UNTOLD TRUTHS: War Crimes of the Confederates and Post-War Democrats (Rogue Review)
Below are sections from an article published in full at my column on The Rogue Review. It is a tremendously important article on a subject that is vitally important today, because we are living in a world created by the losers of the Civil War, not the winners—we are still dealing with the war’s aftermath. The Democrats have been lying for over a century, and it is time, in the interests of truth and justice, that we set the record straight.
What do you think of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis? What is your opinion of the Confederacy? Whether you think Lee a noble, principled hero or the worst of villains, I guarantee you there is history you do not know about him and Davis. Whether you have fallen for the Confederate myth or the critical race theory picture, or whether (like my younger self) you don’t much care either way, there are facts that have been hidden from you. If you don’t believe me, read this article.
First of all, a country that celebrates traitors is setting itself up for failure. That is true objectively, universally, and in every country—not just America. How can a nation possibly expect loyalty and patriotism from its citizens if it points to traitors, the men who tried to undermine or destroy it, and calls them heroes? This is especially true since most of the Confederates never disavowed either their cause or their war crimes.
Statues and monuments have inherent meanings, just as we would say a man’s body has inherent meaning and can never become a woman’s body, no matter what the man says or does to it. A beautiful, magnificent statue or painting is inherently celebratory, whatever we might say about it. Otherwise, why is there no monument to Benedict Arnold at West Point, where he served and where he then betrayed the Americans? Why does no statue of Himmler stand next to the gas chambers of Auschwitz? Which emphasizes another point—that statues and monuments are not necessary to preserve history. We remember Benedict Arnold just fine without monuments. We also seem to have very definite memories of King George III, even though the American revolutionaries tore down his statue and ornaments and melted them into bullets.
But did you know that it was the official policy of the Confederate Army and government to execute or enslave every black person the army encountered, and execute any Union white officer of black troops it captured? Have you ever read the Retaliatory Act?
A Dec. 1862 proclamation from Confederate President Jefferson Davis claimed that the Union’s policy of allowing black soldiers and other actions created a “war in its nature far exceeding in horrors the most merciless atrocities of the savages.”
Jefferson, therefore, ordered that all black soldiers and their white officers captured by the Confederacy were to be treated as slaves, and not soldiers deserving of POW treatment. This was followed in May 1863 by The Retaliatory Act of the Confederate Congress, which said it aimed to protect the “institution of African slavery” and ordered the execution of white officers of black troops directly, and ordered the deaths and enslavement of black POWs by handing them over to southern state laws. Soldiers weren’t the only ones targeted by the Confederates, either—the Confederate Army rounded up countless black civilians in several states (Pennsylvania’s black population was decimated) during the war and re-enslaved them, many of the victims subsequently lost to history.
But the greatest single war crime of the Confederate Army, and the worst illustration of the above policy’s enforcement, was the Ft. Pillow Massacre. If you haven’t heard of it, you do not know one of the most important events of the Civil War. Some estimate that around 200 black and white Union soldiers and civilians, even children, were slaughtered after surrendering to the Confederates under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (yes, the future KKK founder), but Forrest himself estimated the number of his victims much higher—over 500. Robert E. Lee later unhesitatingly called Forrest his greatest general. It is essential to understand that the Confederates were proud of their horrendous deeds.
Lee, post-war, said on the question of black Americans being allowed to vote, “My own opinion is, that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways.”
The Confederates’ and Democrats’ crimes did not cease with the Civil War. Multiple states experienced terrible anti-black and anti-“Yankee”/Republican violence during Republican U.S. Grant’s presidency, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina, according to H.W. Brands in The Man Who Saved the Union. There are multiple first-hand testimonies of this violence, which the perpetrators’ sympathizers rarely sought to conceal and often defended.
A cabinet member of Grant’s wrote in 1871 that cases of rape, violence, castration, and murder were detailed for the cabinet twice a week. But when Grant reluctantly (reluctantly only because he hated using federal force) sent troops on various occasions to stop the rapes, the shootings, the lynchings, and the harassment, the Democrats immediately began denouncing him as a tyrant and justifying the crimes.
I wish to make one final point, an appeal to my readers. I am not a Marxist, which means I am not anti-monument. What I suggest is that, after taking down Confederate statues and monuments, we erect in their places—perhaps out of the statues’ own materials—monuments to the great Patriots and civil rights heroes of American history.
Confederate war crimes….continued….
We’ve all heard of Andersonville. Have you ever heard of Elmira? Camp Douglas? The guards at Andersonville almost starved along with the prisoners. At Elmira, the Union Army tortured and killed Confederate soldiers as policy.
The summer of 1864 W. and W. Mears constructed an observatory across from the camp and citizens were given an opportunity to watch prisoners die of starvation and exposure for a fee of 10cents.
Federal Policy was Starvation of Prisoners
By Aug. 26, 1864, 793 POWs were reported suffering from scurvy. As a result of the lack of fruits and vegetables The prisoners suffered from ulcerative colitis amoebic dysentery and renal infection; among other serious illnesses. That summer the local newspapers reported bumper crops of apples, pears, peaches, and a variety of fresh vegetables including corn. Death in the month of August claimed 115 Elmira prisoners. On Sept. 1 the camp's census was 9,480;
The U.S. government purchased a half acre of Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery for the burial of Confederate prisoners of war. A carpentry shop was established in the middle of the camp for the express purpose of making pine coffins.
The stockade's well water was a thoroughly contaminated diseased pond, The authorities in Washington D.C. repeatedly refused to order the pond drained.
Seventy-five years later, Elmira prison camp survivor James Huffman would recall that the "well water looked pure and good but was deadly poison to our men."
In September of 1864 Union officer Bennett F.. Munger informed Elmira's Commandant Tracy that starvation was stalking the Confederate prisoners, that "during the past week there have been 112 deaths, reaching one day 29. There seems little doubt numbers have died both in quarters and hospital from want of proper food."
Elmira's death toll for September was 385. In an Oct. 1, 1864 letter to his wife, a ranking Union officer at Elmira wrote, "The rebs are dying quite fast, from 8 to 30 per day."
In an editorial in the Oct. 2, 1864 edition of the New York Times the Federal government was advised "that rebel prisoners should no longer live in luxury ..." The Elmira Daily Advertiser cheerfully informed its readers that the Confederate prisoners were contented, healthy and in good condition. The circus...like observation deck was closed to the public. It was now used by army sentries exclusively.
On Oct. 3, Commandant Tracy issued Special Order No. 336cutting back on the supply of food accorded the prisoners. Horigan writes: "Special Order No. 336 immediately became a factor in the camp's excessive death rate...No possible 'good' came from this order Tracy erred in blind allegiance...to a power structure in Washington bent on revenge. Starvation, manifested in stages, would become visibly evident inside the prison camp."
a series of murderous orders from Lincoln's high command ensued, ordering a reduction in the malnourished Confederate prisoners' rations throughout the POW camps of the North. The Commissary General, Col. Hoffman, is on record as early as April 29, 1864 advocating half-rations for Confederate prisoners on Johnson's Island. Stanton presented a similar proposal to Lincoln on May 5, 1864, which Lincoln apparently approved, because on June I, 1864 the Union high command officially ordered a 20% reduction in the rations of Confederate prisoners which had been inadequate to begin with. The situation was further exacerbated by the army's Circular No.4 of Aug. 10, 1864 forbidding the purchase of food by prisoners from the camp "sutler" (authorized civilian grocer).
There is no question that Hoffman intentionally withheld the--at that time-huge sum of $1,845,125 worth of food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies budgeted for Confederate prisoners
Elmira prison camp survivor Anthony Keiley, a former Southern newspaper editor, wrote in 1866, "In a nation whose boast is that they do not feel the war...and supplies of all sorts wonderfully abundant, it is simply infamous to starve the sick as they did at Elmira." Unlike the situation at Andersonville, this was starvation amidst plenty.
James W. Crawford of the 6th Virginia was one of the few to escape, having participated in a spectacular October getaway by ten prisoners via a hand dug tunnel system. It took him 23 days to make his way to Virginia. He told the Richmond Examiner: "I succeeded in getting out of the clutches of the meanest people that have ever lived...Our prisoners sicken and die twenty-five to thirty per day; but that seems to please them more than anything else." The enraged Crawford concluded by stating that the South "should fight forever before being subdued by such a nation." In October death claimed 276 Confederates inside Barracks No.3. As hundreds died, Elmirans enjoyed a rich harvest from the surrounding farms, and the Yankee officers assigned to Elmira hosted a gala dinner ball. Friends and invited guests of the 54th New York shared laughter and fine food.
Prisoners Poisoned by the Camp Doctor
In addition to all of the perils the Southern troops had to contend with in Elmira, it appears that the camp's chief medical officer, Maj. Sanger, may have been ordering the poisoning of Confederate hospital patients with arsenic.
Former prisoner Walter D. Addison was an orderly in the camp's ramshackle hospital. Addison testified in his memoirs that Sanger ordered another medical officer, Dr. Van Ness, to administer, "Fowler's solution of arsenic. He wrote (prescribed) forty-five (drops) and the patients in a very short time breathed their last. No investigation ensued...Dr. Van Ness continued his position."
Author Michael Horigan observes, "There was, according to Addison, a desire on the part of Union officers to kill Confederate prisoners." By way of corroboration, Horigan unearthed a confidential letter from Major Sanger to Brig. Gen. John L. Hodsdon confessing to the murder of hundreds of helpless Confederate prisoners in Elmira. Hodsdon concealed the letter's contents and they were not divulged outside U.S. government circles during Sanger's lifetime. Writing in mid-October,1864, Sanger told Hodsdon, "I now have charge of 10,000 rebels, a very worthy occupation for a patriot, particularly adapted to elevate himself in his own estimation, but I think I have done my duty having relieved 386 of them of all earthly sorrow... ,"
Clothing & Blankets Withheld in Winter
As the fierce New York winter approached the prisoners were denied insulation of the prison's buildings. Heat, blankets and warm clothing were all in scant supply. A Baltimore, Maryland relief organization consisting of private citizens sent a representative to Elmira to broach the possibility of providing a warm clothing shipment to the prisoners. They were forbidden access to the camp.
Their leader, John Van Allen, urgently appealed to the War department. He was told his group could proceed with the clothing donation if they complied with a maze of time- consuming regulations. The bureaucratic entanglements grew so complex that the Baltimore group, perceiving that the impediments were deliberate and never-ending, withdrew the offer. Van Allen described Secretary of War Stanton's attitude toward the proposed humanitarian relief: "Stanton was inexorable to all my entreaties."
The death toll at Elmira for December was 269 Confederates. A Dec. 4 report by Capt. Munger stated that at least 1,000 Elmira prisoners were "entirely destitute of blankets." The "rebels" would add freezing to death along with starvation, disease, contaminated water and physician administered arsenic to the list of Elmira's deadly threats.
On Jan. 19, 1865, Brig. Gen. Henry Wessells blocked winter clothing shipments to Elmira's prisoners. In late January, Major George Blagden, assistant to the commissary general of prisoners in Washington, "revealed that clothing requisitions ticketed for Elmira were deliberately being withheld by the War department through the months of December and January.." The commissary general's order on winter clothing for Confederate prisoners was outlined in a directive to the commandant of Camp Morton: "So long as a prisoner has clothing upon him, however much torn, you must issue nothing to him..."
Elmira death rate was a whopping 24%. With embargoes and war southerners had little food, not so in the north. The north had plenty, they chose to starve Confederate soldiers to death.
Northern prisons were established at Rock Island, Elmira, and Camp Douglas. Death rates ranged from 20 to 30 percent, North and South. The highest death rates were recorded in the Yankee prison Camp Douglas which topped 30%.
Calling Confederates traitors makes you look uneducated. The Confederacy never tried to overthrow the govt of the US, they simply left to form a new government. For that to be a traitorous act secession would have had to be illegal. Explain how it was illegal when our original constitution forbade secession, but could not be ratified. The clause was taken out. Three states built secession into their founding documents. Show us all where secession appears in the constitution then refer to the 10th amendment…anything not mentioned in the constitution Id left to the states. Therefore secession rested with the states. The argument was only settled after the war with a Supreme Court decision. There is still no constitutional amendment forbidding secession which is why states threaten it to this day. If you look back in history there were no less than FOUR secession threats before the south seceded. Yankee states threatened secession over the Louisiana Purchase, The War of 1812, the annexation of Texas, SC threatened secession over the tax of abomination in 1832.