It was as I expected, not “orders” but a dispatch sharing battlefield impressions to major Sawyer. I imagine you obtained the quotes, along with the spin from dilorenzo.
“It was as I expected, not “orders” but a dispatch sharing battlefield impressions to major Sawyer.”
Perhaps I should have said he sent written advice to his commanding officers rather than orders. Read his words again and tell me Sherman was not into total war.
“I would advise the commanding officers at Huntsville, and such other towns as are occupied by our troops, to assemble the inhabitants and explain to them these plain, self-evident propositions, and tell them that it is now for them to say whether they and their children shall inherit the beautiful land which by the accident of nature has fallen to their share. The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war—to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything—because they cannot deny that war does exist there, and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late. All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.”
In 1944 the international community invented a new word to describe wiping a people out of national existence.