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.
free the southland,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Don't tell me, tell Wampus.
I have, in the past, when people assume that I agree with the claim that it was about slavery. I don't issue blanket corrections to posts that aren't directed at me. OK?
No, but it does settle stand waite's claim that the captain and the entire crew were from New England, wouldn't it? And since he did claim that the ship was home ported in New Bedford, perhaps he can settle the question that is vexing you so much by providing his support.
have you ever requested BLACKS IN BLUE AND GRAY from interlibrary loan???
NO??? i thought NOT!
free dixie,sw
frankly, i'll believe him over the opinion of the Damnyankee Minister of Propaganda, absent information to the contrary.
free dixie,sw
No, I'm arguing with you. You made the claim. There is no evidence supporting it.
Whatever....
sorry, i have a LIFE and this is UNimportant to me and anyone else here that has a brain.
i gave you my source. you gave me yours. until & unless i find out more from an ORIGIONAL source document, that's it. finis. the end.
free dixie,sw
As I politely explained last time you posted to me, I don't do wacko's.
Nothing has changed.
leave FR permanently for your natural home on DU or
you stop making STUPID, hateFILLED, ANTI-southern remarks or
you stop posting LIES,
then perhaps i'll give you "a break", but until then too bad, sorry, "no rest for the wicked".
YOU aren't SMART enought to debate my posts, so you call me, and every other loyal southron on FR, NAMES. that's really DUMB, badeye. just DUMB! even for a damnyankee, DUMB!
begone to DU; they like DUMBbunnies over there.
free dixie,sw
Whatever.
you post as if you are a 5th grade dropout.
free dixie,sw
Whatever.
want to try for 1st grade???
just keep posting STUPID, hateFILLED, anti-southern, ignorant NONSENSE. you'll make it!
free dixie,sw
Thanks for sharing!
free the southland,sw
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