"West Point Code"

Early in the Civil War many West Point trained Union officers followed the "West Point Code" which held that Confederate property and even slaves were to be protected from looting and destruction. George B. McClellan and Don Carlos Buell were two officers who followed this code even to the point of court-martialing a subordinate officer for his conducting of a "hard war" policy. That officer was a Russian born American named John Basil Turchin (his American name shortened from the Russian). Turchin held the rank of General and was considered an excellent officer who may have saved the day for Union forces as Chickamauga. He was found guilty in the court martial-held before the battle of Chickamauga-and dismissed from the service only to be returned to the field by friends in high places in Washington and those who wanted to follow a more brutal treatment of the South. This source notes that after the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation the "necessity of a 'destructive war' " became the policy (I am not sure why it was necessary). This information comes from a review of a book on Turchin by Stephen Chicoine who appears to come from Connecticut. The title is below.

(Source: "John Basil Turchin and the Fight to Free the Slaves" by Stephen Chicone. Reviewed by Greg Romaneck in the Civil War Historian from May/June 2006).