Rumsfeld Admires War Criminal

Your "Political Points" article in the 23 May Sunday New York Times, reports that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is reading Grant, the biography of the Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant, as a morale booster.

But if Rumsfeld is going to adopt Grant as a role model or source of inspiration, he (and you) should be aware that Grant’s policies and actions included the following: •

Ordering the expulsion on 24 hours notice of all Jews "as a class" from the territory under his control (General Order # 11, 17 December, 1862), and forbidding Jews to travel on trains (November, 1862); •

Ordering the destruction of an entire agricultural area to deny the enemy support (the Shenandoah Valley, 5 August, 1864). •

Leading the mass murder, a virtual genocide, of Native People, mainly helpless old men, women, and children in their villages, to make land available for the western railroads (the eradication of the Plains Indians, 1865–66).

Overseeing the complete destruction of defenseless Southern cities, and conducting such warfare against unarmed women and children (e.g., the razing of Meridien, and other cities in Mississippi, spring, 1863).

Contrast these well documented atrocities (and many others too numerous to list) with the gentlemanly policies and behavior of the Confederate forces. My ancestor Major Raphael Moses, General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, was forbidden by General Robert E. Lee from even entering private homes in their raids into the North, such as the famous incursion into Pennsylvania. Moses was forced to obtain his supplies from businesses and farms, and he always paid for what he requisitioned, albeit in Confederate tender.

Moses always endured in good humor the harsh verbal abuse he received from the local women, who, he noted, always insisted on receiving in the end the exact amount owed.

Moses and his Confederate colleagues never engaged in the type of warfare waged by the Union forces, who routinely burned, looted, and destroyed libraries, courthouses, churches, homes, and cities full of defenseless civilians, including my hometown of Atlanta. My ancestors may have lost the war, but they never lost their honor.

Perhaps Rumsfeld should be reading the memoirs of General Lee or Major Moses, instead of the bio of a war criminal like General Grant.

Headquarters Army Of Northern Virginia

Chambersburg, Pa, June 7, 1863

General Order No. 73. The duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own. The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. ... It must be remembered that we make war only on armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemy, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain.

The commanding general, therefore earnestly exhorts the troops to abstain with most scrupulous care from unnecessary or wanton injury to private property, and he enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any way offend against the orders on this subject.

R. E. Lee, General

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania was the only northern town damaged by intentional torching by Confederate troops.

Atlanta is the only American city destroyed by acts of war.

The Confederate action in Chambersburg occured on July 30, 1864 on the orders of the Confederate General Early. It was in retaliation for Union Magor General Hunter's burning of Virginia Military Institute and homes of Southern activists in Lexington, Va.
Confederate General John McCausland was the commander.

The Union action in Atlanta began July 28, 1864 with the beginning artillery bombardment of the area, and continued until the city was surrendered on September 2.
Sherman's troops occupied the city until November 14, 1864 when they left the city for Savannah. It was at this time that the burning began.

The relative aspects of warfare of the two events is as follows:

........................................Chambersburg................................Atlanta.......................

Time of occupation.....................8 hours......................1728 hours (72 days)............

Length of cannon seige...............0 hours....................................31 days....................

Number of invading Soldiers........800..........................................110,000..............

Number of buildings burned..........369...........................................3600.................

Per Cent of town destroyed...........18%..........................................90%...............

Number of citizens killed................0............................................10,000...............

It is almost as difficult to find consistent information about the incident at Fort Pillow as it is to determine the moral significance of its outcome.

Scholars disagree about exactly what transpired on April 12, 1864 at Fort Pillow, when General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured the fort with his 1,500 troops and claimed numerous Union lives in the process.

It became an issue of propaganda for the Union, and as a result the facts were grossly distorted. After close examination it is clear that the "Fort Pillow Massacre" (as it became known by abolitionists) was nothing of the sort.

The 1,500 troops under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest acted as men and as soldiers in their capture of Fort Pillow.

Although documented by many authors, the most able judges of the event were the military present at the Fort, who later reported the events to President Lincoln.

"...it is more probable that when the President looked thoroughly into the evidence he was convinced that the massacre was perpetrated in the heat of conflict and had neither been ordered nor suggested by Forrest. May 3,1864. Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 481.

It should be also be noted that Fredericksburg (VA) "got in the way" of the Union Army of the Potomac in December of 1862. The town was shelled and then looted by northern infantry. While the town was not fired, the residents were more or less forced to leave their homes during the first instance of large-scale street fighting. It should be noted that the shelling was designed to clear a regiment of rebel sharpshooters who were picking off the troops laying the pontoon bridges across the Rhappohannock River. Civil War commanders were famous for shifting blame for their actions to the opposing commander.

Atlanta & Chambersburg were almost inevitable as the war ground on into its fourth year. Both sides were increasingly desperate. That is the nature of war. As Robt. E. Lee said at Maryes Heights, "It is well that war is so terrible as we should grow too fond of it."

I'm not sure what point that you were trying to make by contrasting the time-of-occupation, etc. between Atlanta & Chambersburg. Perhaps you were trying to show that one was more deliberate than the other?

There are a lot of stories surrounding the torching of Atlanta. Where the blame gets assigned depends on which story you place the most stock in.

As for Chambersburg, the accepted story around here was that Gen. McCausland demanded a gold ransom and provisions or he would put the town to the torch. Evidently, he wasn't bluffing.

Your Fredricksburg tangent is noted and ignored. The comment about commanders shifting blame is treated the same.

Chambersburg may have been inevitable, in view of the Union Command's new strategy of beginning to make war on the civilian population. The Confederate actions there were designed to discourage this type of new warfare by the Union army. In a standard military sweep, the Union army had decided to purposefully seek out and destroy the homes of prominent Virginians. The US Army was attacking civilians. That was the antecedent to Chambersburg, and the Confederate authorities documented the same in their orders.

Atlanta was another issue altogether. Sherman had as his one goal the aggrandizement of the Republican government through military victory in the field. The greater the appearance of contest and success in the South by Sherman, the more support Lincoln would experience at the polls.

And your comment: "I'm not sure what point that you were trying to make by contrasting the time-of-occupation, etc. between Atlanta & Chambersburg. Perhaps you were trying to show that one was more deliberate than the other?"

That was to point out that the Union army had months to degrade any war manufacturing capability without burning the entire town to the ground. Therein lies a shining example of Sherman's pure evil. He viewed the people of the South as potential enemies then and in the future. He was able to invoke the rationalization of the dictator that enables him to issue harm to the people to enable his own survival. The evil lay in Sherman making these decisions on his own, without regard to Federal law, natural law, or personal ethics.

Once he accomplished the goal of being in the position of ensuring a Republican victory, he had a choice to turn north to Virgina, and engage Lee as his military requested. Instead he decided upon a course that appealed to him...'making the chivalry howl'.. i.e. to issue destruction on innocent people. That was his 'sweet spot'. So he set about to convince Lincoln to let him sweep through Georgia and South Carolina, which he did.

And your comment: "There are a lot of stories surrounding the torching of Atlanta. Where the blame gets assigned depends on which story..."

Not which story? That must be for our friends that are lurking. You well know the fact is that Sherman's musicians were entertaining the group as the fires were being started by his soldiers. The town had been vacated, or have you not seen this lately:

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/sherman/sherman-to-burn-atlanta.html

Kinda like the tender mercies shown the Confederate POW's at Elmira Prison in New York?! And you all should go back and study the Constitutional debates to understand what all of us lost when legions of "Honest Abe" won in 1865. The South fought for the freedom of a State's Right of self-determination. Slavery was dying in the Southland, but when the Northern Abolitionists started pushing Northern Congressmen to abolish it by law, the South fought back because of economics! Had the North minded their own business, the issue (slavery) would've been resolved.

Lincoln didn't care for the blacks anyway, he even stated so in his election debates. His Emancipation Proclamation was nothing more than a political ploy aimed at engendering support for his war. By 1863 the Northern populace was heartily sick of sending off their sons to die by the thousands on the field of battle. As for the rolling and mugging of the Constitution, Lincoln was on par with Clinton. Truth hurts.

Let's compare apples, oranges and mangos. Ft. Pillow was a battle between soldiers; civilians were not involved. Many federal soldiers "surrendered" only to pick up a rifle and start shooting again. This is well documented. Finally, the Confederates began shooting them all. The Crater...again, armed combatants, not civilians. Andersonville...again, a POW camp, not civilians. Confederate guards received the same pitiful rations as the POWs and suffered equally of disease and malnutriton. Confederates tried to give the POWs up, without any exchange, but the feds refused. One trainload was taken to Savannah but the feds refused to take them. Unexplained and CRUEL. Andersonville was NOTHING compared to Camp Douglas in Chicago, Rock Island Illinois, Elmirah NY, Point Lookout MD and I could go on. In Chicago, food and blankets were plentiful, yet the federal guards allowed the Confederate POWs to die of exposure, illness and starvation. Torture was routine...prisoners were made to sit barebottomed in the snow for hours. Prisoners were made to straddle an 8 foot high sawhorse made of rough-hewn wood with weights tied on each foot...for hours and days. In Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago you'll find the largest mass grave in North America...almost 7000 Confederate POWs are buried in one hole...only 4300 are named, the others are "unknowns." Contrast that with Andersonville where they at least kept records and could name every soldier in an INDIVIDUAL Grave. More on Camp Douglas & the ugly rock But I digress. Regenstein was talking about soldiers raping, murdering, looting and burning out civilians. In that regard, Chambersburg (where NO civilians were killed or raped), and various partisan raids in Illinois and Missouri....these were NOTHING compared to the systematic and APPROVED AT THE TOP war crimes that marked Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia. Meridian MS, Columbia SC, Atlanta GA (all the way to Savannah), the Shenandoah Valley. Yes, "sh*t flowed both ways"...but Grant's "total war" policy has NO COMPARABLE EQUIVALENT by the Confederate forces. Your attempts to sarcastically change the subject do NOT withstand casual scrutiny. Regenstein is correct.

For the past few years I have posted and browsed here on FreeRepublic, and for the most part have found a thoughtful and polite give and take. On occasion, certain topics seem to bring out the worst qualities in some of the posters. They can get rude, insulting and in some cases they miss the mark by a mile, such as is the case here. Lew Regenstein is no foe of Donald Rumsfeld. His commentary was aimed at a historical figure that he does not, to say the least, admire.

I know Lew Regenstein, and while I don't always agree with everything he believes in, he is a gentleman, an intellectual of the first order and passionate in his beliefs. Those are traits to be admired in my view, and indeed he is an admirable fellow, in my eyes. If most of the posters on this thread knew Lew, as I do, there is no doubt that they would draw different conclusions about the intent of the letter to the editors of the New York Times.

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.