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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC09115 |
| From Archive Folder | Unassociated Civil War Documents 1863 |
| Title | Ralph Waldo Emerson to General Ethan Allen Hitchcock regarding the treatment of prisoners |
| Date | 20 November 1863 |
| Author | Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) |
| Recipient | Hitchcock, Ethan Allen |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | 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." |
| Subjects | Literature and Language Arts Union Forces Prison Camp Prisoner of War Death Penalty Military History Transcendentalism Women's History Diet and Nutrition |
| People | Washburn, Mabel T. R. (fl. 1878) Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882) |
| Theme | The American Civil War; Women in American History |
| Sub-collection | Papers and Images of the American Civil War |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 |