Exciting one our speaker is dr. Laurian foote who is the patricia and Bookman Peters professor of history at texas a m university, and shes the author of four books and the editor of two additional books and these are on a variety of civil war topics including things like manhood and violence in the union army and uspow escaped from imprisonment in the confederacy and that project gave rise not only to a book but also a really interesting digital humanities project called fugitive federals. Which among other things will allow users to track the escape routes federal prisoners of war took as they escaped these camps in the Confederate States during the war. But most recent book which of course is the subject of tonights event and my prop for this evening is rights of retaliation civilization soldiers and campaigns in the American Civil War and this came out just a few months ago from unc press. I really enjoyed reading it and i know were gonna enjoy listening to dr. Foot talk about it tonight. And of course its available at all booksellers under the sun wherever you buy your books from no doubt you can obtain a copy of rights of retaliation. So tonights agenda is dr. Fort will speak for about 30 to 35 minutes. Were not super strict. But but thats the general target and well have time for discussion at the end. So we always invite audience questions audience comments and so far at least the audience has never failed to provide us with excellent questions and comments and im sure tonight will be no exception and the way you can do that is typing directly into the q a box in zoom. So the chat function will not work. You wont be able to turn off or turn on your microphone or your camera. Everything will do through the q a box and then dr foot and i will keep an eye on the q a box. Well get to as many questions as we can and well wrap up at the latest by about 8 15 eastern time. So just a little over an hour from now. So thats all from me for now. Im really grateful to dr. Foot for joining us this evening really looking forward to the talk. So i think we should give her a virtual round of applause and welcome her to our screens. Thanks so much for being with us. Dr. Quickly, thank you so much for inviting me. Im just delighted to be here and to share the the research with you. I found it fascinating and so i hope that the audience will find it fascinating as well. So i want to begin by telling you about something that happened on february 23rd 1865 the confederate leadership committed an act that violated the principles upon which they had promised to fight their war for independence on that day confederate agents in virginia delivered to the United States 14 black Union Soldiers for exchange as prisoners of war and then four days later when us naval commanders in the gulf of mexico propose that free black sailors and soldiers fighting in the confederacys. Mississippi department be treated as prisoners of war Confederate Military officials agreed and these two moments happen because us authorities had conducted a retaliation ritual in the department of the south to protect northernborn free black us soldiers and this ritual change confederate policy. Today many writers and historians conflate retaliation with revenge, but during the American Civil War retaliation was a ritual with a purpose and that purpose was to negotiate civilized war and manage how campaigns were conducted. So what i like to speak with you tonight about is this ritual of retaliation and how it worked to change peoples behavior during campaigns. So im going to share my screen with you here. Um to help you follow along. So let me get that shared and then ill continue so thats the kind of starting point that i want to be sure that we all understand that retaliation is a ritual with a purpose to negotiate civilized war and manage how campaigns are conducted. So retaliation is consistent with the code. Ill hold on a moment with the code that governs the conduct of us armies in the field, which is general orders number 100. Which this was issued on april 24th 1863 article 27 of general orders number 100 proclaimed that civilized nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of war a reckless. Enemy often leads to his opponent. No other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage. The next article continued the retaliation is not revenge, but rather a means of quote protective retribution. Retaliation was only legitimate if it was done cautiously and unavoidably and only after careful inquiry into the real occurrence the author of the code Francis Lieber who was an expert on the International Laws of war cautioned that unjust or inconsiderate retaliation removes the belligerence farther and farther from the beginning mitigating rules of regular war and by rapid steps leave them leads them nearer to the war of savages. So i think this these lines in this are interesting the the reference to civilizing customs of war and the war of savages because this is going to get us to one of the themes of my project which is actually civilization and what it meant to americans who are fighting the civil war because retaliation against prisoners of war is actually a common feature of the American Civil War field commanders use retaliation during nearly every military campaign and civilian leaders frequently turned to the practice when they confronted contentious policy issues union and confederate officials shared a ritual of retaliation that played an Important Role in determining how each side fought the war. Equally important retaliation reflected the cultural worldview of civilization americans talked constantly about civilized war anyone whos done even only a Little Research into primary sources in the civil war will acknowledge that the word civilization or the word savage is used constantly in correspondence diaries official correspondence. Americans litter their correspondence with reference to the rules of civilized war and they incessantly accuse the other side of savagery and private and public formats. This is because americans in the civil war era considered themselves to be part of a transatlantic set of civilized nations that they believe represented the pinnacle of social evolution to that point in history. So there are three essential elements to civilized war as the majority of americans understood it at this time. The first is restraint. Selfcontrol order and deliberation underlies the violence of a civilized war which was most easily defined through contrast with its opposite. Animal like anger uncontrolled passion and unlimited an indiscriminate violence marks a savage conflict. Civilized nations fought with uniformed combatants who represented the state and were under the discipline and control of gentlemen officers gentlemen officers ensured that the effects of violence on noncombatants were minimized. The second indispensable aspect of civilized war was that combatants participated in the accumulated wisdom of civilized people stretching back to ancient times americans perceive themselves as part of a shared history and took care to contextualize every action taken in warfare as a consistent outgrowth that history they mind history for example from warfare to justify their policies or to accuse their enemies and consistently and constantly cited precedents for the actions that they took official and private correspondence during the civil war was filled with historical references. Finally civilized war was honorable not in the modern sense of just or virtuous but in its classical definition. Nations had a reputation to uphold before appear audience. You could not claim yourself to be a worthy nation unless other civilized nations acknowledged your claim. The union and the confederacy had to convince other civilized nations who observed and judged them about the righteousness of their conduct. Civilized war is a performance where mastery of rhetoric protocols and etiquette were vitally important to establishing a nations claim to civilized status. So the purpose of retaliation is to enforce the customs of war among civilized nations. Military leaders on both sides in the civil war agreed on the basic rules and the established rituals of retaliation. Retaliation is different from revenge by both purpose and procedure. Its intent is to prevent the enemy from continuing specific barbaric acts and to enforce the civilized usages of war. So a Major GeneralHenry Hallett who served as general in chief for union armies for nearly two years and was an acknowledged authority on the subject wrote that the object of retaliation is deterrence and prevention. As lincoln instructed one of his generals and here im quoting lincoln. I wish you to do nothing merely for revenge, but what you may do shall be done solely with reference to the security of the future. Confederate secretary of war james a said in believe the point of retaliation was to produce a thorough reformation of the offending nation. The head of the confederate bureau of war thought a little real shooting of prisoners would do good prevent suffering and save life. So a combatant he was considering retaliation wrote a letter to his component that can say that contains several elements placed in sequence. First was a statement of the desire to fight the war on civilized principles. This was always the first thing that the writer did in his letter then the writer named a specific barbarous act that the enemy had committed that supposedly violated the International Customs of war. Then the letter writer offered an opportunity for the recipient of the letter to disavow this barbarous incident by propering three suggested acceptable explanation. The first was that perhaps the writer of the letter was misinformed and the incident had not actually a second acceptable explanation was that the incident did happen but the guilty parties who committed the atrocity had acted without the sanction. The official sanction of the military that they were in so everybody acknowledges that periodically a soldier will commit an atrocious act and that wasnt sanctioned by his authority. Or a third possible explanation. Is that yeah, the incident happened. But it wasnt sanctioned and the perpetrators will be punished by the side who soldiers or officials or whoever committed the atrocious act. So the addressee the person who receives the letter could submit evidence that the perpetrators would be punished. So then the writer of a letter concludes with a time limit to receive a response. And if he hasnt received an acceptable response within that time limit then the writer of the letter names a specific measure of retaliation that will be implemented against a named individual or group of people. And that retaliation is supposed to be proportional to the offense that was committed. So these negotiations framed every military campaign of actually that occurs in the civil war but specifically in the department of the south which i chose is the subject for my book because i thought it was important to zero in on one military theater because retaliation is best understood. Is he follower retaliation incidents from beginning to end and follow the characters in each theater because only then can you really understand the nuances of how retaliation operated . So my book includes a military history of the department of the south that covers its officers its soldiers and its campaigns raids battles bombardments so for our purpose here, i want to use three examples three points of contention between the union and the confederacy in the department of the south and the retaliation incidents that kind of exemplify how this works. So the first issue of contention in the department of the south was the unions deployment of black soldiers. Here the union successfully used retaliation to change confederate policy towards black us soldiers who had been born free in Northern States. So it begins in 1861 and 1862 when an abolitionist Union General david hunter. Created regiments of black soldiers from South Carolina, georgia and florida deployed them in raids along the coast of South Carolina and georgia to destroy plantations and liberate enslaved people. And so heres a map that kind of shows the South Carolina sea islands, which the Union Military took control of in 1861. So this is the source that that hunter saw for recruits and these are going to be the rivers that he is going to use for raids by 1863 as many of us have heard of theres raids like the june second 1863 combaji river raid by portions of the second South Carolina, and then so you can see here the burning of the rice fields the liberating of enslaved people. The confederate government after a very interesting internal negotiation, which i fully cover in the book issued a retaliation resolution that required black soldiers, even if they were born free in Northern States to be turned over to states or trial as survival insurrectionist. So many historians are familiar with this resolution and may of 1863 by the confederate congress, which said that can help Confederate Military courts could try us commissioned officers and command of black troops for inciting surviolence direction and put them to death or otherwise punish them and that blacks taken in arms and the language in the resolution is very specific. Even if born free in a Northern State would be delivered to state authorities in the state where they were captured. So it took until the summer of 1863 for confederates to take any black prisoners in the department of the south after this retaliation resolution was issued, but it happened in the summer of 1863 when captured black soldiers from the 54th, massachusetts who had been captured here on sol legear island and then all so in an attack on fort wagner here in Charleston Harbor during the Union Military efforts to capture charleston. Um, so at the same time that these black soldiers from the 54th, massachusetts most of whom were born free Northern States were captured. The us Water Department received a letter smuggled to nassau by three black sailors of the union navy asking for protection by the Us Government. Orange Brown William h johnson and William Wilson were three black sailors who had been born in the state of new york their ship had been captured. But all the white sailors had been exchanged. They were put in the charleston jail. They managed to smuggle this letter and which found its way eventually to the Us Navy Department and with this letter which gave specific evidence of what confederates were doing was northern born black us military personnel. The Union War Department was able to act. They also have the backing of the Union War Department of the incredible publicity in the north and in europe about the fate of the prisoners of the 54th, massachusetts because the regiments organizers were rich and powerful new england republicans with International Literary types. So because of this situation the United States issued general order 252 on july 31st 1863. It stated that to sell or enslave any captured person on account of this color and for no offense against the laws of war is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. So the retaliation proclaimed in this border. Was that a confederate pow would be put to hard labor for every us soldier sold into slavery and that the United States would execute a confederate pow for every us soldier but to death so historians are well aware of general order 252, but what theyve completely missed because they havent gone into the weeds of retaliation incidents across time and specific departments is that this order was issued to specifically address the situation in the department of the south and do explicitly address the capture of northern warren free black soldiers and in the retaliation correspondence that goes along with this general order the confederate War Department receives a message in their own internal correspondence. Its clear that they understand that this order was issued to protect free black sold. Particularly because what other historians have missed is that the Us Government sets aside three white South Carolina soldiers prisoners of war as hostages to secure the enforcement of this order. And the confederate War Department again understood that these three white South Carolina soldiers were hostages for the men of the 54th, massachusetts, but more specifically the three black sailors from new york. So this created a crisis in the confederate War Department because some within it argued that the us did have the right to arm its own citizens as free black men clearly were so for example, robert. Garlic heal keen who was the director of the confederate bureau of war. He wrote his superiors. It is very clear. The United States have the right to enlist any of their own citizens. They have long in those states regarded negroses citizens as in massachusetts allowing them the right of stuff of suffrage. International attention also swayed secretary of war seddon and president jefferson davis, they realized the incredible International Publicity attending this particular retaliation issue and that the civilized world was watching what they were goi