War Crimes Against Southern Civilians

In a series of concise and compelling chapters, Cisco chronicles the "St. Louis Massacre," where Federal authorities proceeded to impose a reign of terror and dictatorship in Missouri. He tells of the events leading to, and the suffering caused by, the Federal decree that forced twenty thousand Missouri civilians into exile. The arrests of civilians, the suppression of civil liberties, theft, and murder to "restore the Union" in Tennessee are also examined.

Women and children, black and white, were robbed, brutalized, and left homeless in Sherman's infamous raid through Georgia. Torture and rape were not uncommon. In South Carolina, homes, farms, churches, and whole towns disappeared in flames. Civilians received no mercy at the hands of the Union invaders. Earrings were ripped from bleeding ears, graves were robbed, and towns were pillaged. Wherever Federal troops encountered Southern Blacks, whether free or slave, they were robbed, brutalized, belittled, kidnapped, threatened, tortured, and sometimes raped or killed by their blue-clad "liberators."

Carefully researched, largely from primary sources, the book includes notes and illustrations. This untold story will interest anyone exploring an alternative perspective on this period in American history.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, 2008-11-10
I wonder why it has taken so long to finally get a real expose' of the brutality and barbarism of Lincoln's hords visited on the citizens of the Confederacy. Could it be that this information was purposely kept from the American people? The American army has never stooped to this level before or since. Because the winners of a war write the history it has been a century and a half before someone has written the truth about the rape of the Southland. If you are a civilized American this book will surely anger you.
Dale Roberts, author of Tales of Travis Hawkins McCleod


2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

War may be hell, but watch out here!, 2008-10-11
Sherman told the city fathers of Atlanta before he finished burning it, (a process started by the rebels), for the past two years he had seen tens of thousands of Southern civilians fleeing into Union lines in search of food, shelter and the basics of life, many of whom had never wanted any part of a war. "You deprecate its horrors," he told those who hoped to save Atlanta, "but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace in their own homes...."

When writing about war crimes, one should do so as a lawyer- being very careful to define the war crimes, and then weighing the acts committed in light of the definition. That chance was missed here. Walter Brian Cisco produced a fine biography of States Rights Gist a few years ago. I had high hopes that he would provide new insights into the atrocities toward Southern civilians that have been so often alluded to, but so seldom documented, in Civil War literature. I am sorry to report that he doesn't. It appears from the book that every petty act that offended Southern sensibilities is a "war crime". Thus, everyone from the boys who spread the jars of jam on the walls of the homes of Athens, Alabama, to whoever set the fires that burned Columbia, South Carolina (and that is an open question) are fair game here as war criminals, and none less than Lincoln and the other policymakers who set up the harsh war doctrines that governed the war after the summer of 1862. This would be a great topic for a book. Many civilians in the South suffered greatly. Many were treated in a way that most serious historians would consider "war crimes." But for meaningful study, we need to define and limit what we talk about, and then do the necessary research to show what happened. Mr. Cisco offers no definitions, and without them he can provide no analysis of problems.

Once we understand what he means by a "war crime", other questions could be answered. Who committed the crimes? Could only Union soldiers do so? What about the vigilantes who rooted out loyal Americans (also Southern civilians) caught in the South when the war started? Could Southern Union men and women be the victims of such crimes? Were they? (Sherman certainly thought so.) That ugliness must remain hidden and undiscussed if the fiction that the Civl War would have been kinder, gentler, and more civilized has any hope of being believed. We should never get caught in the trap so easy to step into, of thinking that the Civil War was or could have been somehow different than other wars, that soldiers then should have adhered to some standard of behavior that did not govern other wars. Wars, all wars, were and are hell, and we should never forget it. On the other hand, Mark Grimsley and other Civil War scholars have amply demonstrated that Civil War soldiers did in fact demonstrate a remarkable degree of restraint and self-control during the entire course of the war, even by Sherman's bummers in Georgia. I remember what one Revolutionary militiaman said when asked what he did to win the War of Independence: "We dragged Tories out into the woods, and chopped them up."


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

The only "war crime" is losing a war, 2008-10-08
Most people who are well read on the Civil War have come across in one form or another the different accounts of Union atrocities found in Cisco's book. Gathered between two covers, however, their impact is magnified. We get a concentrated dose of the antics of the military geniuses like Uncle Billy and Little Phil, who preferred burning property and killing livestock to fighting armed soldiers.

When you wage war against civilians, it helps your cause tremendously to describe your actions in memorable expressions like "the hard hand of war" or crows carrying their rations across the valley. Of course, the surest way to get away with war crimes is to be on the winning side.

Thank you, Mr. Cisco, for putting all of this information into a single volume.


4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

Wonderful piece that uncovers the "Lincoln Goodness " , 2008-09-03
As you can imagine, those who win the war get to write the history. Great book to have around and pass on!


8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

War Crimes, 2008-07-20
I have sometimes wondered if my paternal grandmother should have instilled in me such an intense antipathy toward Lincoln and the North by telling me the stories she heard firsthand from her grandmother who suffered some of Sherman's savageries in South Carolina, but after reading this book I realize that she was much too moderate. "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians" should be required reading in all courses on America's most uncivil war. We've always known that it's the winners who write history, but lovers of the truth should thank Walter Brian Cisco for his important effort in setting the record straight.

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