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)
Thanks Bro!
Sounds like the ravings of a mentally man.
This letter smells hoaxish.
Concurring bump...one in ten Southern soldiers fought on the Union side. Sherman himself used the 1st Alabama Calvary as his personal escort during the March to the Sea.
so it’s interesting.....Sherman has real clarity when it comes to the Indians as well.
The US’ arrangement with the numerous Indian tribes/nations also has significant complications/nuances/difficulties....and it is not unlike the legal/conceptual difficulties of reconsttruction of a federal system after civil war. It essentially is defining something as a “nation” and also a a “conquered state” while (pretending) to respect the conquereds culture and tradition....also has the problem in many cases of confining a people group that were nomadic to a geographic area.
Lots of legal difficulties here.
And of course the US was not great in keeping all of the treaties that it agreed to.
Very difficult stuff.
Not sure that Sherman’s “clarity” is right....But....he at least had real clarity. Not a lot of gray in his views.
> Up until now, I had a tiny bit of respect for WT Sherman. <
Sherman is not getting a fair appraisal here. Please see my post #18.
Sherman’s grave is on my piss on it bucket list.
It is. It's bits and pieces cherry-picked from a longer letter that Sherman wrote. The entire letter, with all quotes in context, can be found Here
On the other hand, it's the Abbeville Institute so a bit of southron fakery is to be expected.
i find it impossible to believe that anyone on this site would post such ignorant comments in support of a corrupt and cruel statement of principles. Let me assure you that your use of the Democratic party vs. the Republican party has been overturned by history and neither of them are in any way similar to the parties that existed in 1850.
Why does his final resting place always have that urine smell?
Because it's in the North and indoor plumbing still confuses Southern visitors?
And Confederate troops tended to execute black Union prisoners en masse when they could. Isn't that a "war crime"? Were Lemay and "Bomber" Harris war criminals? They burned out entire cities filled with civilian women and children.
I've known enough people with your outlook to understand you're not open to persuasion. But if Sherman was a "war criminal" then there will not be any generals in any war for whom the title couldn't be applied.
lol
I agree completely.
A brilliant strategist, tactician and a crazy man.
Not a good combination.
This is kind of bullshit
Sherman for all his weirdness offered very generous terms at surrender , not the terms a monster who hated southerners or confederates would have offered
Terms refused by the radical republicans ...the Schiffs and Nadlers of their day
Up to a point I understand Sherman’s desire to win
Just as I can understand the resentments from those who suffered over it
Sherman was no question a man with issues but he won
So his nest is laurels
You’ve got a lot of nerve making a reasonable argument on a Civil War thread.
(All kidding aside, good post there.)
I did read your post and understand those circumstances certainly influenced his demeanor. It was war, but a much different war than any other war with a real foreign power however.
Despite differing cultures, both sides were bound by the same laws & rights. Or at least they should have been.
His dabbling with written genocide on his own countrymen (I realize that is not how he sees it) is a stain on his legacy & reputation. That’s who he was though.
Other generals didn’t talk such unAmerican trash. Sherman was speaking from his convictions, not his war experience.
> Sherman for all his weirdness offered very generous terms at surrender , not the terms a monster who hated southerners or confederates... <
That is an excellent point! And it kind of destroys a lot of the anti-Sherman rhetoric here. For those who doubt your statement, please see paragraph #11 in the link below.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/548395/facts-about-william-tecumseh-sherman
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