We have a mythology created out of the Lost Cause that makes the assumption that the Northerners were responsible for all the destruction during the war.
19th century warfare was not gentlemanly. In fact no war is ever as clean as it appears on the news. For example:
Confederates regularly foraged on civilians as much as Union soldiers did. General Lee foraged in VA and MD during the Antietam campaign, as in Pennsylvania during Gettysburg. He went to Gettysburg to pick up shoes (think they had credit cards with them?). Foraging was standard practice for any army away from supply bases. Foraging is just a clean army term for taking horses and food from civilians when necessary. Its not really like asking for permission when you have 45,000 rifles. Confederates were supposed to pay for these but gave civilians worthless bonds that were hardly ever redeemed especially late in the war (Washington did the same in the Revolutionary War).
Southern soldiers also commited attrocities as well:
Forrest was responsible for the Ft. Pillow massacre of black Union soldiers who surrended. JEB Stuart raided Chambersburg, PA and nearly burnt it to the ground. Mosby's Rangers routinely pillaged southern Unionist homes. Bloody Bill Anderson and co. sacked both Union and Confederate homes in Missouri killing many civilians. John Hunt Morgan and Quantrill ransacked the Ohio river area. Rape and murder were rare in CS army but reports show that they occurred. At any given campaign 1/3 of the Confederate army were straggling. Stragglers are people who refuse to fight and usually bum around and commit crimes. Some of Sherman's men were cut down by CS irregulars in GA and had signs pinned on them warning the Union men not to come through the area. John Mobberly used his Confederate status to steal horses in Loudoun and Jefferson (WV) counties in VA. I could go on.
Neo-Confederates want to rewrite history. Their efforts to save Confederate statues will be in vain by going this route. The official reports and diaries of southern civilians and soldiers paint a different picture. If they (the Neo-Confederates) want to save the statues, this is the wrong way to do it. They do more harm than good to the memory of Civil War veterans with their revisionism.
As a final note, I recently wrote a 30 page primary source paper on Sherman's March. I tried in vain to find Confederate Georgia civilian accounts about Sherman. I found more people were angrier at the CS government for not protecting them than they were with the Yankees. In fact, the actions of the GA government were quite cowardly - conscripting 14 year old boys to fight, but excempting elected officials in the face of an 100,000 man army.
Sherman's "bummers" did their damage, to be sure, but some of his men also preformed acts of courage to help the civilians. It's all documented. What you will see is with the majority of these "neo-cornfeds" is that they watched "Gone With the Wind" twice and deemed themselves experts on the March to the Sea. Ask them who really burned Atlanta?
Have you noticed that whenever the media interviews a "Confederate Flag" supporter, they always pick out the ugliest, fattest, fewest toothed, most ignorant flag wavin' representaive of the Cause they can find, just to make all pro-Southerners look like ridiculous rednecks?
"Seems the writer is telling only one portion of the history. Reparations for anyone not directly affected (i.e. the Holocaust or Japanese Americans) is a silly venture."
Yeah...I believe this Other Reparations Movement was commenced more of a publicity stunt and to make a point. I cannot see how they could possibly be seriously thinking they could receive any sort of settlement.
"We have a mythology created out of the Lost Cause that makes the assumption that the Northerners were responsible for all the destruction during the war."
I'm not sure how widespread that feeling is. Sure, on FR.com, we pick sides and argue with an US versus THEM passion, but I don't know that many FReepers who actually "HATE" Yanks any more than I "HATE" the Dallas Cowboys.
"At any given campaign 1/3 of the Confederate army were straggling. Stragglers are people who refuse to fight and usually bum around and commit crimes. Some of Sherman's men were cut down by CS irregulars in GA and had signs pinned on them warning the Union men not to come through the area. John Mobberly used his Confederate status to steal horses in Loudoun and Jefferson (WV) counties in VA. I could go on."
Someday, it'd be an honor to discuss this further...very interesting stuff for a Civil War neophyte such as myself. Actually, my brother who's in the Air Force is a huge Civil War buff and would be a better match for your apparent knowledge.
"Neo-Confederates want to rewrite history."
As a transplanted Richmonder with roots in Kansas, I reckon I could be considered a Neo-Confederate to some degree, but I disagree that history needs to be rewritten except in those instances where it's been written falsely in the past. There are many folks in this town who would prefer to pretend that Richmond's history never occurred, but I've seen no valid attempts to mess with our Monument Avenue other than to add an Arthur Ashe statue at one end of it. To tell you the truth, it wouldn't bug me terribly much to see L. Douglas Wilder similarly honored on this most-honorable of Avenues.
"As a final note, I recently wrote a 30 page primary source paper on Sherman's March. I tried in vain to find Confederate Georgia civilian accounts about Sherman."
History is written by those who slaughter the vanquished.
"I found more people were angrier at the CS government for not protecting them than they were with the Yankees. In fact, the actions of the GA government were quite cowardly - conscripting 14 year old boys to fight, but exempting elected officials in the face of an 100,000 man army."
If I was an elected official, I reckon I'd have had exempted myself from that suicidal duty as well...especially when you consider that most all the fight-worthy men were already killed or in action elsewhere. We've got a very interesting story to tell about Staunton River Battlefield wherein a few hundred very old men and very young kids withstood a multi-day onslaught from a Union army hell-bent on taking the Staunton River Bridge., but I reckon you've probably studied much of the campaign that occurred in Virginia.
"Sherman's "bummers" did their damage, to be sure, but some of his men also performed acts of courage to help the civilians. It's all documented. What you will see is with the majority of these "neo-cornfeds" is that they watched "Gone With the Wind" twice and deemed themselves experts on the March to the Sea. Ask them who really burned Atlanta?"
LOL...now yer calling me a "neo-cornfed"?! SHEEEESH...guess that's why I remain so uninformed on the Civil War, the "experts" are just sooooo mean to us Civil War neophytes...)8^D!!
FReegards...MUD