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.
According to the letters of the men making the campaign, you did. There was a fair amount of looting, a lot of foraging, a few threats to burn cities if the inhabitants didn't come up with a specified amount of supplies, and several hundred free blacks rounded up and sent south to slavery. Lee was forced to write a special order condemning the actions, but it was widely ignored. It was the fact that the southern forces spent so little time in Pennsylvania before being defeated and forced to retreat that kept the damage minimized.
You know quite well that the only documented example is Chambersburg. Lee gave orders that looting, etc. would be punishable by DEATH. Which he enforced.
I suggest that you look into that again, especially the part about Lee's order. I've read the order, it says nothing about punishing looting with DEATH, and I'm not aware of any instances of looters being executed during the campaign, or any other time.
Stephen Sears published a book on Gettysburg last year that details some of the looting and kidnapping. Noah Andre Trudeau published another book last year on the same subject that also details the actions of the confederate army, so those are at least two documented examples outside of Chambersburg.
Nope, I ain't streching my tale a bit, and by the way, when are you folks gonna repair the damage?
The British were probably the first to hit civilian targets with a maximum effort.
No. I mean like the South Carolina legislature and the rest of the Southern leadership. The leadership of the South seceded to protect their peculiar institution.
The North's motives were mixed--control of the Mississippi, union, and yes, slavery. It was a coalition war if you will.
i thought you had read at least SOME of my posts relative to the TENS of thousands of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & CRIMES AGAINST PEACE (such as mass rape, torture,arson of civilian dwellings, looting of synagogues & churches,destruction of crops in the fields,intentional abuse of helpless POWs & coldblooded MURDER on a wholesale basis) committed by/for the lincoln regime.
the damnyankees, under the control of lincoln & his coven of thugs/thieves/war CRIMINALS, even invented the CONCENTRATION CAMP!
billy sherman was no better and/or no worse than many a NAZI general officer!
i suspect, that if captured by CSA forces in 1864-65, "uncle billy" would have said, "i was just following orders". (sound familiar????)
free dixie,sw
Not surprised at all... just surprised that this take actually appeared in print.
sherman was a war criminal BUMP!
There is a very famous story, that while Lee and Jackson are riding thru Maryland, Lee spots a soldier carrying off a pig, from a farm. Lee orders Jackson to have the man shot. Stonewall tells the man that he will put him in the thickest of the fighting in the engagement at Sharpsburg, telling him that he will have a chance to serve his country AND save his "bacon" at the same time......
This could be fictional, but it clearly demonstrates Lee's feelings on the subject.
sherman & his coven of WAR CRIMINALS were no better than the SS-SD.
the "filth in blue that flowed down from the north" tortured,robbed,raped & MURDERED at least 92 aged men, women & children of MY family in 1864, just because they were UNarmed & NOT white.
free dixie,sw
inquiring minds nwant to know.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
i wondered when my least favorite anti-southern LUNATIC would show up.
free dixie,sw
thank you for another pointLESS, ignorant, arrogant post, designed to FOOL the naive & semi-literate.
you KNOW that NO women & children were KILLED, ABUSED OR INJURED in ANY way at Lawrence. NOT EVEN ONE!
lincoln & his coven of WAR CRIMINALS,otoh, were no better than the nazi war machine.
free dixie,sw
the CSA's brave lads in gray were NOT defending slavery;they were defending LIBERTY!
free dixie,sw
I did not know about Point Lookout. Do you have a link or a source. No doubt it is true, especially after what happened in Cola.
smart people here are LOL AT you.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
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