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.
What you do in your free time is of no interest to me. I was curious about the claim thatthe south was about to end slavery due to the spirit if Christianity. Everything I've read would indicate that southerners had no problem using Christianity to justify slavery, not as a tool against the institution.
Fair enough, did it occur to you that Dresden was acceptible in large part BECAUSE Sherman was never brought to task for waging war on civilians?
Did you ponder what would happen if we'd have gone into Iraq the same way Sherman went south?
Ever wondered how the southern states would think of the 1860's had Sherman NOT done such a great job? What if he'd just fought the southern armies and left mom and the kids alone...perhaps like Grant he'd be recognized for his skills and not as poster child for an evil invader.
Please keep me on your ping list!
You are correct by that statement. We should bow our heads in shame for some of the things that were done by the KKK in the name of race.
But that wasn't the only issue and blacks were pretty much screwed anywhere in the US up until the early 60's. Also the KKK was not originated over purely racial issues. The South really got screwed by the North during reconstuction. This created a deep resentment in the South that brought on organizations such as the KKK. An interesting foot note of history is the "Redshirts" in South Carolina who were as active as the KKK. However, the membership of that organization consisted of local blacks and whites. You can basically compare Reconstruction with what we did to the Germans at the end of WWI which created a situation that brought Hitler to power in Germany.
People use religion to justify a lot of things. I have known old blacks that truely beleive they were put on Earth to serve the white man. They were taught that when they were young and bought it. But through communication things change. Everyday the world is a better place.
Sheesh. This is as far as you have to read. Let's see:
Robert E. Lee had a relatively poor record battling armies. He watched thousands of his men slaughtered in hopeless frontal attacks at Malvern Hill. Learning nothing, he repeated the same mistake a year later at Gettysburg. His advance guard was surprised and routed at Rappahannock Bridge. He allowed General Grant to outflank him repeatedly as he was driven haplessly into the Richmond defenses, where his futile, sporadic counterattacks cost tens of thousands of lives and exhausted his army. His failure became complete at Appomattox, where he surrendered his army practically without a fight.
Yep, Sherman is almost as great a failure as Lee. How two such bumblers survived in high command is hard to fathom.
To be removed from the list, you first gotta be on the list. Otherwise it's like voting for a bill before you voted against it.
Those that fail simply have blinders on, and are looking for a excuse to absolve their national sin.
I was on you ping list before you had me on your ping list ;o)
Or how can you flip when you haven't flopped yet?
Hard to take the author seriously, given the overall tone of the article, and the laughable partisan "link" to the Iraqi prison "scandal".
Sherman won, period.
Well, for about 2/3rds of the population anyway. And under Davis that effort quickly devolved into a government more intrusive than anything contemplated by Lincoln.
Please add me to your ping list.......again!
"As to Shiloh, it was the first serious engagement of the war and a lot of Union generals were still getting their feet wet. Sherman and Grant were surprised--but ultimately the attack was repulsed. "
Ultimately, Shiloh was a Union Victory.
"I've rarely seen Sherman portrayed in a negative way. "
"Certainly not on FR. I think the universal consensus here is that the man was a saint."
[Sound of rapidly retreating footsteps as BtD heads for his bunker...]
He wasn't a Saint.....then again sucessful Generals never are. Rather have a sinner than a Saint in a battle.
See George Patton, among others....
I'm against it today, but will be for it once elected, and vice-versa? Unless of course you are for it, then I will support it, until I vote against it.
"Niether Lincoln nor Grant were really up to letting Sherman put his plan into effect. "
Actually you couldn't be more wrong on this. Lincoln had been demanding from his Union Generals EXACTLY what Sherman did....which was "the plan" Grant outlined for Sherman in Cincinnati in either late 1863 or early 1864.
The hotel where this overall strategy was finalized still stands in Cincy today.
"April, 1865" is one heck of a great read on this subject.
Slavery was a horror, a holocaust of cruelty, but this was not the way to end it, making the innocent of both races suffer. This was not done for a noble purpose--look at Sherman's remarks about Indians. He had no love or tolerance for people of different races.
Today we would say that Sherman was mentally ill. Another generation would have simply say that he was evil. The truth may lie somewhere in between. In either case he was a monster.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.