Posted on 07/18/2004 8:40:59 PM PDT by canalabamian
Not only was William Tecumseh Sherman guilty of many of the crimes that some apologists portray as "tall tales," but also his specter seems to haunt the scandal-ridden halls of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Sherman had a relatively poor record battling armies. His lack of preparation nearly destroyed Union forces at Shiloh. He was repulsed at Chickasaw Bluffs, losing an early opportunity to capture Vicksburg, Miss. The result was a bloody campaign that dragged on for months. He was blocked by Gen. Pat Cleburne at the Battle of Chattanooga and needed to be bailed out by Gen. George Thomas' Army of the Cumberland. His troops were crushed by rebel forces in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.
But Sherman knew how to make war against civilians. After the capture of Atlanta, he engaged in policies similar to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia by expelling citizens from their homes. "You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war," he told the fleeing population. Today, Slobodan Milosevic is on trial for similar actions in Kosovo.
An article on Sherman in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last spring asserted that Sherman attacked acceptable military targets "by the standards of war at the time." This seems to assume that human rights were invented with the creation of the United Nations. But Gen. Grant did not burn Virginia to the ground. Gen. Lee did not burn Maryland or Pennsylvania when he invaded. Both sought to destroy each other's armies instead of making war against women and children, as Sherman did.
After promising to "make Georgia . . . howl," Sherman continued such policies in the Carolinas. Not only did he preside over the burning of Columbia, but he also executed several prisoners of war in retaliation for the ambush of one of his notorious foraging parties. While Andersonville's camp commander, Henry Wirz, was found guilty of conspiracy to impair the health and destroy the life of prisoners and executed, nothing like that happened to Sherman.
According to an article by Maj. William W. Bennett, Special Forces, U.S. Army, Sherman turned his attention to a new soft target after the Civil War: Native Americans. Rather than engage Indian fighters, Sherman again preferred a strategy of killing noncombatants. After an ambush of a military detachment by Red Cloud's tribe, Sherman said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children."
Bennett notes that Sherman carried out his campaign with brutal efficiency. On the banks of the Washita River, Gen. George Armstrong Custer massacred a village of the friendly Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, who had located to a reservation. Sherman was quoted as saying, "The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or maintained as a species of paupers. Their attempts at civilization are simply ridiculous."
Such slaughter was backed by the extermination of the buffalo as a means of depriving the men, women and children with a source of food. Many Native Americans not killed by Sherman's troopers were forced onto reservations or exiled to Florida to face swamps and disease.
Now we have learned about the abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Such events may seem unrelated, were it not for reports that Sherman's policies are still taught to West Point cadets as an example of how to break an enemy's will to fight.
Are we therefore shocked by the acts of barbarity against Iraqi detainees? As long as we honor Sherman, teach his tactics and revise history to excuse his actions, we can expect more examples of torture and savagery against noncombatants we encounter in other countries.
John Tures is an assistant professor of political science at LaGrange College who was born in Wisconsin, opposes the 1956 Georgia flag and still has a low opinion of Sherman.
Point taken. The KKK, circa 1870, would certainly fit the classic definition of a guerilla organization. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a Viet Cong main force battalion -- which is where we were headed if Lee or Joe Johnston's forces had made it to the mountains.
Did somebody sweeten your tea by accident?
From an article on line:
"Free African Americans and slaves had lived in Clark County, Ohio since the early 1800's. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 banned slavery in the territory, however, slave trading and slave holding continued until 1830 with the support of the courts. This is evidenced by the prosecution and fining in 1812 of James Demint, the founder of Springfield, in county court for paying some African Americans for work they did around his place instead of paying their owner John Kenton. John Kenton was the brother of Simon Kenton, also reported to have owned slaves (Kinnison: 1985).
"In Ohio, Clark County was settled mainly by two groups of people from the pro-slavery state of Virginia. The first group to arrive in the area were antislavery. With the settling of the area more Southerners followed, many pro-slavery bringing their slaves with them. Many freed their slaves after entering Ohio. Some slave owners did not free their slaves until 1830 when the Ohio Legislature required it."
So, it would seem that slavery did exist in your state beyond when you think.
Sherman could have burned Columbus under the same rationalization you accept for Atlanta.
And like VC 'batallions' they would have been unable to continue as serious forces without serious outside support. The "sea of peasants" can't provide adequate logistics or the basics such as powder, shot, rice, and (aptly) shoes.
Partisan might fit better than guerilla despite any other then-current definitions or misuse of the term.
Nah, it's just that some of these yahoos get my stars and bars boxers in a bunch.
Thought you were someone else, and that comment about applying to your state was intended for Ohio.
Lower tech era. They might have had enough shot & powder to support a battalion-size force in that day. Particularly if that were a mounted force that could disperse over a wide area and rapidly concentrate for battle. A muscular James-Younger Gang.
In other words, he cared more about not losing more states than doing what was right.
Lee has a smart man- he realized that a guerrilla war would have only served to prolong the suffering in the South.
Lincoln wanted to do what was right, but he knew that his ability to do so was limited by political expediency. During a civil war, it is foolish to turn more of your people into enemies.
Lincoln did a lot of rather extreme measures such as shutting down newspapers etc. He could pretty much do anything he desired to try to win the war.
I doubt he would have cared about the Constitution in this case; he didn't any other time. The reason why he did not end slavery in the border states is that would have cost him more states to the rebellion.
I would disagree with that statement. Lincoln did the best he could to uphold the Constitution as he understood it. His actions were reviewed by the Supreme Court on many occasions during the course of the rebellion and I'm not aware of any of those decisions that he ignored.
And then? I've always said- the South should have sought terms when Lincoln won in '64. At that point, it should have been clear to them that the North would keep fighting until the end. Every death after the election is due solely to Southern stubborness.
As late as January 1865, with Lee bottled up in Petersburg and Sherman heading into South Carolina, the Davis regime was trying to negotiate a settlement based on southern independence. I honestly don't know what they expected, a Lincoln surrender at that stage?
Good thing for you that we Southrons didn't feel the same way when we marched into Pennsylvania.
Yankees didn't deserve Robert E. Lee!
NO...it wasn't. We didn't attack civilians in WWII until the AXIS did first.....
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