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Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War by Burrus M. Carnahan (review)

FALL 2010 87 Was Lincoln guilty of war crimes? Burrus M. Carnahan’s thoughtful analysis of the North’s treatment of southern civilians during the Civil War effectively demonstrates that “[u]nder the standards of his time, President Lincoln did not authorize or condone any violations of the laws of war against enemy civilians” (119). Moreover, “throughout the war, President Lincoln was continually concerned that military actions be undertaken only for valid military reasons, and never for motives of revenge or cruelty” (33). A former Air Force Judge Advocate General officer and currently a lecturer at the George Washington University law school, Carnahan is familiar with military law, past and present. Francis Lieber codified the laws of war in the 1860s in General Order 100, issued in April 1863. For many decades, the U.S. Army relied on the Lieber Code, which stipulated that “military necessity . . . allows of all destruction of property, and . . . the appropriation of whatever an enemy’s country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army.” So the seizure or destruction of property by Phillip Sheridan, William Tecumseh Sherman, and other Union generals, insofar as it was military necessity (or, as the term was understood in the nineteenth century, expedient), was lawful. Sherman’s march to the sea did involve excesses (such as the burning of Millen and Sandersville), but Lincoln did not know about nor did he authorize them. While acknowledging that the shelling of besieged cities was somewhat problematic by standards of the Geneva Convention of 1949, Carnahan shows that such actions adhered to nineteenth-century standards. Union troops often used harsh measures to combat guerrillas. Lincoln apparently approved orders to hold civilians responsible for guerrilla attacks in their neighborhoods. Among the punishments meted out to civilians were the burning of their houses and the imposition of fines, both of which international law sanctioned. A more drastic antiguerrilla tactic involved expelling civilians from their homes. Lincoln has been severely criticized for authorizing such forced removals. The most egregious example of that policy, Gen. Thomas Ewing’s 1863 Order 11, Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War Burrus M. Carnahan