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(EMAILWIRE.COM, January 10, 2010 ) President Abraham Lincoln Refused To Kill Innocent Confederate Prisoners For Crimes Committed By Other People
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Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director
BACKGROUND
The time was may, 1864, toward the end of the United States Civil War. The Union Army was heading toward the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia . . .
THE INCIDENT - President Lincoln said he could not kill the innocent for the guilty.
There were serious questions, too, to be decided about negro soldiers, for the South had raised a mighty outcry against the the Emancipation Proclamation, especially against the use of the freed slaves as soldiers, vowing that white officers of negro troops would be shown small mercy, if ever they were taken prisoners. No act of such vengeance occurred, but in 1864 a fort manned by colored soldiers was captured by the Confederates, and almost the entire garrison was put to death. Must the order that the War Department had issued some time earlier, to offset the Confederate threats, now be put in force? The order said that for every negro prisoner killed by the Confederates a Confederate prisoner in the hands of the Union armies would be taken out and shot. It fell upon Mr. Lincoln to decide. The idea seemed unbearable to him, yet, on the other hand, could he afford to let the massacre go unavenged and thus encourage the South in the belief that it could commit such barbarous acts and escape unharmed? Two reasons finally decided him against putting the order in force. One was that General Grant was about to start on his campaign against Richmond, and that it would be most unwise to begin this by the tragic spectacle of a military punishment, however merited. The other was his tender-hearted humanity. He could not, he said, take men out and kill them in cold blood for crimes committed by other men. If he could get hold of the persons who were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold blood, the case would be different; but he could not kill the innocent for the guilty. Fortunately the offense was not repeated, and no one had cause to criticize his clemency.
Source: This description was copied from pages 244-245 of the book: The Boys' Life Of Abraham Lincoln, by Helen Nicolay, as digitized by Google Books.
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