interrogation

[Will Rumsey]

Pards ,forgive me if this has been covered before .I was wondering when a prisoner was taken was he interogated and by who and to what extent. Also was there a soldiers ,for lack of a better name," code " that he used when captured like name, rank ,serial number used today.. etc that the prisoner was instructed to only give out.Just curious. Thanks.

[dusty27]

Re: interrogation

While I can't quote directly here at work, many of the OR entries I have come across tell of information obtained from captured soldiers. Sounds like some may have "sung like canaries".......

[JimKindred]

Re: interrogation

The US Army Code of Conduct was not adopted until after the Korean War. Before that the Geneva Convention dictated that name, rank and serial number game as all that a POW was obligated to give his captors. This was not in practice during the Civil War.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa032403a.htm

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: interrogation

There might have occurred individual instances of prisoners being pumped for information, but I have not read of it as a common practice. A relevant passage in the revised regulations (US) reads:

"745. Prisoners of war will be disarmed and sent to the rear, and reported as soon as practicable to the head-quarters. The return of prisoners from the Head-Quarters of the Army to the War Department will specify the number, rank, and corps. 746. The private property of prisoners will be duly respected, and each shall be treated with the regard due to his rank. They are to obey the necessary orders given them. They receive for subsistence one ration each without regard to rank..."

This implies that POWs were meant to be treated decently without undue harassment. Elsewhere I've read that POWs were expected to provide their name, rank, regiment, and company. This would have been as much a matter of administration as intelligence -- rank, for example, would determine exchange value.

A prisoner would have an interest in providing the information requested as otherwise he would likely be reported missing and feared dead by anyone who cared about him. Also, at least in the Union army, a prisoner would continue to accrue pay and the commuted value of rations.

Here's the text of the '62 cartel:

Prisoner Exchange Cartel of July 22, 1862
Between the United States and the Confederate States Governments

Article 1 It is hereby agreed and stipulated that all prisoners of war held by either party, including those taken on private armed vessels known as privateers, shall be discharged upon the conditions and terms following:

Prisoners to be exchanged man for man and officer for officer; privateers to be placed upon the footing of officers and men of the navy.

Men and Officers of lower grades may be exchanged for officers of a higher grade, and men and officers of different services may be exchanged according to the following scale of equivalents:

A general commanding-in-chief or an admiral shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for sixty privates or common seamen.
A flag-officer or major-general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for forty privates or common seamen.
A commodore carrying a broad pennant or a brigadier-general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for twenty privates or common seamen.
A captain in the navy or a colonel shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for fifteen privates or common seamen.
A lieutenant-colonel or a commander in the navy shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for ten privates or common seamen.

A lieutenant-commander or a major shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for eight privates or common seamen.
A lieutenant or a master in the navy or a captain in army or marines shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for four privates or common seamen.
Masters' mates in the navy or lieutenants and ensigns in the army shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for three privates or common seamen.
Second Captains, lieutenants, or mates of merchant vessels or privateers, and all petty officers in the navy, and all noncommissioned officers in the army or marines shall be severally exchanged for persons of equal rank, or for two privates or common seamen, and private soldiers or common seamen shall be exchanged for each other, man for man.

Article 2.
Local, State, civil, and militia rank held by persons not in actual military service will not be recognized, the basis of exchange being the grade actually held in the naval and military service of the respective parties.

Article 3.
If citizens held by either party on charges of disloyalty or any alleged civil offenses are exchanged, it shall only be for citizens. Captured sutlers, teamsters, and all civilians in the actual service of either party to be exchanged for persons in similar position.

Article 4.
All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten days after their capture, and the prisoners now held and those thereafter taken to be transported to the points mutually agreed upon at the expense of the capturing party. The surplus prisoners not exchanged shall not be permitted to take up arms again, nor to serve as military police or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, or fieldwork held by either of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisons, depots, or stores, nor to discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the provisions of this cartel. The exchange is not to be considered complete until the officer or soldier exchanged for has been actually restored to the lines to which he belongs.

Article 5.
Each party, upon the discharge of prisoners of the other party, is authorized to discharge an equal number of their own officers or men from parole, furnishing at the same time to the other party a list of their prisoners discharged and of their own officers and men relieved from parole, thus enabling each party to relieve from parole such of their own officers and men as the party may choose. The lists thus mutually furnished will keep both parties advised of the true condition of the exchange of prisoners.

Article 6.
The stipulations and provisions above mentioned to be of binding obligation during the continuance of the war, it matters not which party may have the surplus of prisoners, the great principles involved being, first, and equitable exchange of prisoners, man for man, officer for officer, or officers of higher grade of officers of lower grade or for privates, according to the scale of equivalents; second, that privateers and officers and men of different services may be exchanged according to the same scale of equivalents; third, that all prisoners, of whatever arm of service, are to be exchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if it be practicable to transfer them to their own lines in that time; if not, as soon thereafter as practicable; fourth, that no officer, soldier, or employee, in the service of either party, is to be considered as exchanged and absolved from his parole until his equivalent has actually reached the lines of his friends; fifth, that the parole forbids performance of field, garrison, police, or guard, or constabulary duty.

Signed: John A. Dix, Major-General, USA
D.H. Hill, Major-General, CSA

[VMI88]

Re: interrogation

There might have occurred individual instances of prisoners being pumped for information, but I have not read of it as a common practice.

I respectfully disagree: it was a fairly common practice to question prisoners and deserters for military information. It would obviously depend on the circumstances and time available, but in a static situation such as a picket line, prisoners would be escorted to the Officer of the Guard, and possibly to higher headquarters if they appeared to have valuable information. In fact, it was a not uncommon practice to send deserters across the lines to plant disinformation.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: interrogation

I believe it depended upon the situation as to whether prisoners were closely interrogated or not.

Who would interrogate them? Well, when prisoners were taken they were escorted under guard--probaby provided by the unit that captured them--to the provost marshal. Provost marshals were at the brigade level and above, and often I've read of prisoners being taken to a division provost marshal. I believe it likely that prisoners would have been questioned more closely once they were in the provost marshal's care, rather than being drilled for info by some relatively low-level flunky in the unit that captured them. However, I also believe it somewhat common that the capturing unit, after disarming the prisoners, probably copied down the prisoners' name, rank, and unit, if for no reason other than to aid the colonel's official report. In certain battle situations, of course, large numbers of prisoners were herded to the rear as quickly as possible, resulting in "capturing regiments" wildly exaggerating the number of men they took prisoner.

I agree with Dusty's assertion that when questioned a lot of men "sang like canaries". Often a lot of valuable info could be gleened from prisoners.

Anyone wanting a copy of my article on taking prisoners and being captured for reenacting scenarios (published a year or so ago in Camp Chase Gazette) shoot me an e-mail at ColumbiaRifles@aol.com and I'll gladly forward a copy of it. While it doesn't deal specifically with the topic of being questioned after capture, the article includes numerous first-person quotes from the period.

[Fireyfishstick]

Re: interrogation

Thought you might be interrested in this....

The following dialogues come from the book " A Yankee Prisoner Loose in Dixie" by Capt. J. J. Geer of the 48th. Ohio, which was published in 1863. The book is his personal account of what he experienced as a prisoner of the Confederacy.

The first is between Geer and Braxton Bragg:

Bragg: " Well, sir, you are a prisoner."

Geer: " You have me in your power, sir."

B: " You have not surrendered, they say."

G: " But you have me in your possesion."

B: " Well, sir, what is the number of your troops at Pittsburg Landing?"

G: " That I do not feel disposed to communicate."

B: " But we will make you communicate."

G: " You cannot do that."

B: " We will punish you, and that severely."

G: " Punish if you will, I shall not reveal to you anything I deem it proper to withhold."

B: " Well, sir, I will refer you to General Hardee, and there you will get justice. You abolitionists think you are playing h-ll over there, don't you?"

G: " We are only sending home some of her stray inmates."

B: " Be careful how you talk, sir."

Geers Interrogation sems rather informal, but was conducted by a high ranking officer. This is just one mans account, but I hope this " flowery narrative " helps to answer some of the questions you have.

-Jason Asher

-Jason Asher

[K Bartsch]

Re: interrogation

The US Army Code of Conduct was not adopted until after the Korean War. Before that the Geneva Convention dictated that name, rank and serial number game as all that a POW was obligated to give his captors. This was not in practice during the Civil War.

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/.../aa032403a.htm

Jim,
Just a fine point...its not just the 'US Army' Code of Conduct. It's the US Military Code of Conduct. And I agree the Civil War predated it. In fact, it was written in the wake of the Korean War in response to repeated requests for guidance for men who had found themselves in a PW situation, but lacked a set of "rules" to help guide and govern their conduct.

Cordially,

[Yellowhammer]

Re: interrogation

I'm mostly familiar with prisoners giving misinformation.

A good example of this is the massive misinformation supplied to Alan Pinkerton by Confederate POWs during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Going from memory, I believe General McClellan received intelligence on several occasions that General Beauregard/Bragg had come east with the Army and had combined with Lee.

[billwatson]

Re: interrogation

A couple of quick thoughts.

1 Mahan's "Outpost" offers guidelines for interrogating civilians encountered by the military on the move. Essentially, split them up, question them separately. Logic dictates that doing that implies more, such as looking for disparities in their accounts and zeroing in on those disparities -- if one fellow says Longstreet is moving to Hanover and another says he's moving to York, one of the two is wrong and one of the two may be deliberately planting misinformation, so you question more. It's also possible to make one think another has already provided information. There's no reason to think prisoners of war would not be handled much the same way. That might be a good place to look for insights into what the attitudes of the military were toward collecting intelligence.

2 Jackson knew people talked. That's why, when it was time to move out, he would deliberately ride around town and offer civilians a variety of possiblities for where he was headed. He also instructed his men at one point that if anyone asked them anything, they were to reply that they didn't know. And it's why he'd march and countermarch, to create such intelligence confusion that anything his enemy learned would be pretty much incomprehensible. That instruction to his men to "know nothing" is mentioned in James Robertson's fairly recent book on Jackson and he provides citations for it.

3 Finally, on a personal note, when Grant moved south after Spotsylvania, Lee was anxious to know what corps were moving, and there was apparently a deliberate series of raids on Union pickets in May and June to grab prisoners. Why I know this is lost to me, so I'm afraid I have no citation. However, I'm pretty sure it's true because I'd have dug it up in the course of researching family history. My ggf, William Torpes, was one of those prisoners, taken in early June at Barker's Mill. Keeping in mind most of that army had corps badges by then, some of the evidence Lee needed would be visible, but surely those prisoners, taken with great risk, would have been routinely asked for information? Even without duress, some folks will answer questions and as has been noted, there wasn't the same odium toward providing information to the enemy that we see today.

It's a timely discussion, especially in view of current affairs.

Bill Watson
Stroudsburg, Pa.

[WB Tharp]

Re: interrogation

This isn't related to interrogation, but the rules on paroles and exchanges brought a question up I have been wondering about. I had a Confederate ancestor who was exchanged in November, 1864 at "Venus Point", Georgia. He was a soldier in the 62nd Virginia Mtd. Infantry, and had been wounded and captured at 3rd Winchester in September, 1864. Venus Point was very close to Savannah. According to his CSR, after his exchange, there is no other record I could find. Of course at this time, Sherman and his men were bearing down on the area.
My question is, what would have happened to him? I assume exchanged prisoners, once back on home soil were expected to return to their units. On the other hand, at this point in the war, I wonder how much control they could enforce on these men given the chaos at the time- especially since his unit was so far away in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia...
Thanks,
Mark R. Terry

[tmdreb]

Re: interrogation

From what I've read, prisoners seem to have been rather forthcoming with information. So, put me in the "canary" camp. I am reading a book on Chancellorsville by Stephen W. Spears, and in it he describes prisoners on both sides providing all sorts of information quite quickly and without much persuasion. Hooker's BMI had prisoner interrogation as one of its means of collecting intelligence. Of course, privates often had no real clue as to the movements and composition of the Army, and quite often had heads full of rumors.

It must also be remembered that soldiers then were not as well educated as now and nowhere near as thouroughly trained. From what I've seen, most training took the form of drill. Privates were not viewed as, or expected to be intelligent. Remember that breechloaders were kept out of soldiers' hands because the fear that they would merely shoot off all their ammunition as quickly as they could without hitting anything. The average soldier back then would likely have given any and all information he knew rather quickly and without persuasion, but he likely didn't know too much, and what he did know was just as likely incorrect.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: interrogation

For a contemporary view of the proper way to deal with prisoners, see the Lieber Code:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm, sections 48-80.

From April, 1863, these were the official "Laws of War" of the United States Army.

They make interesting reading, especially in the context of current events.

[BobSullivanPress]

Re: interrogation

Hello,

I'm not sure how much additional information could be gained after capture. We are dealing with an era when most of the time the opposing forces can see one another quite plainly from one mountaintop or another.

Any Confederate with a decent pair of field glasses can spot flags with state emblems on them, and can count them and multiply by 350 or whatever the average regimental strength was at the particular time. You know, D. H. Hill writes of sitting on top of South Mountain while most of the Army of the Potomac was deploying. He said he was reminded of the Biblical quote, "Terrible as an army with banners." And with corps badges and the like, it was pretty easy to identify units by 1863. The purported quote from Archers Brigade on July 1 was, "It's those Black Hatted fellers. T'aint no militia. This is the Army of the Potomac." I doubt that's what was actually said, but I'm sure it was something like that.

And if you're a Federal, most Confederate soldiers appeared to wear some sort of emblem from their state, be it personal (Like the Laurel Brigade), or some state button on the coat or state buckle. (Oh, I know the frame buckle folks are howling now, but there's a reason the Virginia Historical Society has all those different buckles and buttons on display.) And Lee himself is purported to have said what a good source of information the Northern newspapers were.

I don't like to make sweeping generalizations, but it seems to me that most men already knew who they were up against (and how many) long before prisoners came into camp. It doesn't seem as though the problem was finding out information, but rather sifting through it to get GOOD information.

Which really makes me scratch my head is why Alan Pinkerton had so much credibility, when any one could count flags. A friend of mine and I used to joke that Pinkerton must have used a telescope with thousands of little soldiers etched on the lens.