snew
i
n thepast?
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to find out
Prologue
of the
Nati
onalArchi
ves
Abraham Lincoln
and the Guerrillas
By Daniel E. Sutherland
Prologue 21
and autumn of 1862 struck directly at rebel Still, I must save the government if possible.
guerrillas. Consider, too, how many veterans . . . [And] it may as well be understood, once
of the guerrilla war he depended on to imple- for all, that I shall not surrender this game
ment the new policy. First, Lincoln reassigned leaving any available card unplayed.”
John Frémont to command in West Virginia, His pragmatic approach soon touched the
a cauldron of guerrilla warfare no less roil- Deep South, too. When Union troops moved
ing than Missouri. Next, he brought Gen. into northern Alabama, they faced the inevi-
John Pope from the Western theater to com- table resistance from rebel guerrillas. When
mand a new Union Army in Virginia. Pope the Army responded by burning the town of
had taken retaliatory measures that exceeded Paint Rock, sacking Athens, Alabama, and
even Frémont’s directives in order to quash threatening to execute all saboteurs and guer-
guerrilla resistance in his Missouri district. rillas, Edwin Stanton informed the Army’s
Pope now issued even stricter orders, with commander, Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel,
the approval of Lincoln and Secretary of War “Your spirited operations afford great satis-
Edwin Stanton, in north-central Virginia. faction to the President.” However, as details
Aimed not only at guerrillas but also at the about the Army’s mistreatment of noncom-
“evil-disposed persons” who assisted them, batants reached Washington, it became clear
Pope’s instructions allowed executions, fi- that things had gone too far. Mitchel and
nancial assessments, and the destruction and the officer responsible for sacking Athens,
confiscation of property. By then, Lincoln the Russian-born Col. John B. Turchin, were
had also brought Pope’s old department com- relieved of their commands.
mander in Missouri, Gen. Henry W. Halleck, Mitchel, whose more complex case also
to Washington as commanding general of all involved cotton speculation and failure to
Union armies. Naturally, Halleck added his secure eastern Tennessee, was simply reas-
blessing to Pope’s Virginia policy. signed to South Carolina, but Gen. Don
To endorse publicly the new direction Carlos Buell, the department commander,
announced by Pope and Halleck, Lincoln, insisted that Turchin be court-martialed. The
toward the end of July 1862, sent a warning court found Turchin guilty of allowing his
to Confederate soldiers and civilians alike. men to run riot in Athens but decided that
Anyone guilty of “aiding, countenancing, his biggest sin had been in not dealing “qui-
or abetting” the rebel cause, he said, must etly enough” with the rebels. After initially
immediately cease their rebellion or suffer recommending that he be cashiered from
“forfeitures and seizures” of their property. the Army, the court’s majority urged clem-
When Andrew Johnson, the President’s new- ency. Lincoln and Stanton concurred, and the
ly appointed military governor in Tennessee, President promoted Turchin to general.
asked permission to apply Pope’s orders in As for Buell, who had been a vocal oppo-
that state, Lincoln gave it. nent of the new retaliatory policies, he was
Of course, Lincoln was not asking for relieved of his command a few months later.
wholesale slaughter. Indeed, some politicians His removal surprised few senior officers, even
complained that the “kind hearted” President those who balked at the extreme measures of
commuted or reduced the death sentences of men like Turchin. One officer, comparing
far too many convicted guerrillas. Still, de- Buell to the Russian, declared, “Turchin’s
spite his own occasional references to tem- policy is bad enough; it may indeed be the
pering justice with mercy, Lincoln tended policy of the devil; but Buell’s policy is that
to send mixed signals to commanders in the of the amiable idiot.” Buell became the target
field, perhaps giving them wider latitude of a congressional investigation that focused
than was wise. Explaining the new rules to largely on his failure to capture Chattanooga.
Gen. John S. Phelps, the military governor His principal defense, with which even the
of Louisiana and Arkansas, Lincoln wrote, “I commission concurred, was that he had faced
am a patient man—always willing to forgive formidable opposition from Confederate cav-
on the Christian terms of repentance. . . . alry and guerrillas. Lincoln also knew that
22 Prologue
gled either to maintain or establish loyal gov-
ernments. Indeed, there had been instances
since the first year of the war of rebel guerrilla
operations in the lower Midwest, where gov-
ernors from Iowa to Ohio worried about the
stability and security of their own states.
By the summer of 1863, the Union Army
had been recruiting heavily among Southern
Unionists for some time. Initially, the
authorities scattered these men willy-nilly,
to wherever the Army needed more bod-
ies, which was usually far from home. Now,
however, some officials realized that Southern
Unionists could provide better service in
antiguerrilla units assigned to their home
regions. Imploring the President to redeploy
Tennesseans serving in Virginia in this way,
Andrew Johnson explained, “They are willing
& more anxious [than Northern volunteers]
to restore the government & at the same
time protect their wives and children against
insult, robbery, murder & inhumane op-
pression.” Even more dramatically, Johnson
recruited local Unionist guerrillas to counter
rebel bushwhackers in Tennessee. David C.
Beaty, known as “Tinker Dave,” led the dead-
liest of Johnson’s loyal guerrilla bands. Beaty’s
principal opponent was the notorious rebel
guerrilla Champ Ferguson.
While seemingly not directly involved,
Lincoln no doubt gave his blessing to Henry
Halleck’s effort in the summer of 1863 both
to legalize the punishment of rebel guerrillas
and to curb the excesses of overzealous Union
field commanders. Halleck asked German-
born Francis Lieber, a professor of political
philosophy at New York’s Columbia College,
to provide the Army with legal definitions
of the variety of guerrillas and ethical guide-
Above: Southern Unionists, who depended on the to be true. In early 1863, he complained to lines for handling them. Lieber, who had sons
Union Army to protect them, were frequently victims
Buell’s successor, Gen. William S. Rosecrans, fighting in both the Union and Confederate
of rebel guerrilla neighbors.
“In no other way does the enemy give us so armies, eventually produced two documents,
Opposite top: Gen. John Pope’s orders in Virginia
formed the basis of the first punitive policy endorsed
much trouble, at so little expense to himself, one dealing specifically with guerrillas, the
by President Lincoln. as by the raids of rapidly moving small bod- other aimed more broadly at the treatment of
Opposite middle: Gen. Henry W. Halleck endorsed ies of men.” noncombatants. Both sets of guidelines were
punitive measures against rebel guerrillas and their Not that these measures weakened rebel distributed to the Army. The latter, known
supporters, but he also tried to establish a legal basis guerrilla resistance to any appreciable degree. as the Lieber Code, became the basis for
for retaliation through the Lieber Code.
Union politicians and generals continued to worldwide legal restrictions on the conduct
Opposite bottom: John C. Frémont was among the first press for sterner measures, especially in border of warfare for a century thereafter.
Union generals to use executions and confiscation
of property to retaliate against rebel guerrillas and states, such as Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, The same month that Halleck issued
citizens who supported them. and West Virginia, where the Federals strug- Lieber’s code to his armies, Lincoln respond-