That pretty much takes the trophy for "Most Delusional Post"!
Posted on 01/17/2016 1:26:17 PM PST by soakncider
That is why, within just a few months of the Proclamation, a number of commanders in the field...felt sanctioned to unleash the equivalent of what in the 20th century came to be called "total war"-a war upon civilians and their property in the South, with attendant looting, murder, arson, and rape, and neither women, children, the old and infirm, or oftentimes even blacks, were spared. As General-in-Chief Halleck noted in a letter to Ulysses Grant on March 31, 1863: The character of the war has very much changed..There is now no possible hope of reconciliation with the rebels..There can be no peace but that which is forced by the sword. We must conquer the rebels. A few days later Grant concurred: Rebellion has assumed that shape now that it can only terminate by the complete subjugation of the South..It is our duty to weaken the enemy, by destroying their means of subsistence, withdrawing their means of cultivating their fields, and in every other way possible. Thus it was that in his campaign in the West against Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the Spring and Summer of 1863, Grant had no compunction in attacking civilians and destroying feed mills: "Civilians were suffering from unceasing bombardment and the shortage of food"..In the aftermath, Grant ordered General William Sherman east to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, which he conquered on July 17 after five days of incessant bombardment without Confederate resistance and proceeded to unleash the troops on a three-day rampage that, according to a Northern reporter, "left the entire business section in ruins, burned most of the better residences..and looted homes, churches, and the state library,"..."such complete ruin and devastation never followed the footsteps of any army before." Sherman boasted to Grant, "The land is devastated for 30 miles around."
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
Partisan Gunslinger: "having the power", the key phrase. The South ended up not having the power.
The rationalization that Lincoln agreed with unilateral secession because he recognized the God-given right of men to rebel against tyranny is pretty ludicrous. He was never favorable to unilateral secession.
Interestingly enough, when the rebels devised their pretend constitution they did almost a copy/paste of the United States Constitution, and then edited it here and there to add things like perpetual slavery. They had the perfect opportunity to enshrine their notion of unilateral secession - but they didn't. Why do you suppose that is?
It's called war. Don't like it?...don't start it.
Fort Pillow was an action against a military force by a military force, and the confederate generals in command were exonerated by the union army.
Again, not exonerated. It was purposeful by Forrest with his "I'm not responsible" declaration beforehand. A green light to his soldiers to torture and kill prisoners.
Read this excerpt provided by rockrr: http://civilwarhome.com/forrestpillow.htm Please don’t resort to name-calling.
The name-calling began with you.
Sherman’s own words: “I also take it for granted that Forrest did not lead the assault in person, and consequently that he was to the rear, out of sight if not of hearing at the time, and I was told by hundreds of our men, who were at various times prisoners in Forrest’s possession, that be was usually very kind to them.”
That pretty much takes the trophy for "Most Delusional Post"!
I didn’t start the war, and i don’t recall name calling, but if i did, i apologize.
You’re entire post is Lost Cause codswallop. Now here is some sanity:
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION of the MISSISSIPPI in the FIELD
Atlanta, Georgia,
James M. Calhoun, Mayor,
E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta.
Gentleman: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes in inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufacturers, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such things at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.
We don’t want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.
You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, bu the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.
But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes in Atlanta. Yours in haste,
W.T. Sherman, Major-General commanding
CAN you? Or do you have the right?
When truth shatters delusion, the magnitude of the shock is directly proportional to the magnitude of the delusion. I know it hurts.
Thank you. I enjoyed reading that, but it didn’t refute the accounts in the OP. And it doesn’t refute the documented policy of total war against the South. I know you think it was totally justified, but i disagree. And i do not condone any atrocities that were committed by the South. I think we should admit the past wrongs and learn from them.
No! this list:
1.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good 2.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 3.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 4.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 5.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 6.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 7.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. 8.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. 9.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 10.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance 11.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. 12.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. 13.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 14.For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: 15.For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 16.For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 17.For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences 18.For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: 19.For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 20.For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 21.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. 22.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people 23.He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. 24.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands 25.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Declaration of Independence: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.†It definitely was on the list of grievances.
"standing army", not a specific troop movement.
Yeah, "having the power" means God-given to me. The South came up short in that obviously.
P.S. I did read the whole thing. It was the first time i had seen it, and i thank you for posting it.
Yeah they were just standing, they weren’t actually moving.
Yeah, good ole Forrest, gives the green light beforehand to take no prisoners, then comes blazing in at the end to act like the good cop after giving his men plenty of time to do as they wanted. Like I said, he pulled this stunt more than once. It's funny Forrest is linked to so many horrendous acts (KKK, Fort Pillow) but his defenders say it really wasn't the real Forrest. He's a master at doing horrible things, then putting all the blame on his compatriots. KKK lynching blacks and Republicans, no not Forrest!, his men burning union soldiers to death, no not Forrest!
Ever read the Declarations of Secession? It was all about slavery. If you support that Democrat cause you're a pro-slaver.
"Union Army of Terror", post 12. My family fought out of Illinois, they were not terrorists.
No, I don't have the right to steal property any more than the 1861 plantation owners.
I am not defending him nor anyone else. Just cite your sources. If he did wrong, i will not defend that.
Excuse me for not refuting everything you post. I don’t have the time to deal with someone’s obsession that results in such a large volume of myth and nonsense.
More from Sherman. It was the rebels who first implemented “total war.”
This was from a letter to an owner of a railroad.
You also remember well who first burned the bridges of your railroad, who forced Union men to give up their slaves to work on the rebel forts at Bowling Green, who took wagons and horses and burned houses of persons differing with them honestly in opinion, when I would not let our men burn fence rails for fire or gather fruit or vegetables though hungry, and these were the property of outspoken rebels. We at that time were restrained, tied by a deep seated reverence for law and property. The rebels first introduced terror as a part of their system, and forced contributions to diminish their wagon trains and thereby increase the mobility and efficiency of their columns. When General Buell had to move at a snail’s pace with his vast wagon trains, Bragg moved rapidly, living on the country. No military mind could endure this long, and we are forced in self defense to imitate their example. To me this whole matter seems simple. We must, to live and prosper, be governed by law, and as near that which we inherited as possible. Our hitherto political and private differences were settled by debate, or vote, or decree of a court. We are still willing to return to that system, but our adversaries say no, and appeal to war. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.
It's common knowledge. You don't know how to do a search?
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