THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA: Civilians were Sherman's targets

Atlanta Journal Constitution ^ | 07/16/04 | JOHN A. TURES

[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.

[stand watie]

in point of fact, i have NOT given up on a peaceful solution to the issue of LIBERTY & INDEPENDENCE for dixie.

THAT, alone ,makes me a moderate.

here's how i HOPE it will go:

1st QUEBEC will leave Canada,

then Los Estados Unidos de Azatlan will leave the USA

& then there will be a PEACEFUL secession by the NEW & MUCH improved Southron Republic.

any more violent choice is too horrible to contemplate, given the lethality of modern warfare!

free the southland,sw

[Wampus SC]

"Surely such an action, if it actually happened, was documented somewhere? Anywhere?"

Third time, huh? That's enough to establish a pattern. You're just playing the cowardly game of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling, "I can't hear you!". I should have seen it coming.

(Actually I did see it coming. I just wanted you to be seen doing it.....)

[Wampus SC]

"I'll answer it- I couldn't care less about the execution of southern insurgents. As rebels, that's all they deserved."

You should have at least been big enough to answer it to him directly, shouldn't you?

[Wampus SC]

Yanktrolls

LOL! That's a new one to me. Very clever :^)

Hey, what can I say? :)

Yanktrolls are just a subspecies of a group that also includes The DU-In-Blue; The Imperious Benighted Order of the Blue-Klux-Klan; and Blue Devils. (No, not the Duke team. They're OK)

One of these days I'll have to post the field guide.

[Wampus SC]

"You implied that Lincoln set a trap at Sumter. If his plan was to get Davis to initiate a war then Davis complied, didn't he? He fell for it."

Which means Lincoln was a basically dishonest, and a devious enough person to set it.

Davis made a common mistake. He assumed Lincoln was like he himself was. So, he figured Lincoln would act like a man, with some honesty an honor, instead of sneaking around practicing fakery to set his traps like a weaselly coward. That was Davis's mistake.

[Wampus SC]

"Of course, nobody north of the Mason-Dixon line makes good barbeque.

They don't even know what it is. They think BBQ is a verb, when it's really a food.

Or they think it's something you cook on, rather than something you eat.

And everybody knows that the best BBQ in the world is at..... nope, not even I will go there :)

[Wampus SC]

"YEP it does. some here, judging from their comments ALONE, should go buy some "handsome black uniforms" with "the pretty silver skull" on the cap."

Yes, it's along those lines. But not even that is sufficient to describe the kind of evil they show in what they say.

[Wampus SC]

"let me "splain something to ya'll", reference transplants:

their kids will grow up to be southerners.

their grandchildren will be SOUTHRONS & FIGHT for DIXIE FREEDOM &

their children will DENY that there was EVER a damnyankee in their family!!!!! (we're PURE SOUHRON, ya'll, all the way back, long before the WBTS!)

That's right. It happens all the time, after they see how much better it is here.

[Wampus SC]

"nope. zarf is just another scalawag, who has swigged down numerous glasses of the damnyankee kool-aid."

I've discovered that there are two formulas for that stuff. One is made from cold coffee. The other is made from hot tea -- WITH NO SUGAR! (yeechhhh). Yep, that's right.....

[Wampus SC]

"1st QUEBEC will leave Canada,

then Los Estados Unidos de Azatlan will leave the USA

& then there will be a PEACEFUL secession by the NEW & MUCH improved Southron Republic.

There would probably be a corridor running from Dixie, up through the mountain states, and into Alberta.

Here's an alternative scenario: 1) The Marriage Amendment is passed and ratified by the States. New England (except NH), and Minnesota, Wisconsin and parts of the Great Lakes States - where they think gay marriage is equal to the civil rights movement and emancipation of slaves - decides it's worth seceding over, and do.

2) As any of the anti-Sotherner gang here can tell you, secession is wrong, and must be put down by force. The United States uses its military might to suppress the traitorous insurrection. Massachusetts is totally devastated, and Amherst, Fitchburg, Hyannisport, Provincetown, and Boston are burned to the ground. The Yankee insurgents, though, realize that these things are good for their souls, and are grateful for the whuppin'.

3) After any insurrection comes Reconstruction. Congress dispatches highly trained teams of carpetbaggers from South Carolina. The carpetbaggers take anything of value, rob everyone blind, hold rigged elections at gunpoint, and generally oppress everyone. The Yanks, knowing how Constitutional and generally good for them this is, are ecstatic in their gratitude. The carpetbaggers from South Carolina become their heroes.

4) Within months of the end of the war, all Yanks have realized that it's all in the past. The get over it overnight, put it behind them an move on. When Southerners follow them around defiling the memory of their dead veterans, the Yanks shake their hands and thank them for it. And when Southerners gloat about the murders of their family members, the Yanks cheer wildly and throw parties for them.

This is what could - I repeat, COULD - happen. But don't mind me. It's Friday night. :)

[Non-Sequitur]

Which means Lincoln was a basically dishonest, and a devious enough person to set it.

And which would also have to mean that Davis was basically too stupid to see that he was being set up and fell right into Lincolns clutches. Right?

So, he figured Lincoln would act like a man, with some honesty an honor, instead of sneaking around practicing fakery to set his traps like a weaselly coward.

Utter nonsense.

[Non-Sequitur]

Third time, huh? That's enough to establish a pattern. You're just playing the cowardly game of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling, "I can't hear you!". I should have seen it coming.

All of which is southron speak for, "No, I don't have any evidence to support my outrageous claims. I expect you to accept my stories on face value."

[Non-Sequitur]

The truth is that no country in the western hemisphere engaged in a war to free slaves.

True. But everything in my reply was true as well.

[Non-Sequitur]

FIRST, EVERY slave ship that was American-owned was from NEW ENGLAND

A blanet statement like that is absolute and utter nonsense, stand waite, and you know it. To claim that not a single, solitary slave carrying ship left any port but New England is nonsense. New England shippers were heavily involved in the slave traffic, true. But so were people from the mid-Atlantic and southern states. After slave imports were outlawed early in the 19th century, more and more involvement in the illegal slave trade was shifted south.

[stand watie]

i won't disagree.

this thread, otoh, has been USEFUL as it CLEARLY illustrates the cruelty, immorality & capacity for pure evil to our "readers".

southrons on the other hand, already KNEW what/who the enemy is!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

also true.

free the southland,sw

[stand watie]

!!!!!

[stand watie]

!!!!!

[stand watie]

!!!!!!!

[stand watie]

may i suggest you go find the name a southern flagged slave ship & post it????

according to the classic book, WHITE OVER BLACK, there were NO ships in the US slave trade from the southland. only from the north.

free dixie,sw