Memphis Tennessee before the War, and the Foraging Parties of the Union Army

Strother, David Hunter, 1816-1888 "Memphis (Tennessee) before the war / sketched by Porte Crayon." wood engraving.Illus. in: Harper's weekly, 1862 March 15, p. 168. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95509535/ (accessed on October 15, 2013).

Memphis Tennessee before the War, and the Foraging Parties of the Union Army

Memphis before the war, and during the Occupation. Richard traveled upstream against the current in a Riverboat from Gaines Landing Arkansas to Memphis.

The second image shows why the South was defending itself, the war for them was about the North coming down and robbing them of their crops, personal possessions and just about everything. The Cotton Crop was one of the first things taken in Charleston and the Union was notorious for burning down warehouses that stored the cotton all over the South. It was about a rape of the land and a destruction of the people. It is about politicians who bought their rank only to profiteer and the expense of everyone else including their own men.


It could be said that the war on the Mississippi was extended needlessly for an entire year in the Southwest only because it was so lucrative for the General Banks to profit off of the looting and theft of everything that was not nailed down. He even sent a navy up the Red River and when the water got too shallow the actually damned up the river so they could get their steamships farther up the river. That of course backfired on them drastically but it shows the greed of the war.

When General Banks tried to run for Congress after the war, he lost because the people blamed him for his war profiteering, for extending the war, and also because he sent hundreds of men purposely to their deaths for the purpose of "stinking out" the enemy with the stench of their rotting bodies. General Augur who was also a Union General at the same battle at Port Hudson, refused to obey Bank's orders to stink out the enemy, and called a truce to remove those men and bury the dead.

"The levee at Memphis, Tenn.-Hauling sugar and cotton from their hiding-places for shipment north / sketched by Mr. Alex Simplot." Wood engraving. 1862. Illus. in: Harpers Weekly, 1862.Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95504268/ (accessed 10/15/2013).

They were called "National Foraging Parties" which went out and looted the homes of the people of the South and the soldiers are happy to be "liberating" all of the stuff they could find. But you have to realize that in order to take all of that, they probably killed the families in their homes.

Taylor, J.E. "Sherman's bummers foraging in South Carolina." Wood Engraving.1865. Illus. in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, vol. 20, no. 507 (1865 June 17), p. 204. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/99614126/ (accessed 10/15/2013).

Three years In the C.S. Army (P.A.C.S) A Diary of a Confederate Soldier by Jerry Pepper and Richard Lauren McClung
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