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.
Wow. You actually believe that blacks in this country would fight under the Confederate banner.
And you believe that Southerners want to try to secede again.
Man, you're delusional.
Ought to get out from inside the beltway sometime.
Hey, when the city fathers of Richmond are in favor of a Lincoln memorial at the old Tredegar site, I think we can well and truly conclude that the Civil War is a settled issue.
But you go ahead and keep dreaming of an independent South. LOL.
Nobody is seceding from anyone. Except Hawaii, maybe.
Not my problem that you weren't paying attention. :)
I read the analogy. It was silly.
That's right. It was silly, as were all the ideas and attitudes illustrated in it. That was the point. Glad you got it.
"Whatever...."
".... and another one bites the dust ..."
Hardly.
EVERY major racial, religious & social grouping in the south is DISGUSTED with the damnedyankee-controlled & NOSEY government making decisions for us, our homes, our schools, our religious institutions, our bodies, etc.
secession is the last resort for ALL of us. period, end of story.
free dixie,sw
wp is working in the HANOI-John campaign.
free dixie,sw
the city council, otoh, is in the hands of the LEFTIST, hateFILLED DIMocRAT party & the social/academic elites of Richmond. they are OUT OF STEP with the majority of Richmonders.
i'd like to remind you that the council put the Arthur Ashe statue on Monument Ave, AGAINST the wishes of HIS WIDOW & HIS FAMILY. (i have seen a copy of the letter she wrote to them.)
free dixie,sw
that will happen within 10-15 years.
what would YOU favor doing to keep the latino-dominated state governments of AZ,CA & NM from leaving????? NUCLEAR WEAPONS, POISON GAS or something worse????
may i remind you that to keep the southland under the foot of the damnyankees, you did scorched earth last time.
free dixie,sw
I think the American military could do that with just conventional weapons.
What's with the multiple question marks?
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
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