Donald Kennedy, let us all add a separate prayer that he will gain the opportunity to expose to the entire nation, the grave injustices done to Confederates and to their descendants and to all Americans who have been deluded by the lies of the U.S. government told since the 1860’s. Let us pray that Walter Donald Kennedy will be given a national platform which will allow him to tell the world exactly what this nation must do in order to regain the Constitutional government created for it by the founding fathers, taken from us during the so-called Civil War and, precisely, what we must do to be able to restore truth to our U.S. government.
And, I, myself, will say a private prayer for my three great grandfathers who said their own prayers as they fought in that war for Southern Independence—--the bloodiest of all wars involving Americans---fought against overwhelming Yankee odds--and for my great uncles who fought and for my many great aunts and my three great grandmothers who dodged the Yankees throughout each Yankee invasion that reached them and for my many cousins involved because they were all true Southerners.

I, especially, will pray for all men and women who were brave enough to share their experiences with their own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. despite the laws muzzling free speech for ten or more years---prohibiting any negative speech about the Yankees—--laws passed by the Republican controlled government forces ON the Confederacy during that horrendous period of Southern punishment known as Reconstruction.

SOURCES
 1 Thomas J. DiLorenzo. Lincoln Unmasked. Crown Forum of Random House, Inc., New York: 2006.
2 James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy. The South Was Right. Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., Gretna , Louisiana , 1998
Contact Joan Hough at joanhough@aol.com.
 Related Links
 Thomas DiLorenzo Archive - lewrockwell.com
 What is Real States' Rights - video - electwdkennedy.com
 The South Was Right - amazon.com
 Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe - amazon.com
 The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War - amazon.com
 King Lincoln Archive - lewrockwell.com
 Lincoln Hypocrisy - Steve Scroggins
 Lincoln’s war against Confederate civilians included extensive oppression of U.S. civilians - Norman Black
 More Lincoln Myths Exposed - J.A. Davis
 Confederate History and Heritage Month - GeorgiaSCV.com
 Confederate History Month series - Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.
 Union Army Code of Conduct - Lewis Regenstein
 A Memorial Day Stroll at Arlington - X-Files
 Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia
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 Email: chairman@GeorgiaHeritageCouncil.org

Copyright,  Georgia Heritage Council & Joan Hough
Re-Posted with permission of the author (Joan Hough)

The honour these dead Confederates were denied in life, they found in death.

The photo is of Confederate dead soldiers in the Wheatfield Near Emmittsburg Road - Gettysburg PA, July 1863

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln dedicated the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with those immortal words: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...."

Those words, which will probably last as long as this Nation lasts, were spoken to dedicate a cemetery for the Union soldiers who gave their "last full measure of devotion" on Gettysburg's bloody battlefield. But what honor was accorded the Confederate dead? Where were they laid to rest?

Following the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate dead were buried along the roads, shoved into trenches, or consigned to common graves. The Southerners were seen as traitorous invaders and their bodies were not accorded the respect afforded the men in blue. One newspaper reporter wrote: "The poor Confederate dead were left in the fields as outcasts and criminals that did not merit decent sepulture." President Lincoln's immortal words were not spoken over their unattended, and unmarked, graves.

Reacting to the lack of proper burial for these Southern soldiers left at Gettysburg, the Southern states launched efforts to return the bodies of their sons to their native states following the end of the War Between the States. In Richmond, the Hollywood Memorial Association started a fund drive to secure the money to bring the Confederate dead from Gettysburg to Richmond for reburial in Hollywood Cemetery.

Their efforts proved successful. On June 15, 1872, a steamship docked at the wharf at Rocketts on the James River with boxes containing the Confederate dead. The soldiers who left Virginia to fight for the cause they thought was just, had come home. No one will ever know for sure, but in one of the precious boxes were probably the unidentified remains of Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett, who was killed while leading his men in what history has labeled "Pickett's Charge."

Pickett's Charge, which took place in the afternoon of July 3, 1863, started when General George E. Pickett ordered his men forward yelling, "Charge the enemy and remember old Virginia!" Over 13,000 Confederates emerged from the woods on Seminary Ridge and headed toward the waiting Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, which was nearly a mile away.

It was described by a Union soldier as Confederates charging forward "with the step of men who believed they were invincible." Union shot and shell tore into the marchers, but still they came. It was recorded that the battle noise was "strange and terrible, a sound that came from thousands of human throats...like a vast mournful roar." With muskets firing, flags waving, bayonets fixed and swords pointing forward, the flower of Southern manhood moved forward, ever forward. The fighting was bitter as the Confederates flung themselves across a stone wall which separated the two armies. The battle was awesome, the human casualties appalling; and the Union's fate hung on the outcome. It was, however, the Confederacy that died on that stone wall as the men in gray were repulsed by the Union forces.

Their charge had failed. General Garnett, who was ill on the day of the charge, led his men into what was described as a mission to "hell or glory." As he plunged with his men through a hail storm of lead, Garnett was ripped apart by grape shot and his body was left unidentified on Gettysburg's field.

The honor these dead Confederates were denied in life, they found in death. On June 20, 1872, fifteen wagons were assembled at Rocketts to carry the boxes containing the remains of the Confederate dead. Each wagon was draped in mourning and was escorted by two former Confederate soldiers with their muskets reversed.

The funeral procession, which included both political as well as military leaders of the recently defeated Confederate nation, wound its way up Main Street as it moved toward Hollywood Cemetery. The buildings along the route were draped in black, and they echoed to the plaintive sound of the funeral march.

As the wagons passed slowly by, "many eyes were filled with tears and many a soldier's widow and orphan turned away from the scene to hide emotion." When the procession reached the cemetery, the boxes were unloaded and buried in a section known as Gettysburg Hill. The soldiers who had escorted the bodies were ordered to "rest arms" as their comrades were laid to rest in Virginia's soil.

There was nothing comparable to the Gettysburg Address for these soldiers. There were no memorable orations; only a prayer by The Rev. Dr. Moses Hoge of Richmond's Second Presbyterian Church was spoken. The prayer contained these lines: "We thank Thee that we have been permitted to bring back from their graves among strangers all that is mortal of our sons and brothers." Dr. Hoge prayed for those who had survived the war and then intoned, "Engrave upon the hearts of...all the young men of our Common- wealth the remembrance of the patriotic valor, the loyalty to truth, to duty, and to God, which characterized the heroes around whose remains we weep, and who surrendered only to the last enemy...death."

Following the prayer, three musket volleys were fired in a final tribute to those whose bodies were laid to rest for all eternity on Hollywood's sacred hill. The sounds of the muskets echoed across the cemetery, across the River James, and they still echo today across the pages of history.

Thanks to:
Sister Eileen Parker Zoellner
Tennessee Confederate Flagger

"Wake up, you little bastard rebel..........."

EAST TENNESSEE UNIONISTS

 

EAST TENNESSEE UNIONISTS, RACIAL MORES & HOSTILITY

   General Nathan Bedford Forrest once exclaimed that a Tennessean in blue was an outrage and hoped the blue wool would “burn good in Hell”. Bedford Forrest was true to the call of his State and considered it treasonous for a Southern man to fight in Abe Lincoln’s Army.
   On December 8, 1860 Tennessee Governor Isham Harris called for the State legislature to hold a special session to take up the issue of secession. By February 9th, 1861, Tennessee voters had rejected a call for a secessionist convention. Tennessee, unlike her neighbors in the deep South, did not hold slavery as an overriding issue and preferred to stay in the Union.
On April 15, President Lincoln called on Tennessee to provide troops for the Union, however, Governor Harris refused and called for a second convention and on May 6th, Tennessee voted to go to a popular referendum to consider secession. On June 8th,
Tennessee decided to break from the Union, as the issue of States Rights overrode the Unionist appeals of East Tennessee.  
   On June 17, 1861, voting was held “for and against” representation in the Confederate States Congress. The voting took place in Greeneville…Sullivan County voting 1,586 for separation with the opposing vote at 627; the vote for representation being 1,567 for and 637 against. In contrast, Carter County was 86 for separation and 1,343 against; 86 for representation and 1,343 against.
By August 1st Tennessee voted to adopt the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, thereby laying the basis for secession; Tennessee becoming a hotbed of contention by both North and South. Sullivan County sent her sons to the Southern Army, Carter and Johnson County to the North. Southern primary units receiving Sullivan County men were the 19th, 59th, 60th, 61st and 63rd Infantry Regiments, while others made their way westward to enlist with other regiments. Carter and Johnson County Unionists made their way primarily into the ranks of the 13th Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry and 4th Tennessee Infantry Regiment under Colonel Daniel Stover, a son-in-law of Andrew Johnson.
   Those who remained suffered dearly in all of upper East Tennessee; with no side escaping criminal predations from bands of lawless raiders of lives and property, mainly known as “bushwhackers”. Such was the life and fate of many good citizens during this holocaust of “brother against brother.”
   The events of nearly 150 years ago still raise arguments to the present day, and it is usually easy to get heated discussions going on blogs and web sites, pro and con. Everyone has his or her own opinion based primarily on their perception of the causes of that heinous period in history. Re-enactments of battles are popular events, and the tales of gallantry of various Regiments and heroic acts in battles are acted out with the utmost respect to detail. Organizations abound for the descendants of those who fought this great war: The Order of The Confederate Rose, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Grand Army of the Republic and others. As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I feel no need to elaborate on my beliefs (stated in the first paragraph)…..for that is not the purpose of this article. One must do his own research, and there is no dearth of information. Library shelves are full of books on the subject, and the Internet is buzzing.
   The treatment of and plight of the Negro populace of that period is the object of many historians lectures and books. I have read many and can conclude only that these people had endured their condition for centuries prior to the War for Southern Independence. The institution was part of both Northern and Southern cultures, with the South using their labor in agrarian pursuits. While considered by most to be morally wrong to own the person and labor of another, a primary concern was how to end it in the most humane manner. Europe had done so without bloodshed. America could have done the same, had not Northern abolitionists used the issue as a catalyst, for it certainly was not the cause. It is known that Southern taxation had became burdensome in financing Lincoln’s “internal improvements” and enriching Northern industrialists, and slavery, as well as secession was legal under the Constitution. With the South paying seventy per cent of the nation’s taxes, Lincoln could not afford to lose his cash cow, and if necessary, would beat the South into submission by military force. But great loss of life would be the result of his war.
   The North certainly had no moral high ground in regard to racial attitudes: From the History of the Thirteenth Regiment by Regiment Adjutants Samuel W. Scott and Samuel W. Angel, we read: “There was a‘Contraband Camp’ at Gallatin and it looked if all the colored people in the country had gathered there. The Northern soldiers, who had preceded us at this place, had made the ‘colored man and brother’ think he was the whole thing. When we first went there our men had to give the pavement to these‘Contrabands’, who did not seem to think they had anything to do but parade the sidewalks. Our men soon concluded they needed good strong walking sticks. Provided with these the colored gentry soon found it convenient to vacate the sidewalk in ample time when he saw a‘Thirteenth’ soldier approaching. These mountaineers had known the colored man only as a slave and had lost little sleep over him in any way; they were not fighting to free the slave but to restore the Union. He might be free for all they cared, but his place was not in front; he must ‘go way back and sit down, and not be sassy.” [It is curious Scott & Angel would state "the Northern soldiers, who had preceded us at this place........", when it is known the 8th Tennessee Cavalry was in Gallatin prior to the 9th and 13th Regiments.]
   In War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco: “Robbery was common, as was sexual abuse of black women by Yankee soldiers. A U.S. cavalry regiment recruited from among East Tennessee Unionists and described by one girl as ‘the meanest men I ever saw’ rode into Gallatin in May 1864 and began a reign of terror. They torched two newly established schools for black children, murdered one freedman, and swore they would—as soon as they could—kill every black in town”. [This was possibly done, as previously mentioned, by the vaunted Thirteenth Tennessee—men from Carter and Johnson Counties—who committed these war crimes, or possibly the 8th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment or 9th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, also comprised of East Tennessee Unionists and in Gallatin in May of 1864.]  
   A Company of the 13th, Co G, is also“credited” with the capture and death of General John Hunt Morgan in Greeneville, TN. There are reports of witnesses who claim General Morgan was murdered after he surrendered, but of course, denied by Scott & Angel.   In Between the States: Bristol Tennessee/Virginia During the Civil War by V.N. “Bud” Phillips stories are told of Bristol citizens, including women and children being abused, beaten and shot by Yankee invaders. One story of particular interest to this writer is the story of a slave in the home of a Mrs. Seabright. The slave, named Safrilla, was watching the Seabright’s one year old baby sleeping on an open blanket near an open fireplace. It was in December of 1864 and General Burbridge was in Bristol to put “holy fear” into the local citizens as well as “visit” their homes. A Yankee soldier entered the home, and seeing the folded blanket the child was laying on, jerked it from beneath the child while yelling, “Wake up, you little bastard rebel, and see what a real Yankee looks like.” As the child screamed, Safrilla arose and without hesitation seized a fire poker and broke the Yankee’s skull. Safrilla wrapped the soldiers bleeding head in a throw rug, pulled him into the kitchen, dropping his body through a trap door to the cellar. She pushed a huge cupboard over the trap door. She then bodily threw Mrs. Seabright into her bed and told her to pretend to be seriously ill: “Now ye play sick; lay still and look bad.” She then raked coals and ashes over the blood stains in the floor and hid the soldier’s rifle under a bed. When the soldiers missed the dispatched child molester, they went looking for him. When they got to the Seabright home, Safrilla answered: “Oh sho he come here, but I told him they got the pox and he hightailed it and left.” Looking at Mrs. Seabright she said, “they got the pox, they got the pox.” The Yankees left on the run.
    When General Burbridge was told a soldier was missing, he threatened to burn Bristol to the ground…..but one of his officers convinced him he saw the soldier running toward Blountville, a possible deserter. Bud Phillips believes that the officer was perhaps from Bristol or had relatives in the town, thus sparing the town more misery from the invading army. 
There are many references of the black population of the South protecting their Southern homes, for close bonds had been formed over many generations. Some served in the Southern Army, fighting beside their masters in a common defense of their homeland. The number can be debated, but is an historical fact.

References and suggested reading:


Alice Williamson Diary—David N. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Duke University War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco
The Day Dixie Died by Thomas and Debra Goodrich
History of the Thirteenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry by Scott & Angel
Between the States Bristol Tennessee/Virginia During the Civil War by V.N. “Bud”Phillips
Adventures of Daniel Ellis The Union Guide by Himself
The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo The Confederacy’s Greatest Cavalryman Nathan Bedford Forrest by Brian Steel Wills

http://www.southernheritage411.com/

William C. “Bill” Hicks/26 July, 2010
www.ltrobertjtipton2083.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WAR CRIMES IN GALLATIN, TN,

Soon after starting from Atlanta on General Wheeler's second raid into MiddleTennessee, in1864,I resolved to go into Gallatin, my home and native place, and see my family, from whom I had been absent for more than two years. I knew that Gallatin had been occupied by the Federal forces a long time, and that the commandants of the place ,Payne and then Scarret, had been placed there for their well-known disposition to lord it over a helpless and non combatant population. Many outrageous crimes had been committed by them, and scores of

Confederate soldiers had been brutally murdered for no other reason than that they sought to see their dear ones again. The darkest chapter in our War between the States could be written under this head. I was fully posted then of the hazard of such anundertaking; but I wanted to see my wife and little boy (who was but a few weeks old when I left there),and I fully determined in my own mind to risk it, as I felt convinced that this would be the last opportunity.



From "The History of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry" by Major George B. Guild.

Thanks to:
Bill Hicks,

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Lt. Robert J. Tipton #2083

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The vandals in front of us having failed to take the city by fair means

Subject: August 28, 1864

DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST , August 28, 1864, p. 2, c. 2 Atlanta, Aug. 26th, 1864. The vandals in front of us having failed to take the city by fair means, and in open combat are resorting to the last expedient of a baffled, unprincipled and disconsolate bullythat of its destruction by fire. Within the past four and twenty hours as many as nine buildings have touched the ground, and are now visible only in smouldering walls and charred ruins. During these conflagrations the Yankee batteries played vigorously among the fire battalion. They obtained the range by the clouds of smoke and flame and had nothing more noble to do than to drop their shells in among the humane non-combatants at their work of charity, and the frightened and houseless women and children fleeing from the wrath of the two fierce and consuming enemies. Can anything be more typical of the desperation of the ruffians who came here under the illusion of winning an easy victory, or the infamy of the universal Yankee nation? It is a perfect symbal of the fear of the intolerable wretch who commands them. Sherman, who said that the waist coat of God Almighty was not big enough to make him a coat, supports his pretentions to the character indicated by this blasphemy in every conceivable way, and rolls up mountain upon mountains of guilt every hour that he inspires the breath of life. Of all the Yankee Generals he is the poorest, the vainest, the meanest. He is without honor as a man, or conscience as a human being. His wit, by which he sets great store, is that of a Dutch dissenting class leader, his wisdom that of a circus clown, his temper that of Meg Merriles, his honesty that of Ananias and Sapphira, his ambition that of Beast Butler, and his appearance and manners those of Uriah Keep. His fate will be upon the earth wreck and ruin, the exposure of his littleness and puppiness, the disgrace of his military pretensions and the discomfiture of all his schemes; in the world to come though I judged not let I be judged you can imagine what awards will be assigned to a villain, who not content with insulting the purity of womanhood and assailing the innocence of children, points his blasphemous tongue like a hissing adder in the face of his Maker. Ugh! what a disgust the things inspires a paltry villian , a currish knave, the very Fawkes of society, the situs cates of war, a dull sharper, a cheat and shame upon the name of soldier, the very embodiment of an ill-begotten, ill-bred and destined caterpiller, clinging only to sloth and milldew , climbing no higher than the scum of a rank and putrid atmosphere. Last night a shell, a forty-two pounder, struck the Presbyterian Church. It passed through the pulpit and floor into the basement, or Sunday school room, where a number of citizens had sought refuge. Here it exploded. The scene which followed was frightful. Several were hurt and one poor fellow had his arm shot off.


SWR's (CulpeppersLightArtillery) Richard
http://www.southernwarroom.info/

Yankee Prisoners at Andersonville.

DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST [AUGUSTA, GA], July 1, 1864, p. 4, c. 1

Yankee Prisoners at Andersonville.

Some over-sensitive newspapers have complained of the manner in which the Yankee prisoners, 20,000 in number, are treated at Andersonville, Ga. The following remarks on the subject are pertinent. We copy from the Macon Telegraph:

"There has been in the papers, including our own by correspondents, a great deal of needless and causeless animadversion upon the condition of the prisoners at Camp Anderson. Correspondents, fresh from comfortable homes, surrounded with the appliances of luxury, comparing the condition of the prisoners with their own, are struck by the relative discomfort of the situation, and should they go to any camp in the field would doubtless be affected in the same way.

It is certain the Anderson prisoners of war are generally better rationed than the soldiers of our army, and as for being “without shelter” so far as that is true, it is the condition of our own brave soldiers in active service. As to the ratio of mortality, it is smaller than could be reasonably anticipated under the circumstances. Twenty-five thousand men in a permanent camp, under any possible condition, would exhibit heavy bills of sickness and mortality, and the wonder is, they are so comparatively light at Anderson—for these are Northern men suddenly transferred to a far Southern latitude and a total change of diet and water. The experience of the whole war has taught us at great sacrifice of life, that troops in the field in the summer time cannot be long camped in any one spot without a heavy sick list. but a permanent camp in the case of these prisoners is wholly unavoidable, and what is more, so great are their numbers, that it is necessarily a crowded camp. Is it any wonder, therefore, that in a crowd of twenty-five thousand, “scores” should be sickening and dying every day? We question whether the fact would not exist, even if the prisoners were all provided with comfortable ceiled houses and fed on chickens, eggs and buttermilk.

The charges and implications of inhumanity to these prisoners, are therefore, we believe, wholly groundless, and ought not to be made or insinuated by any Confederate prints. They have good food, as healthy a locality as could be obtained with the conditions of convenient transportation and as much latitude of space and motion as security and the available means at hand can provide or plan.

But on the other hand, look at the statements in regard to the treatment of Confederate prisoners of war, by the Federal authorities. The horrors of Fort Delaware are familiar to every mind. Thousands of as gallant men as ever lived—reared in elegance and ease, there breathed their last, upon beds of filthy mud and ooze, their parched lips moistened with stagnant ditch water, and condemned and wormy army bread their only fare.

Point Lookout has been better, but read the appended statement copied out of a late Richmond Sentinel. The prisoners at Anderson have been there for months, and will be there a month longer, only by the sufferance and devices of their own Government. The Confederate Government has ever been most anxious for a fair exchange. But it is understood that a large proportion of the prisoners now in our hands go out of service by the expiration of their terms of enlistment, while the Confederates who might be exchanged for them, would be still available as soldiers, the heartless despotism at Washington is totally averse to an exchange which would disproportionately increase the strength of the Confederate army.—While they charge the Confederates with wanton cruelty and neglect of these prisoners and shoot and starve the Confederate prisoners in their hands by way of “retaliation,” they very composedly elect that their own captured soldiers shall, month after month suffer these alleged cruelties. Time was when the sufferings of the Barbary prisoners moved heart of the Christendom and sent fleets and armies to their relief. But the Lincoln Government groans over treatment to its captured citizens which it represents as worse, and yet voluntary permits them to remain in captivity (lincoln stopped the exchange of prisoners) in order to eat up the alleged scarcity of feed supplies in the South, and avoid strengthening disproportionately the armies of the Confederates. It is the most grovelling, heartless and cowardly policy ever pursued by a people claiming Christian civilization.

SWR's (CulpeppersLightArtillery) Richard
http://www.southernwarroom.info/

One Account of Sherman’s Raid in North Carolina:

One Account of Sherman’s Raid in North Carolina:

DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST , August 28, 1864

Subject: August 28, 1864
Message:

DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST , August 28, 1864, p. 2, c. 2 Atlanta, Aug. 26th, 1864. The vandals in front of us having failed to take the city by fair means, and in open combat are resorting to the last expedient of a baffled, unprincipled and disconsolate bullythat of its destruction by fire. Within the past four and twenty hours as many as nine buildings have touched the ground, and are now visible only in smouldering walls and charred ruins. During these conflagrations the Yankee batteries played vigorously among the fire battalion. They obtained the range by the clouds of smoke and flame and had nothing more noble to do than to drop their shells in among the humane non-combatants at their work of charity, and the frightened and houseless women and children fleeing from the wrath of the two fierce and consuming enemies. Can anything be more typical of the desperation of the ruffians who came here under the illusion of winning an easy victory, or the infamy of the universal Yankee nation? It is a perfect symbal of the fear of the intolerable wretch who commands them. Sherman, who said that the waist coat of God Almighty was not big enough to make him a coat, supports his pretentions to the character indicated by this blasphemy in every conceivable way, and rolls up mountain upon mountains of guilt every hour that he inspires the breath of life. Of all the Yankee Generals he is the poorest, the vainest, the meanest. He is without honor as a man, or conscience as a human being. His wit, by which he sets great store, is that of a Dutch dissenting class leader, his wisdom that of a circus clown, his temper that of Meg Merriles, his honesty that of Ananias and Sapphira, his ambition that of Beast Butler, and his appearance and manners those of Uriah Keep. His fate will be upon the earth wreck and ruin, the exposure of his littleness and puppiness, the disgrace of his military pretensions and the discomfiture of all his schemes; in the world to come though I judged not let I be judged you can imagine what awards will be assigned to a villain, who not content with insulting the purity of womanhood and assailing the innocence of children, points his blasphemous tongue like a hissing adder in the face of his Maker. Ugh! what a disgust the things inspires a paltry villian , a currish knave, the very Fawkes of society, the situs cates of war, a dull sharper, a cheat and shame upon the name of soldier, the very embodiment of an ill-begotten, ill-bred and destined caterpiller, clinging only to sloth and milldew , climbing no higher than the scum of a rank and putrid atmosphere. Last night a shell, a forty-two pounder, struck the Presbyterian Church. It passed through the pulpit and floor into the basement, or Sunday school room, where a number of citizens had sought refuge. Here it exploded. The scene which followed was frightful. Several were hurt and one poor fellow had his arm shot off.


SWR's (CulpeppersLightArtillery) Richard
http://www.southernwarroom.info/

Two men who died in Civil War(sic) camp remembered

When a Union raiding party came through Watkinsville in August 1864 during the Civil War, the soldiers seized two local businessmen who never returned leaving a mystery that wouldn’t be solved until many decades later.

“Their families went to their graves not knowing what happened to them — were they summarily shot or hanged outside town. What happened?” said Kaye Reeves, a current resident of the city and a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Almost a century passed before a Watkinsville woman researching old Civil War records discovered the men died in an Ohio prison camp.

Today, those two men — George Jarrell and Jacob Klutz — will be remembered when a granite monument is unveiled on the grounds of Watkinsville’s Eagle Tavern Museum near a historical marker erected for Stoneman’s Raid that was part of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s forces that invaded Georgia during the war.

More HERE

Yankee Behavior

Just a little refresher.............

(and if given the chance, I'm sure they would repeat)

SWR's Administrator Hamp.

CLARKE COUNTY [AL] JOURNAL, August 27, 1863, p. 2, c. 2
A Hellish Outrage by Yankees.—by a letter which has reached this city from Wetzen County, (says the Richmond Examiner,) we learn the particulars of a most revolting outrage committed by some Yankee fiends upon the person of the wife of Mr. L. S. Hall, member of the State Legislature from Wetzel, and one of the first advocates of secession in his section. Mrs. Hall had her clothes tied over her head and in that condition she was thrust into the street of New Marketsville, her husband's place of residence. Report says that an outrage, to which death is preferable, was perpetrated upon her person.—The Yankee hellhounds afterwards burned down Mr. Hall's outhouses and ransacked his house.

CLARKE COUNTY [AL] JOURNAL, August 27, 1863, p. 2, c. 3
Yankee Fiendishness.—Mississippi has been reserved for the final capping of the climax of Yankee brutality, says the Mississippian. Not satisfied with burning, devastating towns, cities, farm houses and plantations, their barbaric instincts found vent in the perpetration of an act at which humanity revolts. We are informed that Mrs. Fort, a widow lady, residing in Madison County, six miles from Canton, a sister of B. Ricks, a wealthy and influential citizen of that county, was recently stripped and upon her back was inflicted 500 stripes with a leather strap, by two Yankee brutes. She was so badly bruised that fears were entertained for her life. If such acts as these do not fire up the blood of Mississippians and Southrons everywhere, then, indeed, may we conclude that justice has fled to brutish beasts. It is, however, only another dark chapter in the book of fiendish Yankee monstrosities.

CLARKE COUNTY [AL] JOURNAL, August 27, 1863, p. 2, c. 5
Yankee Outrage.—A few days ago, says the Mobile Tribune of the 23d inst., a party of Yankee marines came ashore not far from Bayou la Batre, and waded to the house of a Mrs. Neill. She was alone at the time.—They endeavored to extort from her information of the number and position of our troops in the neighborhood as well as information of the localities, &c. She either had no information to give or was determined not to gratify the ruffians. The result was the most barbarous maltreatment. After beating her severely, they tied her with her child in her arms to a tree, where she was found not long afterwards by her husband, who was returning in company with other persons from the saltworks of that section. The scoundrels got off safely, although they were almost within call of a portion of our force in the neighborhood.

CLARKE COUNTY [AL] JOURNAL, September 10, 1863, p. 2, c. 2

Yankee Outrages on Women.

A gentleman who left Winchester on last Thursday, says that a Yankee cavalry force, numbering about one hundred and fifty, visited the town on Monday morning last, and remained there several hours. Their force in the Valley below Winchester is not large.
At Martinsburg they are reported to have from 1,500 to 2,000, and at Charlestown a small cavalry force and two regiments of infantry.
From Loudon county we have a report that the Yankees are behaving with greater fiendishness than has heretofore characterized their conduct else where, and that they have in several instances violated the persons of some of the most respectable ladies in the county. Three sisters, young, intelligent, and of excellent social position, have been made the victims of their lust, because a brother of theirs was a Captain in the Confederate service. A short time since they attempted to outrage the person of the wife of a clergyman, who is also in our service. She was stopping with a friend near Leesburg, where her room was entered by a Federal officer, who locked the door behind him. Her struggles and screams attracted the attention of a negro man on the premises, who ran to the window of the room, which caused the wretch to desist for an instant in the prosecution of his infernal designs. In this interval the lady jerked his pistol from his side and fired at him, while he ran off, and with an associate mounted his horse and left, leaving his pistol behind him.—Richmond Dispatch, 24th ult.

"My God! I Pity Your City!"

Columbia, South Carolina,
as it looked the morning after a visit from sherman's fire fiends. "
by John T. Trowbridge
Northern journalist
Early in the evening [of February 17] as the inhabitants, quieted by General Sherman's assurances, were about retiring to their beds, a rocket went up in the lower part of the city. Another in the center, and a third in the upper part of town, succeeded. Dr. R.W. Gibbes was in the street near one of the Federal guards, who exclaimed on seeing the signals, "My God! I pity your city!" Mr. Goodwyn, who was mayor at the time, reports a similar remark from an Iowa soldier. "Your city is doomed! These rockets are the signal!" Immediately afterwards fires broke out in twenty different places.

The dwellings of Confederate Treasury Secretary George A. Trenholm and General Wade Hampton were among the first to burst into flames. Soldiers went from house to house, spreading the conflagration. Fireballs, composed of cotton saturated with turpentine, were thrown in at doors and windows. Many houses were entered and fired by means of combustible liquids poured upon beds and clothing, ignited by wads of burning cotton, or by matches from a soldier's pocket. The fire department came out in force, but the hose-pipes were cut to pieces and the men driven from the streets. At the same time universal plundering and robbery began.

The burning of the house of R.W. Gibbes, an eminent physician, well-known to the scientific world, was thus described to me by his son:

"He had a guard at the front door; but some soldiers climbed in at the rear of the house, got into the parlor, heaped together sheets, poured turpentine over them, piled chairs on them, and set them on fire. As he remonstrated with them, they laughed at him. The guard at the front door could do nothing, for if he left his post, other soldiers would come in that way.

Columbia, south carolina, as it looked the morning after a visit from sherman's fire fiends. "The guard had a disabled foot, and my father had dressed it for him. He appeared very grateful for the favor, and earnestly advised my father to save all his valuables. The house was full of costly paintings, and curiosities of art and natural history, and my father did not know what to save and what to leave behind. He finally tied up in a bedquilt a quantity of silver and gems. As he was going out the door the house was already on fire behind him -- the guard said, 'Is that all you can save?" "It is all I can carry,' said my father. 'Leave that with me,' said the guard; 'I will take charge of it, while you go back and get another bundle.' My father thought he was very kind. He went back for another bundles, and while he was gone, the guard ran off on his lame leg with all the gems and silver."

The soldiers, in their march through Georgia, and thus far into South Carolina, had a wonderful skill in finding treasures. They had two kinds of divining-rods," negroes and bayonets. What the unfaithful servants of the rich failed to reveal, the other instruments, by thorough and constant practice, were generally able to discover. On the night of the fire, a thousand men could be seen in the yards and gardens of Columbia by the glare of the flames, probing the earth with bayonets.

The dismay and terror of the inhabitants can scarcely be conceived. They had two enemies, the fire in their house and the soldiery without. Many who attempted to bear away portions of their goods were robbed by the way. Trunks and bundles were snatched from the hands of hurrying fugitives, broken open, rifled, and then hurled into the flames. Ornaments were plucked from the necks and arms of ladies, and caskets from their hands. Even children and negroes were robbed.

Fortunately the streets of Columbia were broad, else many of the fugitives must have perished in the flames which met them on all sides. The exodus of homeless families, flying between walls of fire, was a terrible and piteous spectacle. Some fled to the parks; others to the open ground without the city; numbers sought refuge in the graveyards. Isolated and unburned dwellings were crowded to excess with fugitives.

Three-fifths of the city in bulk, and four-fifths in value, were destroyed. The loss of property is estimated at thirty millions. No more respect seems to have been shown for buildings commonly deemed sacred, than for any others. The churches were pillaged, and afterwards burned. St. Mary's College, a Catholic institution, shared their fate. The Catholic Convent, to which had been confided for safety many young ladies, not nuns, and stores of treasure, was ruthlessly sacked. The soldiers drank the sacramental wine, and profaned with fiery draughts of vulgar whiskey the goblets of the communion services. Some went off reeling under the weight of priestly robes, holy vessels and candlesticks.

Yet the army of Sherman did not in its wildest orgies forget its splendid discipline. "When will these horrors cease?" asked a lady of an officer at her house. "You will hear the bugles at sunrise," he replied; "then they will cease, and not till then." He prophesied truly. "At daybreak, on Saturday morning," said Gibbes, "I saw two men galloping through the streets, blowing horns. Not a dwelling was fired after that; immediately the town became quiet."

Some curious incidents occurred. One man's treasure, concealed by his garden fence, escaped the soldiers' divining-rods, but was afterwards discovered by a hitched horse pawing the earth from the buried box. Some hidden guns had defied the most diligent search, until a chicken, chased by a soldier ran into a hole beneath the house. The soldier, crawling after and putting in his hand for the chicken, found the guns.

A soldier, passing in the streets and seeing some children playing with a beautiful little greyhound, amused himself by beating its brains out. Some treasures were buried in cemeteries, but they did not always escape the search of the soldiers, who showed a strong distrust of new-made graves.

Of the desolation and horrors our army left behind it, no description can be given. Here is a single instance: At a factory on the Congaree, just out of Columbia, there remained for six weeks a pile of sixty-five dead horses and mules, shot by Sherman's men. It was impossible to bury them, all the shovels, spades, and other farming implements of the kind having been carried off or destroyed.

Columbia must have been a beautiful city, judging by its ruins. Many fine residences still remain on the outskirts, but the entire heart of the city is a wilderness of crumbling walls, naked chimneys, and trees killed by the flames. The fountains of the desolated gardens are dry, the basins cracked; the pillars of the houses are dismantled, or overthrown; the marble steps are broken. All these attest to the wealth and elegance which one night of fire and orgies sufficed to destroy.

Sherman's Plunder and Death

THE LETTER from Union Lieutnant Thomas J. Myers: Feb 26, 1865 of the Morrill Tariff
"Camp near Camden, S. C.

My dear wife--I have no time for particulars. We have had a glorious time in this State. Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry [meaning the Honourable & Chivalrous people of the South] have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, &c., are as common in camp as blackberries.

The terms of plunder are as follows: Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place--one-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief and staff; one-fifth to the corps commanders and staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fifths to the company.

Officers are not allowed to join these expeditions without disguising themselves as privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a suit of rough clothes from one of my men, and was successful in this place. He got a large quantity of silver (among other things an old-time milk pitcher) and a very fine gold watch from a Mrs DeSaussure, at this place. DeSaussure was one of the F. F. V.s of South Carolina, and was made to fork over liberally.. Officers over the rank of Captain are not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribution. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect themselves, subordinate officers and privates keep back every thing that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, earrings, breast pins, &c., of which, if I ever get home, I have about a quart. I am not joking--I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond rings and pins among them.

General Sherman has silver and gold enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five. But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general officers and many besides had valuables of every description, down to embroidered ladies' pocket handkerchiefs. I have my share of them, too. We took gold and silver enough from the damned rebels to have redeemed their infernal currency twice over. This, (the currency), whenever we came across it, we burned, as we considered it utterly worthless.

I wish all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the "Old Bay State". It would deck her out in glorious style; but, alas! it will be scattered all over the North and Middle States. The damned niggers, as a general rule, prefer to stay at home, particularly after they found out that we only wanted the able-bodied men, (and to tell the truth, the youngest and best-looking women). Sometimes we took off whole families and plantations of niggers, by way of repaying secessionists. But the useless part of them we soon manage to lose; [one very effective was to "shoot at their bobbing heads as they swam rivers" after the army units crossed over], sometimes in crossing rivers, sometimes in other ways.

I shall write to you again from Wilmington, Goldsboro', or some other place in North Carolina. The order to march has arrived, and I must close hurriedly. Love to grandmother and aunt Charlotte. Take care of yourself and children. Don't show this letter out of the family.

Your affectionate husband, Thomas J Myers, Lieut.,

P.S. I will send this by the first flag of truce to be mailed, unless I have an opportunity of sending it at Hilton Head. Tell Sallie I am saving a pearl bracelet and ear-rings for her; but Lambert got the necklace and breast pin of the same set. I am trying to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina Secession Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia."

Christmas Vandals in Georgia

During Sherman’s infamous and destructive march through Georgia in late 1864, women, children and old men felt the hard hand of total war against civilians.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
http://www.ncwbts150.com/

Christmas Vandals in 1864 Georgia:

Mrs. Mary S. Mallard in Her Journal [1864, Liberty County, Georgia]

“Monday, December 19th: Squads of Yankees came all day, so that the servants scarcely had a moment to do anything for us out of the house. The women, finding it unsafe for them to be out of the house at all, would run in and conceal themselves in our dwelling. The few remaining chickens and some sheep were killed. These men were so outrageous at the Negro houses that the Negro men were obliged to stay at their houses for the protection of their wives; and in some instances, they rescued them from the hands of these infamous creatures.

Tuesday, December 20th. A squad of Yankees came soon after breakfast. Hearing there was one yoke of oxen left, they rode into the pasture and drove them up…needing a chain…they went to the well and took it from the well bucket. Mother went out and entreated them not to take it from the well, as it was our means of getting water. They replied: “You have no right to have even wood or water,” and immediately took it away.

Wednesday, December 21st: 10 A.M. Six of Kilpatrick’s cavalry rode up, one of them mounted on Mrs. Mallard’s valuable gray named Jim. They looked into the dairy and empty smokehouse, every lock having been broken and doors wide open day and night. They searched the servants’ houses; then the thundered at the door of the dwelling. Mother opened it, when one of them presented a pistol to her breast and demanded why she dared keep her house closed, and that “he be damned if he would not come into it.”

She replied, “I prefer to keep my house closed because we are a helpless and defenseless family of women and children.” He replied, “I’ll be damned if I don’t just take what I want. Some of the men got wine here, and we must have some.” She told them her house had been four times searched in every part, and everything taken from it. And recognizing one who had been of the party that had robbed us, she said: “You know my meal and everything has been taken.”

He said, “We left you a sack of meal and that rice.”

Mother said, “You left us some rice; but out of twelve bushels of meal you poured out a quart or so upon the floor -- as you said, to keep us from starving.”

Upon one occasion one of the men as he sat on the bench in the piazza had his coat buttoned top and bottom, and inside we could plainly see a long row of stolen breast jewelry -- gallant trophies, won from defenseless women and children at the South to adorn the persons of their mothers, wives, sisters, and friends in Yankeeland!”

(The War the Women Lived,) Walter Sullivan, J.S. Sanders & Company, 1995, pp. 238-239)

A letter dated Charleston September 14, 1865

A letter dated Charleston September 14, 1865, written to Pres. Jefferson Davis by Rev. Dr. John Bachman, then pastor of the Lutheran Church in that city, presents many facts respecting the devastation and robberies by the enemy in South Carolina. So much relates to the march of Sherman’s army through part of the state is here presented:

A letter dated Charleston September 14, 1865, written by Rev. Dr. John Bachman, then pastor of the Lutheran Church in that city, presents many facts respecting the devastation and robberies by the enemy in South Carolina. So much relates to the march of Sherman’s army through part of the state is here presented:

When Sherman’s army came sweeping through Carolina, leaving a broad track of desolation for hundreds of miles, whose steps were accompanied with fire, and sword, and blood, reminding us to the tender mercies of the Duke of Alva, I happened to be at Cash’s Depot six miles from Cheraw. The owner was a widow, Mrs. Ellerbe, seventy-one years of age. Her son, Colonel Cash, was absent. I witness the barbarities inflicted on the aged widow, and young and delicate females. Officers, high in command, were engaged in tearing from the ladies their watches, their ear and wedding rings, the daguerreotypes of those they loved and cherished. A lady of delicacy and refinement, a personal friend, was compelled to strip before them, that they might find concealed watches and other valuables under her dress. A system of torture was practiced towards the unarmed and defenseless, which, as far as I know and believe was universal throughout the whole course of that invading army. Before they arrived at a plantation, they inquired the names of the most faithful and trustworthy family servants; these were immediately seized, pistols were presented at their heads; with most terrific curses, they were threaten to be shot if they did not assist them in finding buried treasures. If this did not succeed they were tied up and cruelly beaten. Several poor creatures died under the infliction. The last resort is of that of hanging, and the officers and men of the triumphant army of General Sherman were enraged in erecting gallows and hanging up these faithful and devoted servants. They were strung up until life was nearly extinct, when they were let down, suffered to rest awhile, then threaten and hung again. It is not surprising that some should have left hanging so long that they were taken down dead. Cooly and deliberately these harden men proceeded their on their way, as if they had perpetrated no crime, and as if the God of heaven would not pursue them with vengeance. But it was not alone the poor blacks (to whom they professed to come as liberators) that were thus subject to torture and death. Gentlemen of high character, pure and honorable and gray-headed unconnected with the military, were dragged from their fields or their beds, and subjected to this process of threats and beating, and hanging. Along the whole track of Sherman’s army, traces remains of the cruelty and inhumanity practiced on the aged and the defenseless. Some of those were hung up died under the rope, while their cruel murderers have not only left unreproached and unhung, but hailed as heroes and patriots. The list of those martys, whom the culpidity of the officers and men of Sherman’s army sacrificed for their gold and silver, is large and most revolting. If the editors of this paper will give their consent to publish it, I will give it in full attested by their names of the purest and best women and children of our Southland.

I, who have witnessed barbarity that are revolting to every feeling of humanity and mercy, was doomed to feel in my own person the effects of the avarice, cruelty, and despotism which characterized the men of that army. I was the only male guardian of the refined and delicate females who had fled there for shelter and protection. I soon ascertained the plan was adopted in this wholesale system of plunder, insult, blasphemy, and brutality. The first party came was headed by officers, from a colonel to a lieutenant, who acted with seeming politeness, and told me they only came to secure our firearms, and when these were delivered up nothing in the house would be touched. Out of the house, they said they were authorized to press forage for their large army. I told them that along the whole line of the march of Sherman’s army, from Columbia to Cheraw, it had been ascertained that ladies had been rob and personally insulted. I asked for a guard to protect the females. They said that there was no necessity for this, as the men dare not act contrary to orders. If they did not treat the ladies with proper respect, I might blow their brains out. “But “, said I, “you have taken away our arms, and we are defenseless.” They did not blush much, and made no reply. Shortly after this came the second party, before the first had left. They demanded the keys to the ladies drawers, took away such articles as they wanted, then locked the drawers and put the keys in their pockets. In the mean time they gathered up spoons, knives, forks towels, table clothes, etc. As they were carrying them off, I appealed to the officers of the first party; they ordered the men to put back the things; the officer of the second party said he would see them d-------d first; and, without further ado, packed them up, and they glanced at each other and smiled.

The elegant carriages and all the vehicles on the premises were seized and filled with bacon and plunder. The smokehouses were emptied of their contents and carried off. Every head of poultry was seized and flung over their mules; an they presented the hideous picture in some scenes in “Forty Thieves.” Every article of harness they did not wish to cut to pieces.

By this time the second parties had left and the third appeared on the field. They demanded the keys of the drawers, and being informed that they had been carried off, cooly and deliberately proceeded to break open the locks, took what they wanted, and when we uttered words of complaint were cursed. Every horse, mule, and carriage even carts, was taken away, and for hundreds of miles, the last animal that cultivated the widow’s corn field, and vehicles that once bore them to the house of worship, were carried off or broken into pieces and burned.

The first party promised to leave ten days’ provisions, the rest they carried off. An hour afterwards other hordes of marauders from the same army came and demanded the last pound of bacon and the last quart of meal. On Sunday, the Negroes were dressed in their best suits. They were kicked and knocked down and robbed of all their clothing, and they came to us in their shirt sleeves, having lost their hats, clothes and shoes. Most our own clothes had been hid in the woods. The Negroes who had assisted in removing them were beaten and threaten with death, and compelled to show them were they were concealed. They cut open trunks, threw my manuscript and devotional books into a mud-hole, stole the ladies jewelry, hair ornaments, etc., tore many garments into tatters, or gave the rest to Negro women to bribe them into criminal intercourse. These women afterwards returned to us those articles that, after the mutilations, were scarcely worth preserving. The plantation, of one hundred and sixty Negroes, was some distance from the house, and to these place successive parties of fifty at a time resorted for three long days and nights, the husbands and fathers being fired at and compelled to fly to the woods.

Now comments scenes of licentiousness, brutality, and ravishment that have scarcely had an equal in the ads of heathen barbarity. I conversed with aged men and women, who were witnesses to these infamous acts of Sherman’s unbridled soldiery, and several of them, from the cruel treatment they had received, were confined to their beds for weeks afterwards. The time will come when the judgment of Heaven will await these libidinous, beastly barbarians. During this time the fourth party, who I was informed by others, we had the most reason to dread, had made their appearance. They came as they said, in the name of the great General Sherman, who was next to God Almighty. They came to burn and lay in ashes all that were lest. They had burned bridges and depots, cotton-gins, mills, barns and stables. They swore they would make d[amne]d rebel women pound their corn with rocks, and eat their raw meal without cooking. They succeeded in thousands of instances. I walked out at night, and innumerable fires were burning as far as the eye could reach, in hundreds of places, illuminated the whole heavens, and testified to the vindictive barbarity of the foe. I presumed they had orders not to burn occupied houses, but they strove all in their power to compel families to fly from their houses that they may afterwards burn them. The neighborhood was filled with refugees who had been compelled to fly from their plantations on the seaboard. As soon as they fled, the torch was applied, and, for hundreds of miles, those elegant mansions, once the ornament and pride of our inland country, were burned to the ground.

All manner of expedients were now adopted to make the residence leave their homes for a second time. I heard them saying, “This is too large a house to homes for the second time. I heard them saying, “This is too large a house to be left standing, we must contrive to burn it.” Canisters of powder were placed all around the house, and an expedient resorted to that promised almost certain success. The house was to be burned down by firing on the out buildings. These were so near each other that the firing of one would lead to the destruction of all. I had already succeeded in having a few bales of cotton rolled out of the building, and hoped if thy had to burn the rest would also be rolled out, which could have been done in ten minutes by several hundred men who were looking on, gloating over the prospect of another elegant mansion in South Carolina left to ashes. The torch was applied and soon the large storehouse was on fire. This communicated to several other buildings in the vicinity, which, one by one were burned to the ground. At length the fire reached the smoke-house, where they had carried off the bacon of two hundred and fifty hogs. This was burned and rapidly approaching the kitchen, which was so near the dwelling-house that, should the former burn, the destruction of the large noble edifice would be inevitable.

A captain of the United States service, a native of England, whose name I would like to mention here, if I did not fear to bring sown upon him the censure of the abolitionist as a friend of the rebels, mounted on the roof, and the wet blankets we sent up to him prevented the now smoking roof from bursting into flames. I called for help to assist us from procuring water from a deep well; a young lieutenant stepped up, condemned the infamous conduct of the burners and called on his company for aid; a portion of them came sheer fully to our assistance; the wind seemed almost by a miracle to subside; the house was saved and the trembling females thanked God for their deliverance. All this time, about one hundred mounted men were looking on refusing to raise a hand to help us; laughing at the idea that no efforts of ours could save the house from flames.


My trails, however, were not yet over. I had already suffered much in a pecuniary point of view. I had been collecting a library on natural history during a long life. The most voluble of these books had been presented by various societies in England, France, Germany, Russia, etc., who had honored me with membership, and they or the author presented me with these works, which had never been for sale, and could not be purchased. My herbarium, the labor of myself and the ladies of the house for many years, was also among these books. I had left them as a legacy to the library of Newbury College, and concluded to send them at once. They were detained in Columbia and there the torch was applied, and all were burned. The stealing and burning of books appear to be one of the programmes which the army acted. I had assisted in laying the foundation and dedicating the Lutheran Church at Columbia, and there near its walls, had recently been laid the remains of one who was dearer to me than life itself. To set that brick church on fire from below was impossible. The building stood by itself on a square but little built up. One of Sherman’s bummers was sent up to the roof. He was seen applying the torch to the copula. The church was burned to the ground, and the grave of my loved one desecrated. The story had circulated that the citizens had set their own city on fire; General Sherman had his army under control. The burning was by his orders, and ceased when he gave the command.

I was now doomed to experience in person the effects of avarice and barbarous cruelty. The robbers had been informed in the neighborhood that the family which I was protecting had buried one thousand dollars in gold and silver. They first demanded my watch, which I had effectually secured from their grasp. They then asked me where the money had been hid. I told them I knew nothing about it, and did not believe there was a thousand dollars worth in all, and what there had been carried off by the owner, Colonel Cash. All this was literally true. They then concluded to try an experiment on me which had proved so successful in hundreds of other instances. Coolly and deliberately they prepared to inflict torture on a defenseless, gray-headed old man. They carried me behind the stable and once again demanded where the money was buried, or “I should be sent to hell in five minutes.” They cocked their pistols and held them to my head. I told them to fire away. One of them, a square built, broad face, large mouth clumsy lieutenant, who had the face of a demon, and who did not utter five words without awful blasphemy, now kicked me in the stomach until I fell breathless and prostrate. As soon as I was able, I rose again. He once more asked me where the silver was. I answered as before “I don’t know.” With his heavy elephant foot he now kicked me back until I fell again. Once more I arose, and he put the same question to me. I was nearly breathless, but answered as before. Thus was I either kicked or knocked down seven or eight times. I then told him it was perfectly useless for him to continue his threats and blows. He might shoot me if he chose. I was ready and did not budge an inch, but requested him not to bruise and batter an unarmed defenseless man. “Now,” said he, “I’ll try a new plan. How would you like to have both of your arms cut off,” He did not wait for an answer, but his heavy sheath sword, struck me on my left arm, near the shoulder. I heard it crack; it hung powerless at my side, and I supposed it was broken, He then repeated the blow to the other arm. The pain was excruciating, and it was several days before I could carve my food or take my arm out of a sling, and it was black and blue for weeks. (I refer to Dr. Kollock of Cheraw.) At that moment the ladies, headed by my daughter, who had only been made aware of the brutality practice upon me, rushed from the house, and came flying to my rescue. “You dare not murder my father,” said my child; “he has been a minister in the same church for fifty years, and God has protected him.” “Do you believe in a God miss?” said one of the brutal wretches; “I don’t believe in a God, a heaven, nor hell.” “Carry me,” said I, “to your General.” I did not intend to go to Sherman, who was at Cheraw, from whom, I was informed; no redress could be obtained, but to a general in the neighborhood, said to be a religious man. Our horses and carriages had all been taken away and I was too much bruised to be able to walk. The other young officers came crowding around me very officiously, telling me they would represent the case to the General, and they would have him shot by ten o’clock the next morning. I saw the winks and glances that were interchanged between them. Every one gave a different name to the officers. The brute remained unpunished, as I saw him on the following morning, as insolent and profane as he had been on the proceeding day.

As yet, no punishment had fallen on the brutal hyena, and I strove to nurse my bruised body and heal my wounds, and forget the insults and injuries of the past. A few weeks after this I was sent for to perform a parochial duty at Mars Bluff, some twenty miles distant. Arriving at Florence in the vicinity, I was met by a crowd of young men connected to the militia. They were excited to the highest pitch of rage, and thirsted for revenge. They believed that among the prisoners that have just arrived on a railroad car, on their way to Sumter, were the very men who committed such horrible outrages in the neighborhood. Many of their houses had been laid to ashes. They had been robbed of every means of support. Their horses had been seized; their cattle and hogs bayoneted; their mothers and sisters had been insulted, and robbed of their watched, ear, and wedding rings. Some of their parents had been murdered in cold blood. The aged pastor, to whose voice they had so often listened, had been kicked and knocked down by repeated blows, and his hoary head had been dragged about in the sand. They entreated me to examine the prisoners and see whether I could identify the men that had inflicted the barbarities on me. I told them I would do so, provided they would remain where they were and not to follow me. The prisoners saw me at a distance, held down their guilty heads, and trembled like aspen leaves. All cruel men are cowards. One of my arms was still in a sling. With the other I raised some of their hats. They all begged for mercy. I said to them, “the other day you were tigers ----you sheep now.” But a hideous object a soon arrested my attention. There sat my brutal enemy---the vulgar, swaggering lieutenant, who had ridden to the steps of the house, insulted the ladies, and beaten me most unmercifully. I approached him slowly, and in a whisper asked him : “Do you know me sir?----the old man whose pockets you first searched, to whether he might not have a pen knife to defend himself, and then kicked and knocked down with your fist and heavy scabbard?” He presented a picture of an arrant coward, and in a trembling voice implored me to have mercy; don’t let me be shot; have pity! Old man begs for me! I won’t do it again! For God’s sake save me! O God help me! “Did you not tell my daughter there was no God? Why call on him now.” I turned and saw the impatient flushed and indignant crowd approaching. “What are they going to do with me? Said he. “Do you hear that sound—click, click? Yes, said he, “they are cocking their pistols.” “True said I; “and if I raise a finger you will have a dozen bullets through your brain.” “Then I will go to hell; “don’t let them kill me. O Lord have Mercy!’ “Speak low,” said I “and don’t open your lips.” The men advanced. Already one had pulled me by my coat. “Show us the men.” I gave no clew by which the guilty could be identified. I walked slowly through the car, sprang into the waiting carriage, and drove off.