So Lee is guilty of war crimes since some Confederate soldiers raped Confederate women?
So by your remark I would take it that you excuse the previously mentioned crimes by Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Dung, Pol Pot, Kemal Attaturk, Reinhard Heydrich to name a few. After all - they were trying to win wars also.
No, they committed war crimes for the sake of committing war crimes, not to win wars. Sherman's point is that it is a judgment call, and he's right. Sherman's actions saved thousands of lives by shortening the war, as did Truman's and Ike's. I place the value of thousands of lives over that of burned buildings in Sherman's case.
Out of touch with reality? If that means having the rule book written in pencil so its easy to justify actions as you go, then perhaps we "neoconfederates" are, or perhaps we held our men to a higher standard. It just proves that you Yankees will stoop to any means, fair or foul, to achieve your ends.
How can a potential nation founded to perpetuate slavery be a high standard? And Confederate soldiers committed atrocities...murder of Union soldiers and rape of their own women...so where's the high standard? If Lee could've destroyed the supply lines to win the war, he would've done so also. His excursions in the North didn't last long enough for him to do so.
When it comes to moral ethics don't look to the Yankees - they're fresh out of it!
That's a laugh coming from a person who think that the side that tried to perpetuate the bondage of an entire people should've won.
Had the South been left alone, slavery would've died a natural death, in fact many Southerners were trying to figure out what to do with the slaves once they were freed. Don't believe me, go research it for yourself. As to your illusion that all the wicked Southerners wanted to perpetuate slavery - think again. How could that be true when only 10% of the Southern populace owned any? So then what would make a white backwoods Southerner fight for the Confederacy? His rights of self-determination was what the driving force was.
What you Yankee idiots can't stand is the fact that you did repudiate the cornerstone of American ideology in 1865 and hand over all the States to bigger government. You hide behind the supposed cloak of moral righteousness to cover up your aggressive bullying of the Southern states. You think you have it all sewn up, but if you would take the time to study what the Founders' intended you would find that you are wrong. You say "Well the Supreme Court ruled that the unilateral secession of the States was illegal." I however, take my cue from the Founders', and I quote Thomas Jefferson.
"[T]he germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary." --Thomas Jefferson
Meaning this - "The overarching issue is that the system of government envisioned by our Founders and defended in The Federalist Papers -- a government "to ... establish Justice," a republic where "we, the people" would elect representatives who were to be held accountable by an independent judiciary -- has devolved into little more than a system of government by judicial decree. Alas, our Founders expected judges to honor our constitution; to be constitutional constructionists bound by the letter of that venerable document; to be above the whims of democratic elections that would, inevitably, politicize the courts. But once an activist judge begins, in the words of that stalwart old Sen. Sam Ervin, to "interpret the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it," our Constitution is, in effect, rendered null and void.
No sooner had judicial activists begun "interpreting" the constitution such that it comported with their political agenda, than the courts became political instruments. Elected officials were thereafter chosen based upon who they'd appoint to the courts, knowing that those appointments would reflect a particular political agenda.
Thomas Jefferson warned of the potential tyranny of the "despotic branch": "Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution [has] deprived [the people] of their control. ... The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. ... It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation. ... It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression...that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped." - The Federalist, 04-08 Digest
You can't argue with the Founders' they knew what they wanted, and you and the rest of the Yankee ilk denied the States that vision under the noble guise of "Freeing the slaves". The war was really "to preserve the Union" was it not? And in doing so you all nullified the 9th, and 10th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and in effect - the Constitution as it was explained in the following quote -"...[T]he States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty..." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45
"Indeed, virtually all has been usurped. Jefferson, in his great wisdom knew that human nature being what it is, judges would eventually abandon the plain language of the Constitution." - The Federalist 04-08 Digest
But what the hell, you trashtalkers won and all the "People" lost. So you can still wallow in your self-righteous putridness by deluding yourself with the following phrase "It was for the good of the Country". But then how many tyrannical abuses have been committed under that phrase? And how many are still being attempted today? Activist judges with their "Gays can marry", and the 10 Commandments cannot be placed in state office mall. Seems to this "neo-confederate" redneck that you turds got it all wrong all those years ago. You made the Federal government bigger, and the States (ergo the People) less powerful. It isn't about slavery, and never was ... its about the right of self determination.
Lastly I'll leave you with this, I served for 20 years to defend the Constitution of the United States, and I'm not relenquished from that oath. But in trying to educate you to another view, I still serve -"The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing." --James Madison