Mass Executions in the Confederate Armies.

by Terry Foenander.

Robert Alotta's 1989 volume, Civil War Justice, makes much of the fact that a large number of Union soldiers were executed with the tacit approval of President Abraham Lincoln. Documentary evidence at the National Archives does indicate that Lincoln's signature was the final approval for their deaths, but there were also others who were reprieved from such an ignominious death by that same signature.

Records for the Confederate armies tend to show that there were probably many more executions of Southern soldiers than there were in the North. Even if there is no evidence to show that President Davis approved of any of these executions by signing their death warrants, his silence in allowing the executions to continue, makes him just as guilty as his Northern counterpart. Some authors have mentioned that Davis commuted every death sentence for desertion that passed through his office. The fact still remains that he allowed many other executions for the same crime to go ahead. He had the full power to suspend or cease all executions approved by his army commanders, but did not use this power to prove, as at least one author has claimed, that his character included a sense of compassion. [1]

By mid 1863, the tide of war had practically turned in favor of the North. Lee's Pennsylvania gamble had failed and meals of dog and mule meat at Vicksburg convinced General Pemberton that the fare in a Northern prison would be much more preferable.

The cost of living was skyrocketing and the necessities of life, such as food and medical supplies, were becoming scarce because of the blockade. Many a Southern lad, homesick and crestfallen, after receiving pleading letters from a beloved wife, mother or child, felt no other alternative but to take 'French leave.' This because the invaders from the North had given most Southern commanders no choice but to cut back on allowing their subordinates a chance to get home to tend to family business.

Unable to stop the high desertion rates in the last years of the war, many army commanders tried to stem the tide by executing those they considered most deserving of such a fate. State rosters, journals and diaries make frequent mention of such episodes. Southern newspapers of the period also give an indication of the amount of deaths by firing squad. Descriptions from personal sources are very sombre, and show the feeling amongst the members of the condemned man's unit, and other observers. It would have been very sad to see one of your own being put to death because of the sad situation he had gotten into. Personal friends of the condemned man would have remembered the moment for the rest of their lives. [2]

Although numerous single and multiple executions took place, there is documentary evidence of at least two mass executions of ten condemned men or more at a single time. The Richmond, Virginia Daily Dispatch of Thursday, September 10, 1863 gives the following account of a mass execution on page 1:

On the evening of the 4th inst., ten deserters from the 3d North Carolina infantry, of Gen. Geo. H. Stewart's brigade, Johnson's division, Ewell's corps, arrived at the camp of the division, near Orange Court House, under charge of a guard from this city. At the same time there arrived at the headquarters of the division an order from the Department of Henrico directing that these men, charged with desertion and the murder of Adjutant Mallett, be executed at such time and place as the division commander should direct. From division headquarters an order was immediately issued to have the execution take place at 4 o'clock on the following day. At half past 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 5th the troops of the division were promptly formed on three sides of a square, with side arms and without colors, whilst ten stakes ranged in a row on the fourth side showed where the execution would take place. A few minutes later the prisoners arrived upon the ground, preceded by the officer of the day, the music of the brigade playing the dead march, and escorted by a detail from the brigade guard. The bearing of the prisoners was calm and self-possessed, and they marched to the place of their execution with a step as accurate in its cadence as that of the guard who conducted them.

On arriving upon the grounds the prisoners here fronted to the division, who had been paraded to witness their death. The officer of the day read the orders reciting their offences, their sentences, and the time and place of their execution. This ceremony concluded, the Chaplain of the 3d N.C. infantry kneeled with the prisoners, and in a most fervent manner read the ritual of the Episcopal service for the condemned. The prisoners joined in the act of devotion with fervor. The soldiers who were there to witness the execution of their comrades, used as they were to the blood and carnage of twenty battlefields, beheld with uncontrollable emotion the solemn preparation for the execution of the condemned, and seemed to be penetrated with the solemnity of the religious services which were being carried on.

The services over the Chaplain blessed and affectionately bid adieu to each prisoner - the non-commissioned officers of the ten different firing parties rapidly carried the prisoners each to his own stake, where, after kneeling, their arms were pinioned behind the stake and their eyes bandaged to shut out the sight of the muzzles of the muskets levelled not more than ten paces from them.

At this part of the proceedings, and whilst the firing parties were being deployed into one rank, the more effectually to deliver their fire, the prisoners broke out into loud and frequent appeals to the Almighty to have mercy on their souls and pardon their sins. The preparations being concluded, the officer of the day gave the command "ready!" and the clicking of the locks alone broke the silence that prevailed; "aim!" and the muzzles of the guns were pointed with unerring aim at the breasts of the miserable condemned, and the very breathing of the crowd seemed stopped in a terrible suspense; "fire!" and the corpses of ten men hung in the horrible relaxation of death to the stakes where they were pinioned.

The troops of the division filed by the dead bodies in melancholy procession, and the field, being vacated by all but the detail for burial, was as silent and solemn in the evening gloom as the painful scene of which it had been the theatre. So perish those who would betray their country in its hour of need and peril. The sentence of these men was as just as their execution was prompt. Necessity demanded their blood - justice approved, and even tearful mercy sanctioned it.

The State rosters of North Carolina show the names of eleven men, all Privates from the 3rd North Carolina State Troops who were executed on September 5, 1863 [3]:

William Barefoot of Company H, resident of Columbus County, aged 24 on enlistment in 1862.

John R. Bedsole of Company H, resident of Columbus County.

Francis Benson of Company H, resident of Bladen County, aged 24 on enlistment in 1861.

Dallas Bunn of Company K, resident of Wake County, aged 19 on enlistment in 1862.

James D. Bunn of Company K, resident of Wake County, aged 19 on enlistment in 1862.

Duncan R. Clarke of Company H, resident of Bladen County, aged 19 on enlistment in 1861.

James Ellis of Company H, resident of Columbus County, aged 32 on enlistment in 1862.

John Futch of Company K, resident of New Hanover County, aged 26 on enlistment in 1862.

William H. Kelly of Company H, resident of Bladen County, aged 20 on enlistment in 1861.

Kearney Privett of Company K, resident of Wake County, aged 19 on enlistment in 1862.

John N. Rainer of Company K, resident of New Hanover County, aged 18 on enlistment in 1861.

All of these men had deserted in August, 1863, and when Adjutant Richardson Mallett, Jr., of the 46th Regiment N. C. Troops had been sent with an escort to arrest the deserters, a fight had broken out in which Adjutant Mallett had been killed. The deserters were eventually apprehended. One other deserter, Hanson M. Futch of Company K, had been wounded in the fight, and was sent to hospital at Richmond, where he escaped the death penalty by firing squad, when he died of small pox on December 17, 1863.

Another mass execution occurred on May 4, 1864, at Dalton, Georgia, when twelve men from the 58th North Carolina, and two from the 60th North Carolina Troops, were shot for desertion. This is assumed to be the largest mass execution of the war. Accounts of the botched execution indicate that two or three of the condemned men had not been killed immediately but had to be dispatched by a soldier placing his rifle to the heart of each unfortunate man, and pulling the trigger.

The fourteen men who were executed that day were:

Alford T. Ball, Sergeant, Company G, 58th N.C.T.

Jacob A. Austin, Private, Company E, 58th N.C.T.

Asa Dover, Private, Company F, 58th N.C.T.

Joseph A. Gibbs, Private, Company C, 58th N.C.T.

Wright Hutchings, Private, Company F, 58th N.C.T.

Christopher C. Ledford, Private, Company C, 60th N.C.T.

George W. McFalls, Private, Company K, 58th N.C.T.

Michael Ward, Private, Company D, 58th N.C.T.

Hiram Youngblood, Private, Company F, 58th N.C.T.

E.F. Younts, Private, Company H, 58th N.C.T.

William R. Byers, Private, Company G, 58th N.C.T.

Reuben A. Dellinger, Private, Company A, 58th N.C.T.

Jesse Hase, Private, Company A, 58th N.C.T.

James M. Randal, Private, Company A, 60th N.C.T.

The last four names are those of deserters who were sentenced to be executed about that period, but no further record exists of their subsequent fate. [4] Thomas Owens, a resident of Carlisle, Kentucky in 1894, wrote to the editor of Confederate Veteran magazine mentioning that he had witnessed the mass execution of 16 men at Dalton, Georgia, but this was probably the same execution of 14 men mentioned above. [5]

Sam Watkin's well known work titled Company Aytch makes note of the following on page 113, of the 1982, Morningside Bookshop Press edition:

He [General Joseph E. Johnston] had 17 shot at Tunnel Hill, and a whole company at Rockyface Ridge, and two spies hung at Ringgold Gap, but they were executed for their crimes. No one knew of it except those who had to take part as executioners of the law. [6]

The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies also indicates that fifteen men were shot at one time on one occasion and, after the mutiny of a brigade at Alexandria, Virginia, thirty five of the ring leaders were shot. However, once again, this is based on hearsay, and cannot be confirmed at this point in time. [7]

There may have been other mass executions of such numbers, that this author is at present unaware of, and any information provided is most welcome. The only known execution of an officer in either Army is related on a separate page.

Sources:

[1] See Time-Life series on The Civil War, volume titled Confederate Ordeal: The Southern Home Front, pages 15-16.

[2] See, for example, James I. Robertson's volume Soldiers Blue and Gray, pages 135-136.

[3] North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume 3, pages 567, 569, 570, 571, 591, 597 and 683.

[4] North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume 14, pages 236-237, 462-463.

[5] Confederate Veteran magazine, Volume 2, Number 8 (August, 1894), page 235.

[6] I am indebted to Bob Redman of Pennsylvania, for pointing out this particular passage in the Sam Watkins book Company Aytch.

[7] See Series IV, Volume 2, of the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.