[GovernmentShrinker]

Do you happen to know the origin of that saying? The only place I can recall hearing it before was in connection with the Haun's Mill Massacre, when it was uttered by one of the perpetrators just before he shot a very young boy in the head. I assume the saying dates back further than that, but I don't who coined it.

[SteveH]

Do you happen to know the origin of that saying? The only place I can recall hearing it before was in connection with the Haun's Mill Massacre, when it was uttered by one of the perpetrators just before he shot a very young boy in the head. I assume the saying dates back further than that, but I don't who coined it.

No. I was under the general impression that it was stated by Custer a short time before Little Big Horn, during a raid on an Indian village in which children were ordered killed. When I do a google search, General Sherman's name comes up in a letter to Grant (1864) shortly before Sherman's March to the Sea during the War between the States. The only thing I can find easily about the Haun's Hill massacre is that it happened in conjunction with Mormons in Oct. 1838.

So it now appears to be a common saying and perhaps it will be difficult to trace authoritatively.