Replies

"Less than 4 months before Lincoln uttered these words, Sherman, with Lincoln's full approval, began his march through Georgia. A cruel and cowardly war on civilians. This demonstrates the total disconnect between Lincoln's high-sounding words (usually borrowed from someone else) and his actions."

You're a better thinker and reader than to make an amatuerish statement such as this. Both Grant and Lincoln had reservations about Sherman's plan for invasion. Grant's reservations were military; Lincoln's were political. At that time, Sherman was pretty much on his own. There was no daily communication with the government. Furthermore, Shermans lines of communications and resupply, back to Atlanta, and into the North, were menaced by Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry. Sherman's army of over 100,000 men was twice as large as Johnston's. Yet, during the campaign, Sherman engaged Johnston, and later Hood, at least 13 times. By the time Sherman began his Carolinas campaign, his force was effectively below 60,000.

Lincoln had no direct control over the battlefield and could only authorize, in conjuction with his staff and General Grant, the most basic "plans." As you know, any war plan, is only as good as the paper on which it is written. Sherman, not Lincoln, had strategic and tactical control of the campaign. Sherman had vowed to "make the South howl" and so he did. Part of the strategy was to destroy the South's ablity to conduct war, hence shortening the conflict. In fact, the Southerners reacted with a scortched earth policy of their own to deny Shermans army of subsistance. A substantial amount of damage to the South was at the hands of Southerners.

Everybody knows that atrocities occurred on the less-controlled fringes of a from that was often 50 miles or more wide. That has happened to virtually every army in every conflict. To say that Lincoln approved a "cruel and cowardly war on civilians" is simply hyperbole.

Sherman had vowed to "make the South howl" and so he did. Part of the strategy was to destroy the South's ablity to conduct war, hence shortening the conflict.

You contradict yourself -- for obvious reasons.

Sherman himself articulated the policy, per your quote, of Schrecklichkeit -- which is what Heinrich Himmler called it later.

Please notice that this is not a standardized, gratuitous and rhetorical comparison of some person to the Nazis. Here, the comparison is germane, it's supported by the quotation and by evidence from the field, and it goes to the heart of Sherman's intentions.

Sherman did not intend to shorten the war by depriving the South of the ability to fight. He sought to shorten it the way the Nazis intended to shorten their war with Britain, by bombing London into rubble. The Nazi air campaign against London wasn't aimed at military objectives or logistical capacity. It was aimed at the minds and morale of the English people, to break them. Sherman had the same end in view. No Southerner will ever forgive him for bringing that crudity of a policy to bear on American civilians.

You won't win any points on this thread or any other by apologizing for William Sherman. Though I suppose you'll smoke out the South-haters as they surge forward gleefully to slap you on the back and join you in gloating.

Everybody knows that atrocities occurred on the less-controlled fringes of a from that was often 50 miles or more wide. That has happened to virtually every army in every conflict.

What happened on the fringes of Sherman's march also happened deep behind union lines in the regions that had fallen early in the war. They happened in many cases with full sanction of the commanding generals. Sherman himself is known to have even ordered his troops to randomly gun down civilians in order to make examples of them...but that is far from the worst of it.

If you want to truly see the worst of the atrocities, look at what close Lincoln associate and Gen. Ben Butler did in occupied New Orleans. He issued an order permitting his soldiers to use the women of the city as prostitutes in the event that they acted in any way that could be construed as insulting or disrespectful. To suggest that Lincoln did not know what Butler was up to (the two were in contact frequently throughout the war and met many times in Washington both before and after the New Orleans event) is absurd.

For an even worse though lesser known case, look at what Gen. Robert Milroy, a Sherman subordinate, did in occupied Tennessee. He literally drafted up murder lists of civilians and sent out death squads to execute them. The lists included names of people who had allegedly supported secession, had given food or shelter to confederates, or who were known to have a son in the confederate armies. Evidence was circumstantial at best and almost entirely based on the word of one man who was a unionist spy with many personal grudges against his neighbors. None of them were ever tried - Milroy simply had them executed on the spot. The executions were often brutal and in clear violation of any rule of law. One of the orders, which contains 58 names, directs the troops to execute the mother of a confederate but do so in a manner to make it appear as if it were an accidental shooting. Another order directs them to arrest a civilian and turn him over to Pittman, who would then be permitted to torture and execute the man as a reward for being an informant. Milroy is also known to have thrown the bodies of his victims into a pond and station soldiers there to guard them for several days, ensuring that the other civilians saw the decomposing corpses. He even ordered some of them executed by hanging with a slip knot which, unlike a noose, causes a drawn out painful death by slow strangulation - a revival of a popular torture method from the middle ages. All of this happened deep behind union lines in territories that the yankees had controlled from the early days of the war. It wasn't anywhere near the fringes of operation and therefore cannot be excused as such.