Posted on 11/15/2017 6:05:25 AM PST by Bull Snipe
Major General William T. Sherman and four Corps of the Union Army departed the city of Atlanta and began what is known as the “March to the Sea”. General Sherman’s objective in few words was “to make Georgia howl.” To this end he was very successful. During the march across Georgia, Sherman’s army inflicted 100 million dollars’ worth of damage on the Confederate State. This included destruction of 300 miles of rail road, miles of telegraph wire, numerous bridges & trestles. His forces confiscated or destroyed 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, 13,000 cattle, 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder. One Union soldier, in his memoires of the march, said that it was the only time he ever gained weigh on a campaign. In a letter dated 24 Dec 1865 to Secretary of War Stanton; Sherman states “We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience.”
No, I think we agreed that you’re defending the undefendable. The war was about slavery. I have been to the ACWM and saw the wonderful head gear uppity slaves were allowed to wear. There is no defense of the CSA, they picked an unjust fight and Sherman helped end it...
Defending a ruthless butcher and making him out to be some kind of hero is defending the indefensible. :-)
But you are by default defending the ruthless butchery of the CSA and the whole southern way of life at the time. Three of my great-great grandfathers fought for the North and were actual abolitionist. I have no patience for CSA defenders, it was about slavery and reaping profit on the backs of defenseless people. How many Southern men raped and brutalized defenseless women over the long time span of American slavery??? I am glad Sherman destroyed that way of life.
To be fair, large swathes of the city were already in ruins from battle and from Hood’s army blowing up ammunition/supplies and numerous structures deemed of militay use.
lousy sob
He was an assh8le and ought to be burning in hell
Amen Georgia Girl, I despise Sherman, he is burning in hell, the stinking rotten bassurd. Hero, my as8
Civil War crimes. The North was a bunch of butchers.
He was a murderer and a lot of the need for war conventions sprang out of the abuses in the Civil War.
The worst fighting was over by then. All that was left after Atlanta was “the forlorn hope.”
Sherman didn’t “butcher” anyone.
Obviously there are a lot of strong feelings surrounding the CW, but I would tread very carefully casually referring to American soldiers as “a bunch of butchers.”
Ordering a bunch of ships to ATTACK someone, is the exact same thing as firing a shot. It is an act of war.
Two naval vessels, one Revenue Cutter and two rented commercial ships hardly constitutes a “fleet”.
It was more like 8 or 9 ships all together, and there were more than two warships among them. The Civilian transport was carrying riflemen, and the total compliment of sailors and soldiers was in the thousands.
But if it was only two as you suggest, then why on earth would Lincoln tell them to attack the confederates? Truthfully those ships would have been sunk, and most of the men on those ships would have been killed had they followed orders.
Nonsense on both counts.
Abandoned. The federal troops had left, and the locals simply walked in. Stop misleading people about what happened.
Per the Constitution such military installations are property of the United States in perpetuity.
Per British law, subjects of the King do not have any rights to throw off his rule. We didn't follow man made law when we threw off the king, we asserted our right to do so was base on "Natural Law", and we clearly stated that people had the right to be independent if they wished.
Man made statements on paper do *NOT* override God's law as articulated in our own founding document.
Is that the Confederate definition of a winner?
Many years ago, I worked in Kinko’s in Savannah. They were starting to do T-Shirts with your own transfer on it, so, we got to practice.
I made a shirt with a map of Savannah that Sherman had commissioned on the front, and, the letter that Sherman sent Lincoln on the back.
Well it would have been, if that had been what happened, but only a single man launched the Civil War, and his name was Abraham Lincoln. He did so by sending a fleet of ships to Charleston to attack the Confederates there.
The reason he did so was because of all the money the Northern Power Barons were making off of the South. They wanted that money to continue coming into their pockets, and so they urged Lincoln to go to war to keep that money flowing into their pockets.
Lincoln needed the war. The South didn't need or want a war, but Lincoln made sure they were going to get one if they didn't submit to the control of Washington DC and their New York power baron allies.
(Exactly same f***ing situation we are in today.)
If you look at a modern map of Georgia, you can see where Sherman went.
They swath of destruction is still visible. The towns on either side of the path are larger and the road net is more established.
In the path, the towns are few and far between, they are underpopulated and the road net is only now getting more populated as the folks in the cities (Savannah, Augusta, Statesboro, Milledgeville) are moving out into the countryside.
This last weekend, I was in a town just south of Statesboro. Beautiful farmland, but, there are still signs of Sherman’s path in the area.
The federal government didn't lightly abandon numerous forts, armories, magazines and mints (as if that's even a legitimate reason for southern forces to take them). The situation was highly volatile and The Star of the Wast had been fired upon by southern troops while attempting to resupply Fort Sumter even during Buchanan's term. I hope nobody ever forces you out of your house with the threat of violence and then "simply walks in" to help themselves to your "abandoned" property after the fact.
Buchanan was not going to war over secession. Lincoln was initially considering following Buchanan's policy, but brazen occupation of federal installations settled the matter regardless of what might have happened otherwise.
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