Posted on 12/19/2019 8:38:38 AM PST by robowombat
Death is Mercy to Secessionists
By Bernard Thuersam on Mar 21, 2016
William T. Sherman viewed Southerners as he later viewed American Indians, to be exterminated or banished to reservations as punishment for having resisted government power. They were subjects and merely temporary occupants of land belonging to his government whom they served. The revealing excerpts below are taken from “Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama,” published in 1872:
Headquarters, Department of Tennessee, Vicksburg, January 1, 1863.
[To] Major R. M. Sawyer, AAG Army of Tennessee, Huntsville:
“Dear Sawyer — In my former letter I have answered all your questions save one, and that relates to the treatment of inhabitants known, or suspected to be, hostile or “secesh.” The war which prevails in our land is essentially a war of races. The Southern people entered into a clear compact of government, but still maintained a species of separate interests, history and prejudices. These latter became stronger and stronger, till they have led to war, which has developed the fruits of the bitterest kind.
We of the North are, beyond all question, right in our lawful cause, but we are not bound to ignore the fact that the people of the South have prejudices that form part of their nature, and which they cannot throw off without an effort of reason or the slower process of natural change.
Now, the question arises, should we treat as absolute enemies all in the South who differ with us in opinions or prejudices . . . [and] kill or banish them? Or should we give them time to think and gradually change their conduct so as to conform to the new order of things which is slowly and gradually creeping into their country?
When men take arms to resist our rightful authority, we are compelled to use force because all reason and argument ceases when arms are resorted to.
If the people, or any of them, keep up a correspondence with parties in hostility, they are spies, and can be punished with death or minor punishment. These are well established principles of war, and the people of the South having appealed to war, are barred from appealing to our Constitution, which they have practically and publicly defied. They have appealed to war and must abide its rules and laws.
The United States, as a belligerent party claiming right in the soil as the ultimate sovereign, have a right to change the population, and it may be and it, both politic and best, that we should do so in certain districts. When the inhabitants persist too long in hostility, it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population.
No man would deny that the United States would be benefited by dispossessing a single prejudiced, hard-headed and disloyal planter and substitute in his place a dozen or more patient, industrious, good families, even if they be of foreign birth.
It is all idle nonsense for these Southern planters to say that they made the South, that they own it, and that they can do as they please — even to break up our government, and to shut up the natural avenues of trade, intercourse and commerce.
We know, and they know if they are intelligent beings, that, as compared with the whole world they are but as five millions are to one thousand millions — that they did not create the land — that their only title to its use and enjoyment is the deed of the United States, and if they appeal to war they hold their all by a very insecure tenure.
For my part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine, for which we are all as a people responsible, viz: That any and every people has a right to self-government . . . In this belief, while I assert for our Government the highest military prerogatives, I am willing to bear in patience that political nonsense of . . . State Rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, and other such trash as have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people.
I would advise the commanding officers at Huntsville and such other towns as are occupied by our troops, to assemble the inhabitants and explain to them these plain, self-evident propositions, and tell them that it is for them now to say whether they and their children shall inherit their share.
The Government of the United States has in North-Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war — to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal warfare, well and good; we will accept the issue and dispossess them, and put our friends in possession. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence.
To those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of heaven were allowed a continuance of existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment.”
W.T. Sherman, Major General Commanding
(Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama, William Garrett, Plantation Printing Company’s Press, 1872, pp. 486-488)
read later
I’ve been reading a lot of Texas history. Civil War/Reconstruction/Readmission (?) created real Constitutional problems....not easily dealt with.
Not trying to take any sides, or pick any fights, as I know lots of folks here feel strongly about this topic and many others.
I’m just saying.....that era of history was fraught with real difficulties socially, legally, constitutionally, etc. Even good people with rational moral impulses could strongly disagree. And have good reasons for their disagreements. Nothing easy bout that time period.....
bfl
I think Sherman liked Southerns just fine...it was Confederates that he disliked.
Any honest historian (there are some) would agree that the era of Reconstruction from 1866 to 1877 is the most complicated in US history and the one that defies any simple analysis. There are so many conflicts and were multi causal in nation. There is no simple narrative of good versus evil that is beloved by Americans.
As a recovering Yankee now gratefully assimilated to Tennessee, I say Sherman, Sheridan and Grant may take their places in the Lower Kingdom, if God so judge.
Thank you for posting this.
Up until now, I had a tiny bit of respect for WT Sherman.
This letter opened my eyes to the fact that he is no different than a George Soros or any other liberal trash that advocates for ‘good little obedient citizens’ over those who are native born and have real grievances that are being ignored.
This gem sealed it:
“No man would deny that the United States would be benefited by dispossessing a single prejudiced, hard-headed and disloyal planter and substitute in his place a dozen or more patient, industrious, good families, even if they be of foreign birth.”
Sherman would be a wonderful modern version of Michael Bloomberg with a Che Guevara touch of slaughter.
“The Government of the United States has in North-Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war — to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . and war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal warfare, well and good; we will accept the issue and dispossess them, and put our friends in possession. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence.”
Unreal!
War is hell.
Quite real
The very DNA of the Deep State.
Also realpolitik, writ large. And, in historical terms, comparatively merciful; some nations would simply have hung every rebel in a similar situation.
They keep blacks on the hook of government handouts for their votes instead of bales of cotton for the mills of England. Demand the import of cultures alien to our country's founding principles and voting rights for non-citizens. Propagate insane ideas contrary to basic human biology and millennia of universally accepted behavior. And to help accomplish their goals have destroyed an education system that was once the envy of the world.
Sherman lived and worked in the South for many years before the war. So even if one disagrees with everything he wrote you can't say he didn't know his enemy first hand. He was also stationed as an Army officer in California. And if any place needs the kind of cleansing a Sherman would provide today, it's there.
He was just a plain old evil man.
His ‘mercy’ was such that he knew he could never get away with a wholesale slaughter of Americans, and not have it fly in his face, with the consequences eventually leading to his own neck swinging from the gallows.
America was a firm Christian nation back then. Not even the Yankee vets would have gone along with that 100%. His restraint from doing that is evidence of that culture.
Sherman was a war criminal. Period.
The Johnny Reb contingent sure are a whole bunch of fun, aren’t they?
Upon being asked his reaction to being called out of retirement to head up the Navy during WWII, Admiral King said “when they get in trouble, they send for the sons of bitches.” (He denied saying it but agreed with it.)
I suppose that Sherman was a real son of a bitch. (This business about not really owning land except at the pleasure of the US Government is a real crock! Of course, he also did not believe in self-government if I am reading that correctly.)
Yes, you read that correctly. Sherman was an ax behind glass that you break only in case of war.
This is one of the many reasons you never, ever, allow a military to run the government. It’s also why our Founding Fathers insisted that our government be by The People and For The People (Private Citizens) and that the military reports to The People.
Sherman loathed private citizenry and their power under the Constitution. He fancied himself a Caesar or Napoleon I see based on this letter.
That’s the best summation I’ve yet seen. Kudos
The key point in this article is not any quote, but the date: 1863. Sherman wrote that letter smack in the middle of a bloody war. So the harsh language he used must be judged from that perspective.
Many on the left want to smear historical figures based on today’s morality. I have always argued that was wrong. A person should be judged within
the context of his times. A general in the middle of a war is going to say harsh things about the enemy. I would not expect otherwise.
“No man would deny that the United States would be benefited by dispossessing a single prejudiced, hard-headed and disloyal planter and substitute in his place a dozen or more patient, industrious, good families, even if they be of foreign birth"
Not that the pure immmorality, and completely unconstitutional, stain of slavery didn't need to be eradicated, but, this person sounds exactly like today's Globalist-Marxistss 😲.
well said
In a real sense, the “nation” ceased to exist once the Southern secessions began. Yet, the “nation” continued to act, as it were, and then tried to “reassemble” (it’s difficult to say what exactly, legally speaking, the returning states were...). Are the states readmitted with the same rights they had before? It’s all very complicated.
And out of that rose the constitutional revolution that is the post-civil war amendments.
among other things
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