Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882 to General Ethan Allen Hitchcock

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GLC#
GLC09115
Type
Letters
Date
20 November 1863
Author/Creator
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882
Title
to General Ethan Allen Hitchcock
Place Written
s.l.
Pagination
8 p. :
Primary time period
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Sub-Era
The American Civil War

On retaliation for treatment of Union prisoners at Libby Prison: "I read her [Mrs. Horace Mann] opinion against retaliating in kind, and said 'Certainly that is right.' I read her proposition to shoot or hang a number of selected officers as a retaliation; I said 'that is better, certainly, than to starve all, or any part of them. But no; it will not do.' ...I suppose this killing of our men by hunger was incidental, not designed. There was famine in Richmond...& the prisoners suffered first...Without clearest evidence of malicious purpose on their [the Confederates] part, it would be hideous to retaliate by killing prisoners even in the shortest way."

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