War crimes against Southern civilians during the Civil War.This is the provocative and untold story of the Union's "hard war" against the people of the Confederacy. Styled the "Black Flag" campaign, this hard war included the shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, and even murder of civilians.Author Walter Brian Cisco explores with a passion matched by the force of his arguments how the Union forces, backed by the Lincoln administration, deliberately discarded the civilized tradition of excluding noncombatants from the military action. He moves chronologically through the war, examining how this brutal mindset determined Union actions across the landscape of the South-the pillage of Fredericksburg, the shelling of Charleston, the sack of Athens, the burning of Atlanta, the destruction of Columbia, the infamous "March to the Sea," to name but a few. Special chapters document the suffering of women and children in prison and the Union abuse of African-Americans. This is a powerful treatment of a controversial topic, one certain to gain the attention of Civil War media and aficionados and to spark heated debate.