A More Civil War

How the Union Waged a Just War

D. H. Dilbeck

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781469659053, 9781469630519
• eBook ISBN: 9781469630526
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

During the Civil War, Americans confronted profound moral problems about how to fight in the conflict. In this innovative book, D. H. Dilbeck reveals how the Union sought to wage a just war against the Confederacy. He shows that northerners fought according to a distinct “moral vision of war,” an array of ideas about the nature of a truly just and humane military effort. Dilbeck tells how Union commanders crafted rules of conduct to ensure their soldiers defeated the Confederacy as swiftly as possible while also limiting the total destruction unleashed by the fighting. Dilbeck explores how Union soldiers abided by official just-war policies as they battled guerrillas, occupied cities, retaliated against enemy soldiers, and came into contact with Confederate civilians.

In contrast to recent scholarship focused solely on the Civil War’s carnage, Dilbeck details how the Union sought both to deal sternly with Confederates and to adhere to certain constraints. The Union’s earnest effort to wage a just war ultimately helped give the Civil War its distinct character, a blend of immense destruction and remarkable restraint.

CHAPTER ONE

A War of Barbarism or of Comparative Humanity

Combatting Guerrillas

In the opening months of the Civil War in Missouri, as the Union army embraced hard war measures to subdue rebel guerrillas and civilians, it also established rules intended to limit the war’s killing and destruction. The war in Missouri posed innumerable moral challenges. Guerrillas plundered civilians and destroyed railroad and telegraph lines. Zealous Jayhawkers carried forth the crusading spirit of John Brown and wreaked havoc in western Missouri. Union soldiers punished secessionists by raiding or destroying their property. Brash Confederate sympathizers exacerbated tensions among the divided citizenry and often eagerly aided guerrillas. Maintaining peace and order by any means would be no easy task. To do so according to the laws of war might prove impossible.

In early November 1861, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck assumed command of the Department of the Missouri and appeared equal to the task. Halleck, the bookish West Point graduate, army engineer, and authority on international law, recognized that the dire situation in Missouri presented acute challenges to waging war justly. Did guerrillas deserve any rights usually afforded to regular soldiers, or were they lawless marauders and murderers who deserved swift death? Should Union forces unleash the hard hand of war against noncombatants who supported guerrillas? When should Union soldiers confiscate or destroy civilian property? Should civilians in an area known to harbor guerrillas be held responsible for their killing and destruction? Did the all-important end of restoring order in Missouri justify any means?

The Union army in Missouri responded to these questions with stern measures that signaled the start of a more brutal and uncompromising style of warfare, but that is only half the story. The military situation in Missouri also inspired some of the earliest official rules meant to govern and restrain Federal soldiers’ actions. From the spring of 1861 through the summer of 1862, the guerrilla war in the state prompted Halleck and other Federals to work to reconcile hard war measures with the constraints imposed by the laws of war and their notions of how a civilized people should wage war. This was a messy task, imperfectly completed, and complicated by the fact that not all Federal soldiers strictly adhered to official just-war policies issued by their commanders. Even so, the first eighteen months of the Civil War in Missouri proved consequential to the Union war effort not because it helped inaugurate a style of near-total warfare that encompassed soldiers and civilians alike.1 Historians have neglected to recognize that early encounters with guerrilla warfare in Missouri instead prompted many Union officers and soldiers in the state to embrace a moral vision of just warfare that advocated both hard war measures and humane restraints.2

This intentionally hard yet humane military effort emerged across roughly four stages from May 1861 to August 1862 in response to frustrating realities Union soldiers faced on the battlefield. In late spring and summer of 1861, Federals first confronted the guerrilla problem mostly without clear guidelines from the highest levels of Union command. However, a few key ideas took hold about how to deal justly and effectively with guerrillas—above all, that civilians could be held responsible for ensuring guerrilla-free peace and order where they lived.

Throughout the late fall and winter of 1861, Henry Halleck launched a sustained effort to codify rules to govern Union troop behavior in everything from the seizure or destruction of property to the treatment of guerrillas and Confederate-sympathizing civilians. Although Halleck undoubtedly led this effort to refine Union thinking about just conduct in war, loyal citizens in Missouri, especially ministers and newspaper editors, also voiced their opinions.

By the spring and summer of 1862, Union forces then went about implementing, revising, and reimplementing policies specifically for subduing guerrillas. Brig. Gen. John M. Schofield made a particularly bold and ultimately unsuccessful effort to hold civilians responsible for ending guerrilla activity by calling up all able-bodied men to serve in the newly formed Enrolled Missouri Militia. These efforts failed to end guerrilla activity in Missouri, but they did embody a vision of just conduct as equally hard and humane.

This initial antiguerrilla effort culminated in late August 1862, as Halleck, then general in chief of Union armies, looked to Francis Lieber for expert legal advice on how best to conquer guerrillas in the sternest possible terms allowed by the laws of war. Lieber’s solutions to the problems in Missouri shaped the spirit and content of later Union just-war policies, especially his own General Orders No. 100, issued to Union armies in the spring of 1863.

In confronting guerrillas in Missouri, Federals worked to reconcile two styles of warfare: one that sought stern, vigorous punishment of rebel guerrillas and their sympathizers, and one that adhered to restraints imposed by the laws of war and common notions of civility in warfare.

The Guerrilla War Begins: May to August 1861

Almost as soon as the Civil War began, guerrillas upended normal life in Missouri. When Henry Ankeny arrived in the state with his Iowa infantry regiment and surveyed the turmoil firsthand, he concluded, “this is the most uninviting country I ever saw.” James Overton Broadhead, a prominent lawyer in St. Louis, warned Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in early June 1861 that Confederate sympathizers not part of regular armies were “drilling, arming, manufacturing arms and preparing munitions of war, and where they have the power still threatening Union men and driving them from their homes.” Guerrillas destroyed railroad and telegraph lines. They harassed civilians and destroyed private property, often for mere plunder, often to intimidate Unionists.3 From the very start of the war, the guerrilla fighting raised three particularly difficult just-war questions.

First, how exactly should Union troops subdue and punish guerrillas? Ad hoc arrangements worked out by Union officers prevailed in the war’s early months. For example, Federals responded to an attack on the North Missouri Railroad outside St. Louis by hanging one man immediately, shooting another who tried to flee, imprisoning the remaining guerrillas, and seizing nearly thirty horses. Union soldiers relied on a variety of tactics fitted to unique circumstances, yet the Daily Missouri Democrat, St. Louis’s leading Republican-leaning newspaper, insisted that Union punishment of guerrillas “must be swift, certain, and dreadful.”4 Ulysses S. Grant, recently appointed brigadier general in the United States Volunteers, similarly wrote to his wife from Mexico, Missouri, that guerrillas should face stern retribution from the Union army. “They are great fools in this section of country and will never rest until they bring upon themselvs [sic]all the horrors of war in its worst form. The people are inclined to carry on a guerilla Warfare that must eventuate in retaliation.” Yet Grant grimly acknowledged that once begun, a harsh and uncompromising war against guerrillas “will be hard to control.”5

Second, should local civilians be held responsible for nearby guerrilla destruction? When Brig. Gen. William S. Harney assumed command of the Department of the West in mid-May 1861, he assured civilians he would not “harass or oppress the good and law-abiding people of Missouri” and would do all he could “to protect their persons and property from violations of every kind.”6 At the same time, a Missouri regimental newspaper, The U.S. American Volunteer, claimed that Union troops were stationed in Missouri “to keep the peace, not to break it,” which meant they would protect loyal Missourians from anyone guilty of “treasonable purposes.”7 Eventually, this commitment to protecting Missouri Unionists and their property prompted more severe measures against disloyal citizens aiding guerrillas. But Federals still faced the difficult challenge of discerning who were the “good and law-abiding people of Missouri” and who were not. A person’s true loyalty or their involvement with guerrillas was not always readily apparent. Col. Lorenzo Thomas warned Harney in late May that many of the state’s political leaders professed loyalty to the Union but plotted with Confederates: “They have already falsified their professions too often and are too far committed to secession to be entitled to your confidence.” Galusha Anderson, pastor of Second Baptist Church in St. Louis, recalled the trepidation he felt in preaching each week as the war began, for although he assumed his congregation contained staunch Union and Confederate sympathizers, he did not know the precise loyalties of most members.8 Uncertainties about a person’s true loyalty only made it all the more difficult for Union armies to deal justly with civilians.

Third, what could Union officers do to prevent and punish unwarranted abuses committed by their own soldiers while fighting guerrillas? Quite often this question specifically concerned the legitimate treatment of civilian property. What exactly could soldiers seize or destroy? When and for what reasons? In mid-May 1861, a Union captain arrested over fifty Confederate sympathizers in Potosi who had recently harassed local loyal citizens. The captain decided not to destroy a vast quantity of property initially seized during the arrests, except for two smelting furnaces used to furnish lead to Confederate forces.9 But not all Federals always showed the same discretion. L. W. Burris of Liberty worried that Union soldiers turned local civilians against the Union cause by “the searing of private homes, drawers and trunks, where there is no need for suspicion.”10 When Ulysses S. Grant arrived at Mexico, he discovered that some men in regiments now under his command had a history of ransacking homes without justification and helping themselves to whatever food and drink they could find. Grant promptly prohibited his soldiers from entering homes uninvited and seizing property without his authorization.11 In late July 1861, Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon issued one of the earliest comprehensive policies for the seizure of property in the state. Lyon promised to protect “all law-abiding citizens,” and therefore ordered that Federals only seize the property of persons “exciting others to acts of rebellion, and are themselves in arms against the General Government.” Lyon also reminded his troops that they should only seize property to prevent pro-Confederates from committing “mischief,” and should not seek “the injury of families or the wanton destruction of property.”12

Union soldiers and their commanders inevitably confronted these three questions as they waged war against guerrillas. But Lyon’s early orders were hardly the final official word on how Federals ought to combat guerrillas and their supporters. In the opening months of the Civil War, other Union officers also constructed rules of conduct for the guerrilla fighting that embodied the moral vision of a hard yet humane war. Implementing these rules sparked controversy and conflict. The earliest major controversy arose in northeast Missouri and involved Brig. Gen. John Pope, a brash Kentuckian prone to hubris.13 On 31 July, Pope issued General Orders No. 3, the most vigorous effort to date by a Federal officer to hold civilians responsible for nearby guerrilla activity. By late August, Pope found himself embroiled in a bitter fight over the responsibility of civilians in Marion County for a recent guerrilla attack on a train carrying Union troops. The controversy revealed the difficulty of subduing guerrillas and pacifying their civilian supporters in a way that deftly balanced measures both hard and humane.

The guerrilla conflict in northeast Missouri was as violent, perilous, and irrepressible as anywhere in the state. The Daily Missouri Democrat reported in early August 1861 about the “tyranny … of the most atrocious character” of secessionists in that portion of Missouri. Reports surfaced of Union men murdered “in an unprovoked and heartless manner … for no crime but that they half kept their allegiance to a good government and advised their neighbors to do the same.” Guerrillas targeted railroads and harassed loyal citizens. Attorney James Overton Broadhead warned a fellow Unionist that guerrillas were “overrunning the country and forcing all union men to take an oath not to take up arms against the state of Mo nor the confederate state. The Union sentiment is fast being crushed out.” Gert Goebel, a German immigrant, later wrote that the dire threat to loyal citizens that guerrillas posed in the region demanded a response: “continued clemency toward bands of murderers, who shrank from no crime as long as they were not punished, would have been an unjustifiable cruelty toward the unprotected Union people.”14

When Pope assumed command of the District of North and Central Missouri in July 1861 he immediately threatened quick retribution against anyone who committed “depredation upon the public or private property or who molest unoffending and peaceful citizens.” Pope desired to restore safety and security in the region, especially for Unionists, and he thought this required preventing the further destruction of railroads. By late July, Pope believed the best way to do so was to hold civilians responsible for nearby guerrilla destruction. He publicly pledged that every time guerrillas destroyed part of the often-attacked North Missouri Railroad, he would hold citizens living within a five-mile radius of the destruction financially responsible (unless they had actively resisted the guerrillas). If local citizens did not immediately inform Union commanders of the whereabouts of the guilty guerrillas, Federals would seize money and property equivalent to the costs of the destruction. Pope admitted in a letter to Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont that his measures “may seem at first sight to be harsh,” but he insisted they were justified—even mild—given the true loyalties and subversive activities of many citizens in northeast Missouri. Supposedly loyal citizens made no effort to “resist these lawless acts of outrage,” Pope argued, which he believed amounted to open aid to the enemy. Pope concluded that the lifeblood of guerrilla activity was the aid and support it received from local civilians. But if supporting guerrillas resulted in severe financial duress, Pope wagered most civilians would help stop the destruction of railroads.15

On 31 July, Pope followed up this warning by issuing General Orders No. 3, his most extensive statement to date on how the Union forces under his command would deal with guerrillas and their supporters. Pope’s orders crystallized two key ideas that eventually guided Federal antiguerrilla efforts throughout all of Missouri. The first idea was that Federals could hold civilians responsible for guerrilla lawlessness and destruction. Pope said the people of northeast Missouri had an obligation to maintain “the peace and quietude of their own section.” To ensure that civilians fulfilled this obligation, Pope sought to establish in every county seat and major town a “committee of public safety” comprised of no more than five people responsible for maintaining peace and order. They had the power “to call out all citizens of the county to assemble at such times and places and in such numbers as may be necessary to secure these objects.” Pope warned that if civilians did not maintain peace themselves, he would send out Union troops to do so, and charge the county for the expenses incurred. Well aware that many northeast Missouri residents loathed the permanent presence of “occupying” Union troops, Pope insisted that if citizens proved able to ensure peace in their counties, “there will no longer be a necessity for the presence of armed forces.” Pope did not clarify important details. What exactly constituted maintaining “peace and quiet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Responsible to One Another and to God: The Union’s Moral Vision of War
• Chapter One: A War of Barbarism or of Comparative Humanity: Combatting Guerrillas
• Chapter Two: Not to Destroy but to Make Good: Occupying Cities
• Chapter Three: The More Vigorously Wars Are Pursued, the Better It Is for Humanity: Francis Lieber and General Orders No. 100
• Chapter Four: The Sternest Feature of War: Retaliation against Confederate Soldiers
• Chapter Five: Even in the Midst of an Enemy’s Country the Dictates of Humanity Must at Least Be Observed: The Hard yet Humane War against Confederate Civilians
• Conclusion: Was the American Civil War a Just War?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index