Replies

Michael.SF. #5: "What Sherman did was a war crime."

KTM Rider #7: "Sherman probably had to hide out there because a lot of Rebs would want to whack him for those hideous deeds after the surrender when Lincoln orderd him to destroy the defensless south so it couldn't rise up again."

Michael.SF. #9: "The March to the sea: Targeting civilian property for destruction in violation of Lincoln’s Lieber code."

KTM Rider #17: "the Yankee newspapers at the time , and now Historians kept it a secret about how the destruction of the south after the surrender went down in order to keep Lincoln's hero status.
They pulled it off by refusing to accept the surrender until they were sure the armies were disbanded and all weapons surrendered, then the north sent in the crazies to loot rape and burn everything tore up railroad tracks bridges killed livestock burned atlanta to the ground"

I see that the nonsense here is growing ever deeper and thicker.
So let's add some facts to an otherwise fanciful tall tale.

First of all, this is the core of Sherman's Order Number 120, in November 1864:

"V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down:
In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility."

So, Sherman based his Special Field Orders No. 120 (November 9, 1864) on Lincoln's General Orders No. 100 (the Lieber Code, April 24, 1863) for the Union Army.

After Confederate surrenders, in June 1865 Sherman was assigned to the Military Division of Missouri, which covered all the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, so Sherman was not involved in Reconstruction.

On the subject of Confederate surrenders, there were many, spread over several months:

"Confederate army units surrendered in various places on April 12, 16, 19, 20,21, 26, and 27.
"Various Confederate units surrendered on May 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 26 and 30.
"Confederate surrenders also occurred on June 2, 3 and 23.
"On November 6, 1865 the CSS Shenandoah surrendered to HMS Donelgal at Liverpool England.
"On August 20, 1866, President Andrew Johnson declared what he called the “insurrection” officially over and peace restored.
Many Confederate units never surrendered."

Every CSA surrender was "unconditional" including the delivery of weapons and disbanding of units, though, iirc, officers kept their sidearms and cavalry their horses.

As for alleged "crazies" sent after the war to rape, burn and pillage the South, we are now into the land of Lost Cause mythology, totally fanciful, utterly devoid of historical facts, the myths were intended to, and were successful in, solidifying "The South" politically as Democrats.

Also, General Joe Johnson CSA was a pallbearer at Sherman’s funeral. Anyone actually think that Johnson would have been a pallbearer if he thought Sherman was a war criminal?

Johnson made a statement at the funeral that shows he thought highly of Sherman & his character.

“..
It was a bitterly cold day and a friend of Johnston, fearing that the general might become ill, asked him to put on his hat. Johnston replied: “If I were in [Sherman’s] place, and he were standing in mine, he would not put on his hat.” Johnston did catch a serious cold and died one month later of pneumonia.
...”

“Every CSA surrender was “unconditional” including the delivery of weapons and disbanding of units, though, iirc, officers kept their sidearms and cavalry their horses.”

Retaining sidearms and horses was a condition of surrender so your claim the surrender was unconditional doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the use of quotes around the word unconditional was your way of acknowleding it was, in fact, conditional.

In the case of Lee’s army, surrendered Confederates did even have to agree not to take up arms against the Yanks again - only until they were properly exchanged.

“The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged and each company of regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands.”

Of course, that did not happen. The disaster at Appomattox is why the federal government debt is thirty trillion dollars; most acquired from non-defense spending.

Or is it thirty two trillion dollars today?

https://historical.ha.com/itm/military-and-patriotic/civil-war/-terms-of-surrender-letters-signed-by-confederate-general-robert-e-lee/a/674-72102.s