Dylan Kippola
AMH2010
Feb, 2014
Kinston Hangings
In the early hours of February 2, 1864, fifty-three North Carolina men were captured by Confederate forces under the command of Major General Pickett. Within four months of their capture, most would be dead. Most would fall victim to the diseases acquired in Southern P.O.W camps in Richmond, Virginia, and Andersonville, Georgia. However, twenty-two were publicly hanged in Kinston, North Carolina. The wives, neighbors, friends, and former brothers in arms in the Confederate army were forced to watch the executions. From the Confederacies point of view, the executed men were Union soldiers because they deserted. Once captured, they deserved to be treated as prisoners of war. President Abraham Lincoln mentioned this on July 31, 1863. He ordered retaliation on the enemy prisoners in the North’s possession. His response was to kill a Southern P.O.W for every P.O.W the Confederacy killed. The Confederates argued that the men were simply deserters and therefore execution was a legitimate punishment for them.
Desertion was most apparent in North Carolina. North Carolina was contradictory in both providing more soldiers to the Confederate army than any other state and of having more deserters from the army than other states. Although North Carolinian disloyalty to the Confederacy was not any worse than other Southern states, it was more publicly pronounced. North Carolina was the last to secede and did so only after a statewide vote of the people. Because desertion was not a crime in the state, citizens who housed and protected deserters felt safe from arrest for hiding them. It was said that the deserters could band together and defy the officers of the law who came after them because of t...
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...e placed over the heads of the condemned and they were hanged. Joining their other deserters. The thirteen remaining condemned men had four days to sit in the jail's dungeon to think about their deaths that would take place on Monday, February 15th. Chaplain Paris described the scene in a letter that appeared shortly afterward in the North Carolina Presbyterian and the Wilmington Journal:
"I made my first visit to them as chaplain on Sunday morning. The scene beggars all description. Some of them were comparatively young men. But they made the fatal mistake. They had only twenty-four hours to live.... Here was a wife to say farewell to a husband forever. Here a mother to take the last look at her ruined son, and then a sister who had come to embrace for the last time the brother who had brought disgrace upon the very name she bore by his treason to his country."
The archives show how Augusta, Virginia and Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the South and North, shared many characteristics before the war, which Ayers points out well. One main point he makes when writing about their similarities is noting that both counties had people who supported slavery. Augusta, in the South, had slavery as their main economic system, and Franklin, in the North, had whites who believed in and supported slavery. There was also an abundance of racial discrimination still in the Franklin. These similarities didn’t matter much when it came to the issue of secession.
given time, anybody could find around fifteen thousand men without any kind of shelter (Davis 352). Since the Confederate government did not prepare living quarters for the prisoners, the captives had to learn to make...
middle of paper ... ... After I was disposed of, the corporal then made the majority of the 27 sufferers march with the rest of the troops. Most of the men, including an Australian chaplain, died during succeeding weeks, largely as a result of this calculated brutality.’ (Iggulden, 2009, p.22)
Not all on the same day, on the same gallows like the movie tries to make everyone think. And the only person executed who recited the Lord's Prayer on the gallows was Rev. George Burroughs. Which caused quite a stir since it was generally believed at the time that a witch could not say the Lord's Prayer without making a mistake. They also would not have been hanged while praying, since the condemned were always allowed their last words and prayers. Giles Corey was not executed for refusing to name a witness, as portrayed in the movie.
In George Orwell’s essay, “A Hanging,” and Michael Lake’s article, “Michael Lake Describes What The Executioner Actually Faces,” a hardened truth about capital punishment is exposed through influence drawn from both authors’ firsthand encounters with government- supported execution. After witnessing the execution of Walter James Bolton, Lake describes leaving with a lingering, “sense of loss and corruption that [he has] never quite shed” (Lake. Paragraph 16). Lake’s use of this line as a conclusion to his article solidifies the article’s tone regarding the mental turmoil that capital execution can have on those involved. Likewise, Orwell describes a disturbed state of mind present even in the moments leading up to the execution, where the thought, “oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” crossed his mind (Orwell.
These men are transformed into guilt-laden soldiers in less than a day, as they all grapple for a way to come to terms with the pain of losing a comrade. In an isolated situation, removed from the stressors, anxieties, and uncertainties of war, perhaps they may have come to a more rational conclusion as to who is deserving of blame. But tragically, they cannot come to forgive themselves for something for which they are not even guilty. As Norman Bowker so insightfully put it prior to his unfortunate demise, war is “Nobody’s fault, everybody’s” (197).
The North and South benefited in many different ways, and both sides would use dissimilar approaches. The Southerners were fighting for a way of life they believed in. Comparing the two, the North had an extensive amount of people which made it easier to establish armies. In the beginning, the Union army only consisted of 16,000 soldiers or less. Southerners deserted the army because they didn’t have the things they needed for fig...
In this paper I will explain and discuss the historical events that took place in a small rural town in early Massachusetts. The setting for which is Irene Quenzler Brown's and Richard D. Brown's, The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler. I will explain the actions and motives of Hannah and Betsy Wheeler in seeking legal retribution of husband and father Ephraim Wheeler. I will also discuss the large scope of patriarchal power allowed by the law and that given to husbands and masters of households. Of course, this will also lead to discussions of what was considered abuse of these powers by society and the motivation for upholding the Supreme Court's decision to hang Ephraim Wheeler.
Thousands of men died in November 1863. Within in a couple of days bodies laid scattered across the battle fields while tens of thousands men sat in a hospital. All of these men participated in one thing, the Civil War. Fighting for the rights of the people and what our constitution stood for. Families and friends had to pick a side, South or the North. Each had their reasoning for why they stood to fight, but surprisingly their reasoning was similar. Each state was proud they live in a country that had broken away from British. They marveled at the idea that all men are created and equal and have certain rights. Americans were proud. Proud to the point that they never stopped pay attention to all that they did. Proud because they put laws on humans and threw them into bondage. In 1861 people started to take sides. In some ways it was unconstitutional, but in others they were fighting for the people. The Civil War had begun. The fate of our country was in the hands of the people. On opposite sides of the war, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee wrote The Gettysburg Address and Letter to His Son there were three astonishingly similarities and differences in the two works: the people are one, acts were unconstitutional and the nation is on shaky ground.
I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.” The other six raiders happened to get executed in the next three months. Many abolitionists developed sadness because of the event, but the fearful southerners started
The memory of massive death was still in the front of everyone’s mind, hardening into resentment and sometimes even hatred. The south was virtually non-existent politically or economically, and searching desperately for a way back in. Along with these things, now living amongst the population were almost four million former slaves, who had no idea how to make a living on their own. They had been freed by the 13th amendment in 1865, and in the future became a great concern to many political leaders. Still, it was no secret that something had to be done. So, as usually happens, political leaders appeared on the stage, each holding their own plan of Reconstruction, each certain their ideas were the correct ones. One of the first people who came up with a blueprint for Reconstruction was the president at the time, Abraham Lincoln. The “Lincoln Plan” was a very open one, stating that after certain criteria were met a confederate state could return to the union. To rejoin, a state had to have ten percent of voters both accept the emancipation of slaves and swear loyalty to the union. Also, those high ranking officers of the state could not hold office or carry out voting rights unless the president said
Without any question, most people have a very clear and distinct picture of John Wilkes Booth a in their minds. It is April 1865, the night president Lincoln decides to take a much-needed night off, to attend a stage play. Before anyone knows it a lunatic third-rate actor creeps into Lincoln's box at Ford's theater and kills the president. Leaping to the stage, he runs past a confused audience and flees into the night, only to suffer a coward’s death Selma asset some two weeks later. From the very moment that Booth pulled the trigger, the victors of the Civil War had a new enemy on their hands, and a good concept of whom they were dealing with. A close examination of the facts, however, paint a different view of Booth, a picture that is far less black and white, but a picture with many shades of gray.
The decline in battle wins and Copperhead ideas influenced the decline in public sentiment towards volunteering. Each state in the North was required to meet a volunteering quota, however, they were reasonable to fill in such a limited amount of time. Union forces had so frequent losses that the public began to believe that the “Confederate States of America seemed on the verge of becoming and remaining a separate slaveholding republic.” The most recent failure that impacted this mind set and made conscription even more intimidating was Robert E. Lee’s escape across the Potomac on July 13th. The new attitude of the poor was “that no American should have to fight in a war he opposed.” With Copperhead influence in the North, it is easy to comprehend
The Battle of Gettysburg is considered to be the turning point of the Civil War. Late in May the Confederate army marched toward Pennsylvania with shoes in mind. Their soar feet were aching and it was understood to be a large supply of shoes in the state of Pennsylvania. General Robert E. Lee’s 70,000 men were dived up into three different cores. The leaders of the three cores were James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and A.P. Hill. As the Confederates traveled through Pennsylvania they had no respect for the civilians. The Confederate troops stole livestock, clothing and food from the civilians. They sent African Americans back into the south. The Union army followed the confederates through Maryland to see what they were up to. The commander in charge of the union army was George Mede.
Confederates clearly felt that what the Union was doing was unjust and that they were required to stop the evil invading their homeland. While I, like most people today, do not agree with slavery, I’m sure that if another country came to my own country with the intent of changing my way of life, I would be forced to strongly consider fighting to stop that from happening.