Military policy towards Southern Civilians. After he wrote that book, i first met him. He came to the chicago civil war roundtable, where i was a member, and talked about the book. He maintains the war historians website, focusing on military history and National Security affairs, winning the 2015 cleopatra award for the best individual blog, for his wonderfully titled blog then out of the stone age. In other words, grimsley is an awardwinning historian in three media. His books ono civil war topics which are listed in your program, mark has written an taught more generally on military history. An sae wrote for his coedited book, civilians in the path of war, is his talk today. Im sured redskins, you can get your answer answer by dr. Grimsley. Military conduct, a comparative perspective. He is no stranger to the museum programs. He spoke in this auditorium, as a matter of fact, 12 years ago as a part of the evening series lectures on hard war. We are very pleased to welcome back to the stage dr. Mark grimsley. [applause] dr. Grimsely a pleasure to be here this afternoon. And im looking forward to talking with you. Oh good, we have this up on the screen. Will be talking today about the civil war. And about the final wars against native americans. And yet, i am neither a civil war historian nor a historian of the military. Donte way in which, worry i still know a lot about the civil war [laughter] identify as a military historian. And the way i actually came to the subject of my first book, which i will be talking about some today, actually was by way of the interest in moral judgment in war. The kind of moral judgments that we often make in wartime. And as an historian, the kind of judgments that we do make. And that was the genesis of the interesting ine the moral judgments that Union Officers and soldiers made towards Southern Civilians in the past of war during the American Civil War. So that is where that came from. Having written that book, i have formed an apparently careerlong association with william t sherman. People zynga think i am an expert on sherman, as well. And i have come to learn a fair amount about sherman, two, mostly in selfdefense. [laughter] but i can to you that times are changing regard to sherman. And as with many things. 2014, anmmer of Organization Called public asking fora poll, the opinions on william t. Sherman. You might imagine they would have opinions on the subject, given his famous urban renewal project. [applause] [laughter] in 1864. 56 had no opinion in georgia. 63 reported that y disliked reality tv star honey booboo. [laughter] apparently, the image of sherman have shifted over time. Some of it interests me over the past year or so, it is taking seriously the concepts of the American Civil War as an american iliad. , itby that, i mean to say is an episode in American History that we have certain stories that we tell ourselves that come out of the war, the kind of have a mythic resonance for us. En the same way there ar the same in homer. What it tells us about being a human being, and i think the people that are interested in the American Civil War often approach it as a kind of american iliad. And i will give you an example of this. I started doing a column for civil war magazine called the american illiad. One of my first was on the relationship between american n and maccallum. Culture,sed into our to such an extent that during the iraq war. Over 100here were references to the lincoln and maccallum relationship, usually in the course of condemning a general that was not doing very well. Or extolling a general who was doing well, and so on. Well, in my column, i talked about this relationship that they had, very much an american illiad term. Lincoln is a great guy, mccollum is a jerk. What will he do when a figure they figure that out . I said maccallum is not that bad a general. That is all i said. He does not deserve the excoriation that he gets. That one paragraph got many numbers of letters to the editor, and i got one myself from aggrieved readers, each of pages,an several singlespaced. [laughter] explaining to me how he was the worst general in the civil war. Not one of the warsaw the absolute worst. I willa new column that be doing explaining why we hate him that much. [laughter] but we can go to my topic today, and one of the things i was thinking about, this american iliad. Does it have it has stories in it. Grant at shiloh. During the darkest moments of the surge, he told his staff on several occasions about grants remark on the evening of the battle of shiloh, where sherman comes up to him and says we have had the devils own day. And grant says yes, lick them tomorrow. Use that to boost his staff. And of course the story of Stonewall Jackson at the first manassas. What kind of tales do we have that touch upon the things were discussing today . Reconstruction and the ugliness of it. I think those things lie largely outside of the american iliad. These are stories that we do not mythic in a mythical or kind of way. The exception to this would be shermans marches. People do know about the raising of the Shenandoah Valley. S was right tor quote the importance. But people know anything about what i call the heart operations of the civil war, it is the march to the sea. Ad we all know that it was march, 220 miles from atlanta to savannah, 60 miles wide. In which the troops destroyed absolutely everything in their path. Folklore is a thriving business in georgia there to explain why, given that this occurred, why the particular in, that so and so lives why that particular town was spared, when every other town was annihilated. Usuallye folklore tales have something to do with sherman had an old girlfriend in town, maybe. He was a mason. And someone gave the masonic sign of distress. So, there is this kind of american iliad element to his march. Theory,idea of this this is something that i talk about, largely debunking. Do so, what i would like to is to begin with two mornings, three years apart. The first is a mild winter day in coastal south carolina, on the flat title plane of the savanna river. The soldiers have entered the Little Village of barnwell. Officially, the orders are to pass through the town and seize and destroy only certain classes of public property. In brutal fact, they believe that the Commanding Officer wants them to destroy everything in south carolina, a state that nurtured and created the carnage of the civil war. That has consumed the lives of them in their comrades for years. And so, Union Soldiers as they enter barnwell, south carolina, they set fire to the town. Public building for residences, then they leave. A town that would be properly rechristened burnwell. Civilians are aghast, in shock. That is the first point. The second morning is a chill, autumn dawn in the former indian territory of oklahoma. Bluecoated soldiers have surrounded a nameless village on the river. Officially, the orders are to surround and capture a party of indian raiders that have attacked white settlements in the region. And also, to wreck everything in their path. They open fire, the blue coats open fire. Ell, this is defended. The inhabitants have been taken by surprise. And within minutes, it is overrun. While covering for screens against a possible counterattack theyher vicinity indians, systematically level the lodges, shooting 900 ponies in the most of the giving possessions to the flames. Afterward, there are no indians left behind in the village to bemoan the attack. All have been made prisoners and escorted into captivity. And over 100 of them, mostly old men, women, and children, are dead. Now, it is commonly agreed that 19th Century America had two experiences with total war. The first against the southern confederacy, the second against the Western Plains indians. Other historians have noticed similarities in the methods employed, particular emphasis on the destruction of supplies and attacks on noncombatants. Such commonalities imply that however potent racial views may have been in White America overall towards native americans, the final conquest was not central with race. Aen francis jennings, distinguished historian highly critical of White Americans to make this point. He wrote on sherman that a photograph in atlanta will reveal his style of war. Why should anyone expect them to be more merciful to alien indians that the people of his own kind . Sherman and his counterparts in the union army did behave with considerably more mercy towards southern whites than White America showed with the final wars with native americans. What happened in barnwell and 8065 laid at the extreme end. Int happened along the river november 1868, on the other hand, was fairly typical of the u. S. Army conduct towards native americans. The difference reflects the culture in race and the latter struggles. The contrast between the wars against the confederacy and the native americans are compelling. And they begin with the basic legal principles by which the two struggles were conducted. The laws and customs of european warfare contain two main strands of thought. One, applicable to wars against another nation, international wars. And one, applicable to insurgency and insurrection, internal wars. Legally, the American Civil War was an insurrection. It was an insurgency. But the way in which the United States conducted that war, de facto, treated the Confederate States of america as if it were a foreign nation. And that meant that the conventions of laws and customs, prisoners of war were taken, surrenders were given and accepted, and so on. Had the United States chosen to adopt the insurgency or the insurrectionary principle instead, everybody who was taken in arms would have been shot. And you know, they were traitors, guilty of treason. They had no rights anyone you to respect. So, the American Civil War than was treated as a de facto contest between nations. And those principles were followed. With regard to the wars against native americans, though, the insurrectionary principle was followed. And what this meant was that it opened up a great deal more for lethal treatment of people who would ordinarily be classified as noncombatants. Now, during the clashes with western indians, u. S. Forces when we discovered it was almost impossible to destroy a native American War Party and open combat. Since they normally avoided battle except under favorable conditions. These small numbers and high mobility made them are to locate, amid the vastness of the west. Accordingly, one of the favorite tactics was to swoop down upon a hostile party, while ensconced in a village. Ideally, at dawn. This tactic privately guaranteed casualties among native american women, children, and the elderly. Two wellknown examples were the already discussed and in whichy 1870, general baker and the calvary killed 173 indians, including 53 women and children. Many of them ill with smallpox. Attack againsthe humanitarians, noting that it was no different than what was practiced in American Civil War. During the war, he said, did anyone hesitate to attack a village because women and children were within the limits . Did we ceased to throw shells into vicksburg or atlanta because women and children were there . This is disingenuous. Hardly any Southern Civilians were killed in this kind of fashion. The bombardment of vicksburg and atlanta produced few civilian casualties. Many of us could name the loan civilians deaths that occurred during the battle of gettysburg. We also know the one woman who died in the battle of the first manassas. So, that is how rare those occasions are. So he is being disingenuous when he says this. Thentrast, the success of Western Village attacks depended on native americans not knowing the enemys approaching. They smirk and atlanta were incidental to operations against the confederate armies defending those cities. The presence was of central importance. Because the greatest opportunities for victory would occur when warriors were forced into position of having to protect the elderly, women, and children. Finally, while the union army could readily discriminate between civilian targets in atlanta, during a village attack, combatants and noncombatants were hopelessly intermingle. The result unpredictably, was a level of noncombatant casualties far higher than anything seen during delivery operations. Sherman was not drawing an appropriate comparison. Rather, he was quoting a morally dubious attack in the mantle of one more easily defensible. This is michael walzer. He is a Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of any number of books. There is one i will recommend to you. It is called just and unjust wars, published in 1977. I read it as a college freshman. It has been through five editions since then. And it is the single most lucid and intelligent study of the ethical aspects of war that i can recommend to you. Walzer talks in his book about the principle of double effect. This is a concept that really goes back before him, back to the scholastics of the middle ages. But he offers a good modern formulation that is relevant to what i am talking about today. Writes, is a, he way of reconciling the absolute prohibition of attacking noncombatants with the legitimate conduct of military activity. Which may unavoidably exposed noncombatants to harm. Condition is that the intention of the actor is good. That is to say, that the actor, the person responsible for attack, specific is naming airily at the acceptable affect the death of the combatant. The evil effect, the injury to noncombatants, nor is it a means to his ends. He seeks to minimize the evil involved, accepting cost to himself. One may complain that during the atlanta bombardment, sherman failed to minimize the risk of causing harm to civilians. But causing harm was neither his objective nor a means to his objective. By contrast, while injury to native american women and children was possibly not the example of custer or baker, the presence of women and children was an important means to ensure the vulnerability of the otherwise elusive native american warriors. According to the principle of double effect, this is morally unacceptable. A soldier must take careful aim at his target, away from nonmilitary targets, he explains. He can shoot only if he has a reasonably clear shot. He can attack only if a direct attack is possible. He can risk incidental death, but he cannot kill civilians simply because he finds them in between. Ethically then, the u. S. Army to attack only if it were prepared to take significant steps to avoid noncombatant casualties. For example, by using forces to surround the village, offering them an opportunity to surrender, and permitting noncombatants to leave the area. And although this conclusion cannot be gained, it is perhaps only fair to point out that the army, which felt chronically shorthanded during the campaign, and that even the surprise attacks were fought with considerable risk. At the battle of the big hull in 1877, theyaugust 9 failed to prevent the escape of most warriors, who found cover and shut down fully a third of the men. But as usual, many of the nez perce were women and children killed in the attack. Civilianhat casualties are hard to establish reliably, but two thirds are estimated to be noncombatants. When i began working on what became the hard hand of war, and i look at the way in which Union Military conduct toward Southern Civilians eve all, you begin with a limited war. An army against an army. And eventually, you see this war expand to something approximating a total war, in which Southern Civilian property, private and public property, was also fair game. And as i traced the trajectory, this, i found out that what really drove it was part political. In the early stages, a consolatory policy was applied because it was thought that this would bring white Southern Civilians back into their former allegiance more easily than other means. And that as matters became more harsh, it was driven by the fact that union armies found it difficult to destroy rebel armies in the field,. And historically, what happens when you are unable to achieve direct military effect, you tend to go after civilians instead. Is a bookst there out there that you should all is a copy of. To it. At book has a moral when you cannot effectively defeat an enemy by purely military means, you go for the civilians. Although it is common to locate the germ of this s horrible policy with civilal sherman, war armies sometimes found it necessary to take supplies from the countryside. And by extension, to deny them to the enemy. Commanders didon the same thing as sherman did. Such methods were Obvious Solutions to obvious military problems. It requires little imagination to realize that if the civil war had never taken place, the military problems of war against the indians would have suggested their own solutions in much the same way. So i think that the idea that the United States officers, you know, learned techniques during the civil war and then apply them to the indians in the postcivil war period, they just thought that would not hunt. Soldiers are practical legal. Thel people. They still would have the same problem with the civil war, and they would assault the problems with the indians and the way they did. Now, the destruction of native american property follows a considerably different pattern from that of the civil war. Andough southern barnes outbuildings might be destroyed, it was relatively uncommon for Union Soldiers to burn private dwellings. But they repeatedly burned entire native american villages. The emphasis in both official order and practice, to leave enough provi