Union Terror

Debunking the False Justifications for Union Terror Against Southern Civilians in the American Civil War

By: Jeffrey Addicott

Narrated by: Earl Starbuck

Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Union Terror Is a Cutting-Edge Book for Our Day.

Drawing from his vast real-world background as the senior legal advisor for the US Army Special Forces, Professor Addicott not only pulls back the curtain on the Union’s command approved use of terror tactics against Southern civilians during the American Civil War, he also persuasively rebuts all the fallacious justifications proffered to excuse the widespread war-crimes committed by the chief purveyor, William T. Sherman.

In this he has done us all—educators, the military, and the wider public—a great service in detailing the necessity to apply these key historical lessons so that such despicable violations of the rule of law are never repeated.

Jeffrey F. Addicott is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Warrior Defense Project at St. Mary’s University School of Law, San Antonio, Texas, where he teaches a variety of courses to include National Security Law and Terrorism Law. An active duty Army officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps for 20 years (he retired in 2000 at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel), Professor Addicott spent a quarter of his career as the senior legal advisor to the United States Army’s Special Forces. An internationally recognized authority in terrorism law and the law of war, Professor Addicott not only lectures and participates in professional and academic organizations both in the United States and overseas; he is also a frequent contributor to national and international media outlets.

©2023 Jeffery Addicott (P)2023 Shotwell Publishing, LLC

Lee’s Praise

No dislike all like awesome book , love he mentions Victor Davis Hanson how for of crap he is.

The Untold History of Union Army War Crimes

Lt. Colonel (US Army, Ret.) Jeffrey F. Addicott’s excellent work “Union Terror: Debunking the False Justifications for Union Terror Against Southern Civilians in the American Civil War” proves that acts of terror and war crimes against Southern civilians not only occurred and were widespread during the U.S. Civil War, but violated U.S. law, the Laws of War, as well as human decency.

Col. Addicott is a lawyer and law professor. He is highly credentialed in the Laws of War, war crimes, and terrorism. He served in the U.S. Army for twenty years and spent much of his career educating and enforcing the Laws of War among U.S. Military personnel.

This book is fast-paced and not boring. It does not bog down in jargon and minutia as most legal writing does. I should know as I am a retired circuit court judge and have read my share of boring legal writing. This book is just the opposite. No need to be a lawyer to read it.

It is shocking that very few of the “Who’s Who” of Civil War authors discuss the Union’s deliberate terror tactics, let alone condemn them. Most of these authors justify Union Army terror.

In addition to the well-known Laws of War that existed in 1861, the United States government codified additional Laws of War by adopting “Instructions for the Government of Armies of The United States In the Field” (The Leiber Code) as “General Order 100” in 1863. This Union war policy was implemented to inflict violence and terror on the civilian population of the South as a means of destroying the South’s morale and will to fight. As a policy, it did not work.

Thousands of books have been written about the U.S. Civil War. How many books have been written about Union Army war crimes during the invasion of the South? Very few. Robbery, rape, assault, and murder of civilians all are ignored by historians.

Calling out Union Army war crimes is fearless. It takes a person with an iron will and a steel backbone to do it. Col. Addicott is just such a man. Criminal culpability is placed where it belongs, squarely with Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant for encouraging and condoning these tactics to W.T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and other field commanders for implementing them.

Col. Addicott applies U.S. law as it existed before and during the Civil War to prove to the reader that the widespread and deliberate violent acts of the Union Army were criminal by the legal standards that existed at the time.

Maj-General Henry W. Halleck was a lawyer, legal writer, and Union Army field commander in Missouri, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Promoted, he moved to Washington as General-in-Chief of the Union Army and later as Union Army Chief of Staff. In a supreme example of cognitive dissonance, Halleck wrote a 900+ page book in 1861 titled “International Law, or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States In Peace And War.” Halleck’s book historically documents and rightfully condemns the very actions that the Union Army will soon commit during the War Between the States.

Col. Addicott masterfully proves that it was the Union Army’s policy to terrorize Southern civilians, destroy their homes, crops, and livestock, and drive women and children to the brink of death.

Col. Addicott eviscerates the usual “excuses” given by Union apologists for these widespread war crimes, pointing out that the excuses are not valid legal defenses.

The feeble excuses for these war crimes, such as “Southerners were slaveholders” and thus deserved what they got, are inconvenient in that slavery was alive and well in some Northern States in the Union. There was no attempt to curb it in the United States where it existed. This “excuse” also overlooks the fact that most victims of Union Army terror were poor, subsistence farmers who owned no slaves.

These war crimes and terrorism were not only committed against Southern Planters but against subsistence white farmers, slaves, and newly freed slaves. Slaves were robbed of their meager possessions and often raped by Union Army soldiers. Not only were these rapes ignored, but they were also regarded by some as a fringe benefit of the invasion.

Perhaps this history is denied because of Union embarrassment by these savage acts, encouraged and directed by Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps these war crimes are seen as just punishment against Southern civilians for living in states that dared to secede from the Union.

Col. Addicott's book is an indispensable contribution to this tragic part of our history. Teachers, historians, and law professors who fail to mention this tragic chapter in American history are selectively censoring the past and telling a false story of our Republic.