In a published letter General William T Sherman advocated killing a million Southerners and re-populating the South with Northern stock. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens advocated the mass killing of Southerners to purge the land of Southern influence. There were numerous such bloodthirsty statements made by the Radicals, and Shelby Foote includes a number of citations in the text of his 3 volume "The Civil War".
Fortunately the Radical Republicans weren't able to direct the course of American history despite their attempts to seize control of the government, including the impeachment of President Johnson, and their military agents like Sherman and Sheridan were mostly confined to destroying the homes and farms of civilians rather than their lives. We should all give thanks that the hate-driven Radicals are but an asterisk in American history.
Swings both ways.
"People who want to start wars should think seriously about where the war might be fought. It is generally unpleasant to have the war fought on your own territory. Secessionists were particularly unthinking in this respect, the ACW being fought almost entirely in the South, with few minor and short-term exceptions such as Lee's failed Maryland incursion in 1862, Morgan's failed Ohio raid in 1863, Lee's failed Pennsylvania incursion in 1863, and Early's arsonist raid on Chambersburg, PA in 1864.
Thus the Union had far greater opportunity to misbehave in Secessionist territory than the reverse. But Rebel forces, in the few opportunities available to them, violated the same rules and useages of war that were breached by the Union.
Thus, we Southerners are a bit hypocritical when we condemn the Union for depredations in the South --- because the Secessionists were the first of the belligerent parties to propose and glorify a Total War policy to be applied against enemy cities, populations and private property.
Both Jeff Davis and Louis Wigfall, before resigning from the US Senate to go south, threatened the burning of Northern cities and the plunder of their populations as punishment (US Senate, CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE,10 Jan. 1861).
Stonewall Jackson urged the adoption of this policy (Henderson, STONEWALL JACKSON AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, London, 1898), adding that Confederate troops should fight under the "Black Flag" - no quarter, kill all prisoners - and proposing to Virginia Governor Letcher a week after Virginia's secession that he, Jackson, should set the example (Columbia, SC, DAILY SOUTH CAROLINIAN, 6 Feb. 1864). Letcher proposed in early 1862 that the Confederacy should attack Northern civilians and their public and private property, not simply to affect the enemy's armies but to punish its population for supporting the war (Letcher to Pickens, 28 April 1862. L&D Box 5, Clements Library. U. of Mich.).
From the very beginning of the war, the Secessionists' Total War policy was triumphantly endorsed by newspapers across the South, some of which were later to howl the loudest about Sherman's jaunt through Georgia. For example, thinking incorrectly that Lee was about to run rampant through Pennsylvania in 1862, the Richmond newspapers crowed "We hope that the (Confederate) troops will turn the whole country into a desert", (RICHMOND DISPATCH, 17 Sept. 1862). This sentiment was also widely reflected in Secessionist oratory and correspondence of the early-war period.
Lee's troops plundered and burned extensively in the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania, committing acts of violence against civilians and personal property, including housebreaking, theft of money and food, and destruction of personal property. Lee's second order forbidding these practices was issued after the fact - and was again widely ignored by his troops (Royster, DESTRUCTIVE WAR, pg. 37; Knopf, 1991).
Early's burning of Chambersburg, PA, on 30 July 1864 predated Sherman's burning of Atlanta, GA. The main difference between the two events was that Atlanta was a fortified and strongly defended town holding a vast number of military installations, munitions factories and army supply depots, whereas Chambersburg was an unfortified, virtually undefended town holding nothing of any military use or value. Confederate troops left Chambersburg after more than 300 of its houses had been burned and many of its citizens robbed (Pauley, UNRECONSTRUCTED REBEL: THE LIFE OF GENERAL JOHN MCCAUSELAND CSA, Pictorial Histories Publ., 1992). Atlanta burned four days later.
In short, Grant and Sherman adopted the Secessionist policy of Total War, applied it more effectively than the Confederacy ever could, and thereby shortened an increasingly hateful and hated war. Yes, Sherman made Georgia and South Carolina howl, but for the second time. The first time Georgia and South Carolina (and Virginia) howled was for the same kind of violence to be applied against Northern cities, populations and private property. "
-- posted on AOL
A little balance is good, yes?
Walt