Lincoln's General Order 252: An eye for an eye

[Shrek]

[sharp_stick]

1. It was an interesting time

and this order was written in response to the Rebs killing or enslaving Union Black troops when they were captured and some say even executing white officers of black troops.

The Union was kind of between a rock and hard place because they wanted Davis to know that there would be retaliation for the murder of prisoners but they had a difficult time actually carrying out the threat.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0815.html

Lincoln's retaliatory order was difficult to put into practice. After a massacre of black soldiers at Fort Pillow (April 12, 1864), the president and his military advisors decided to punish the Confederates directly responsible, should they be captured, rather than to randomly execute a corresponding number of Confederate prisoners of war. Field commanders near Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina carried out the Union’s only official retaliations. When Confederates forced captured black soldiers to build fortifications in the line of fire, the Union officers made an equal number of Confederate prisoners perform similar work. Thereafter, the Confederates stopped the practice.

[John2]

4. Yeah, it

was very interesting. The Confederate Government wanted to use Blacks themselves when they got desperate and was on the verge of losing.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Context: a response to the Confederacy's vow to execute black Union soldiers it captured

And it was never implemented in the way that it seems to indicate - only the actual Confederate perpetrators of war crimes were punished:

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0815.html

[rug]

3. Killing hostages at any time, by anyone, is a relapse into barbarism.

[malthaussen]

5. Much earlier in the war

When Mr Lincoln must have been having a bad hair day, he announced that all CSA privateersmen would be treated as pirates and sentenced according (i.e., hanged). Mr Davis then informed the government of the USA that he would hang one US prisoner for every CS privateersman hanged. This is pretty standard opera.

Naturally, Mr Lincoln decided not to enforce his proclamation.

-- Mal

[Myrina]

6. I would like to see Wall Street Bankers & overpriced CEO's placed on "public works"

... instead of going to the "Club Med" Prison (not that any of them will ever end up THERE, either) ....