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.
You got any good negro lynching shots? I gotta feelin you do.
AND, worse yet,you don't even know that they've made a fool of you. PITIFUL!
may i point out that no less a man of letters than Bill Faulkner said, " Nothing worse may be said of a southern male, than he be named a damned scalawag & traitor to his native southland". you might think on that.
free dixie,sw
Nope. There was no point. I don't understand why everyone blames sherman alone. His plans for Georgia and South Carolina were discussed and approved by his commanding general and his commander-in-chief.
War is hell. Those who start one should not be surprised that it is no fun to lose.
NOBODY, who was unfortunate enough to be a "passenger" (read PRISONER), locked up in boxcars w/o food & water, arrived alive at the prison camp. ALL of the "passengers" were NON-white. they were blacks, jews, a few latinos & about 1200-1300 indians, but no white guys.
of course the damnyankees, the scalawags & their apologists think that was perfectly OK too! (zarf would say that, "war is hell", i'd guess.)
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
is ANYTHING as a tactic in wartime A-OK with you, provided it isn't done to YOU?????
free dixie,sw
damnyankees are nothing if not HYPOCRYTES!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Suspending the writ - the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of this action has never been determined. But you knew that.
Promising appropriations of monies - Presidents promise money all the time, but only Congress can appropriate. Congress did that in this case. Nothing illegal in these actions. But you knew that.
Calling forth massive armies - under the authority granted the president by the Militia Act, Lincoln had the authority to call up the state militias. He also, as Commander-in-Chief could order an increase in the size of the Army and Navy. He was dependent on Congress to fund these actions, which they did when they met in July. Nothing illegal was done here. But you knew that.
Implementing naval blockades (an act of war)- War is wged between sovereign nations, how does one declare war on one's own country? The blockade was a measure adopted by Lincoln under his authority as Commander-in-Chief to combat the rebellion. There was nothing illegal about that. But you already knew that.
Having the miltary arrest those that spoke out against him, shutting down newspapers that dared to question his policies -- you exaggerations aside, the military was granted the authority to hold people for trial when habeas corpus was suspended by Congress. As it turned out, this authority was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan, but at the time there was no precedent that indicated that Lincoln or the military were acting illegally. But you already knew that.
The decision by Chief Justice Taney in ex parte Merryman was an in-chambers decision by the Chief Justice, with the decision to be forwarded to the Maryland Circuit Court...
Nonsense. The decision was issued by the Chief Justice from the Circuit Court Bench in Baltimore where he was presiding in his position as Chief of that Federal Circuit. It was not issued by the Supreme Court. The decision of the Chief Justice Taney wasn't taken before the entire court so the Constitutionality is undetermined.
And 9 justices of the Supreme Court agreed in ex parte Milligan held...?
Ex Parte Milligan was an 1865 decision, you can hardly blame Lincoln for violating it before the decision was handed down. And to the best of my knowledge, habeas corpus has not been suspended since then in states not in rebellion, although with Ashcroft you never know. Still, you knew all that, too, didn't you?
Surely you have some evidence other than that to support such a claim?
Are you a democrat? The whole south was democrats at that time. So I must assume that since you folks from down there are still fighting that useless and idiotic war started by DEMOCRATS, then you must be a registered democrat.
Thank you. As it turned out, secession was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but at the time there was no precedent that indicated that the Confederacy were acting illegally. But you already knew that. If Lincoln actions weren't illegal, neither were those of the confederacy.
The decision was issued by the Chief Justice from the Circuit Court Bench in Baltimore where he was presiding in his position as Chief of that Federal Circuit.
If Taney were issing a ruling from the Circuit Court, that would make this statement in the decision superfluous
'I shall, therefore, order all the proceedings in this case, with my opinion, to be filed and recorded in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Maryland.'Why would Taney state that he would have the decision filed in a CC if it was a CC decision? The decision begins, 'Before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, at Chambers.'
Taney notes that '[t]he petition was presented to me at Washington, under the impression that I would order the prisoner to be brought before me there' - i.e - before the Supreme Court, not the Maryland Circuit.
Agreed. But you continue to insist that unilateral secession as practiced by the southern states is legal, regardless of the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. I don't go around insisting that habeas corpus can be suspended in states that are not in rebellion in the face of a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.
If Taney were issing a ruling from the Circuit Court, that would make this statement in the decision superfluous
If Taney's opinion was a majority opinion for the entire cort then what was the vote? You might want to read Taney's biography, "Without Fear of Favor" by Walker Lewis. Lewis goes into the Ex Parte Milligan decision in some detail, right down to describing the court room in Baltimore where the case was heard and the decision was handed down.
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