Fighting the 1860s version of the Talaban...Warning, graphic...

Many of us now the story of Sam Davis but, how many know the story of Private Dewitt Jobe a friend of Sam Davis and like him, also refused to provide information when he was captured by the 115th Ohio Infantry. For this he was tortured, teeth kicked in, tongue cut out, eyes gouged from their sockets and finally strangled with a leather strap. 

Jack Hinson's boys were beheaded by the 5 Iowa Cavalry and their heads placed on the fence postes at the entrance of his home after the boys dead bodies were draged around town.

In Palmyra Missouri 10 civilians who had been jailed on suspicion of being confederate sympathizers; were randomly selected and shot, without trial by order of the Union commander. Those shot ranged in age from 19 to 60; a month later, Lincoln promoted the officer who ordered the execution. 

Athens, Alabama: The court-martial record of Lincoln's buddy Turchin dated May 2, 1862, contains information about an attempt to commit "an indecent outrage" on a servant girl. It also notes that a part of the brigade, "quarter[ed] in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females."

In Columbia SC a young black woman was brutally raped by her Yankee liberators and left to drown in a mud puddle in the street. 

Union Sergeant William T. Patterson wrote that "the whole country around is wrapped in flames, the heavens are aglow with the light thereof . . . such mourning, such lamentations, such crying and pleading for mercy [by defenseless women]... I never saw or want to see again."


How they claim the abuse didn’t happen is beyond me when on June 20, 1862 –George McClellan, wrote Lincoln asking him to ensure the war was conducted on “the highest principles known to Christian civilization" and to avoid targeting the civilian population to the extent that that was possible. Lincoln response was to ignore the request and to replace McClellan.

None of this even begins to tell the story.