Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Ken]

If you are so wrong about those easily researched facts, it goes to the credibility of everything else that you write here.

Ken,

This may come as a surprise to you, but the victors in a war often downplay the atrocities they committed and frequently cover them up.

Josh:

It may surprise you since you aren't from here. But there are literally thousands of historians who have studied the Civil War from both the north and the south as well as from abroad as there are many European historians who have written about the war as well. The Nazi's for example, were particularly fascinated by Confederate war history. And since we have freedom of movement in the country, southern historians can, indeed, travel to Ohio to study historical sites such as prisoner of war camps off the coast of Lake Erie. This is not the USSR where there is one official war history and all other histories are censored.

John Hurt says that he "looked it up". OK then. Show us.

[Ken]

Having a strong personal interest in the civil war I would be very interested in hearing more about your relative’s experience.
There is very little publicly available on this prison that has not been edited. There was supposedly pictures taken by prisoner that would show first hand experience of this but I couldn’t locate them on short searching.

What information do you think has been "edited" or is incorrect?

The fact of the matter is that there has probably been upwards of 100,000 books written about the Civil War over the past 150 years. And tens of thousands of professional and amateur historians have combed through every aspect of that war. Interest in the Civil War probably peaked in the early 1960s during the centennial of the war when millions of Americans spend their summer vacation road trips visiting historical sites and reading about the war. That was before the internet era so most of that historical record is in libraries and archives and not digitized. But it is there. Historical reenactments were extremely popular into the 1980s and 1990s but that is starting to fade as todays younger generations aren't quite so obsessed with the Civil War as their parents and grandparents.

As for Hurt's claim. It turns out that the Johnson Island prisoner of war camp (which was specifically for officers) is actually famous for having one of the lowest death tolls of any prison camp in the entire war. There are complete military records of every Confederate officer who was held there (name, rank, unit, location captured, etc.) and they can all be traced to determine what happened to them. Which is something that many historians have done.

[Szdfan]

We, and the rest of the world, would all be "better off" to let Russia have all of the Ukraine, if it would save the lives of these people fighting in this stupid war.

I don't think the rest of the world would be "better off" if Russia could take all of Ukraine. I don't think stronger countries should just be able to come and take whatever they want from smaller countries. I don't think it's okay when the US invades other countries, why is it okay when Russia does it? If American imperialism is bad, why is Russian imperialism okay?

Do you think it’s good and what a Christian should be doing to fight back?

Do I think the war is "good?" No.
Do I think that Christians should be fighting? No.

I do, however, think it's understandable that Ukrainians are fighting back against Russia and I don't think I get to choose how other people respond to an existential threat.

One of the themes in this thread is that it's the Ukrainians' fault that Russia invaded them them and that they should allow Russia to do whatever it wants since they are the most powerful country. In other words, might makes right -- Russia is right because they are more powerful than Ukraine and Ukraine is prolonging the war because they refuse to give in to Russia's demands. It's a strange argument. If it's not okay for the US to throw around its military power, then why is it okay for Russia to do this?

[Soloist]

What information do you think has been "edited" or is incorrect?

I don’t know what has been edited but the public records of confederate soldiers were edited, at least the ones I saw. They might be very accurate still and I’m not taking a position that they are not.

Do you know if anyone did ground penetrating radar there?

As for Hurt's claim. It turns out that the Johnson Island prisoner of war camp (which was specifically for officers) is actually famous for having one of the lowest death tolls of any prison camp in the entire war. There are complete military records of every Confederate officer who was held there (name, rank, unit, location captured, etc.) and they can all be traced to determine what happened to them. Which is something that many historians have done.

Initially it was for officers, but you should of course know this.
I have read relatively quickly a few accounts where the body of a fallen confederate disappeared after dying there.
I dispute your claims.

[Josh]

One of the themes in this thread is that it's the Ukrainians' fault that Russia invaded them them and that they should allow Russia to do whatever it wants since they are the most powerful country. In other words, might makes right -- Russia is right because they are more powerful than Ukraine and Ukraine is prolonging the war because they refuse to give in to Russia's demands. It's a strange argument. If it's not okay for the US to throw around its military power, then why is it okay for Russia to do this?

Was it OK for Ukraine to tolerate militias shelling Russian-sympathetic areas of Donbas for years?

[Ken]

What information do you think has been "edited" or is incorrect?

I don’t know what has been edited but the public records of confederate soldiers were edited, at least the ones I saw. They might be very accurate still and I’m not taking a position that they are not.

Do you know if anyone did ground penetrating radar there?

As for Hurt's claim. It turns out that the Johnson Island prisoner of war camp (which was specifically for officers) is actually famous for having one of the lowest death tolls of any prison camp in the entire war. There are complete military records of every Confederate officer who was held there (name, rank, unit, location captured, etc.) and they can all be traced to determine what happened to them. Which is something that many historians have done.

Initially it was for officers, but you should of course know this.
I have read relatively quickly a few accounts where the body of a fallen confederate disappeared after dying there.
I dispute your claims.

There has been a lot written about Johnson Island as well as every other civil war prison.

I'm not sure which claim of mine you are disputing. I have not claimed that every Civil War record has been digitized and available for the public to look up. The internet is a relatively new phenomenon and Civil War history is an old field. But such records do exist and they are in military archives available to historians.

What I am disputing is John Hurt's assertion that half the Confederate prisoners held at Johnson Island died in captivity. He says this is something that he "looked up". And that he has information that conflicts with the existing historical narrative. Fine. Show us. Where did this information come from?

Is this a big deal or even on topic? No. He used it as an example. But it goes to his credibility. He has made a vast number of assertions on a wide variety of topics here from chemtrails to the conduct of Russia in the Ukraine war. It would be a full time job to pick through every one. But we take a look at a few of his claims and see if they are credible. That is all I am doing here.

[Ken]

One of the themes in this thread is that it's the Ukrainians' fault that Russia invaded them them and that they should allow Russia to do whatever it wants since they are the most powerful country. In other words, might makes right -- Russia is right because they are more powerful than Ukraine and Ukraine is prolonging the war because they refuse to give in to Russia's demands. It's a strange argument. If it's not okay for the US to throw around its military power, then why is it okay for Russia to do this?

Was it OK for Ukraine to tolerate militias shelling Russian-sympathetic areas of Donbas for years?

Russia invaded the Donbas back in 2014 and there has been a conventional war across relatively fixed battle lines happening ever since. Part of which includes shelling. What makes you think that is anything new or unusual? Modern warfare includes shelling. This is a war that Russia started back in 2014. How about putting the blame where it actually belongs?

In any event, it is pretty well documented that Russia has somewhere between a 5 to 1 and a 10 to 1 advantage over Ukraine in terms of the number of shells it is firing in this war. Russia has vastly more artillery guns, vastly larger stockpiles of shells, and a vastly larger armaments industry compared to Ukraine. If you are going to engage in hand-wringing about the use of artillery in this war, then put the focus where it belongs. On Russia. Since WW2, Russia's military doctrine has been focused on the heavy use of artillery. That is what they do and how their military is organized.

And we do know what the effects of Russian shelling has been in the Donbas. This is the city of Maryinka after the Russians were done with it

[Soloist]

As for Hurt's claim. It turns out that the Johnson Island prisoner of war camp (which was specifically for officers) is actually famous for having one of the lowest death tolls of any prison camp in the entire war. There are complete military records of every Confederate officer who was held there (name, rank, unit, location captured, etc.) and they can all be traced to determine what happened to them. Which is something that many historians have done.

There has been a lot written about Johnson Island as well as every other civil war prison.

I'm not sure which claim of mine you are disputing. I have not claimed that every Civil War record has been digitized and available for the public to look up. The internet is a relatively new phenomenon and Civil War history is an old field. But such records do exist and they are in military archives available to historians.

What I am disputing is John Hurt's assertion that half the Confederate prisoners held at Johnson Island died in captivity. He says this is something that he "looked up". And that he has information that conflicts with the existing historical narrative. Fine. Show us. Where did this information come from?

I certainly asked the same thing, but confederate descendants could not find the body of their fallen ancestor. The records didn’t exist when they looked.

[Ken]

What I am disputing is John Hurt's assertion that half the Confederate prisoners held at Johnson Island died in captivity. He says this is something that he "looked up". And that he has information that conflicts with the existing historical narrative. Fine. Show us. Where did this information come from?

I certainly asked the same thing, but confederate descendants could not find the body of their fallen ancestor. The records didn’t exist when they looked.

Industrial war is messy business. A bit of research uncovers these facts: https://www.civilwarmed.org/the-nameles ... ead/#_ftn1

Given the mass casualties that occurred during the Civil War, it is not surprising that the numbers of unidentified soldiers were quite large. Of the more than 325,000 Union soldiers buried in National Cemeteries, almost 149,000 are unknown. The number of unknown Confederates is thought to be even larger. It is estimated that 5% of the combined Union and Confederate dead remain unidentified. It was no wonder that soldiers feared “the nameless grave.”

So in a war with mass casualties happening an era before DNA and other medical means of identifying remains, there were a lot of corpses that were buried without identification.

But it was also an era in which bureaucracies kept meticulous records and most of those records do still exist. So rosters of various military units, prisoners captured and detained in military prisons, payroll records, transfer records. All of those records were kept and still exist. So the Civil War isn't some black hole lost to history like the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. We actually do pretty much know what happened and we have an immense amount of historical documents from official government records to contemporary correspondence and news reports, to memoirs of the participants.

[Soloist]

So in a war with mass casualties happening an era before DNA and other medical means of identifying remains, there were a lot of corpses that were buried without identification.

But it was also an era in which bureaucracies kept meticulous records and most of those records do still exist. So rosters of various military units, prisoners captured and detained in military prisons, payroll records, transfer records. All of those records were kept and still exist. So the Civil War isn't some black hole lost to history like the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. We actually do pretty much know what happened and we have an immense amount of historical documents from official government records to contemporary correspondence and news reports, to memoirs of the participants.

Ken, the guy died and disappeared from a Union prison camp. The family can’t find any records of what happened to the body.
You can argue all you want with your internet sleuthing, I only pulled this up a few minutes of looking for primary sources from prisoners.

I’m much more familiar with the confederacy camps as they lost so when someone questions the winning side’s historical account and my brief look turns up missing soldiers from the camp…