That it did.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music.
Posted on 01/04/2009 2:29:32 PM PST by NCjim
Reviled in the South to this day as a terrorist, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman decided that the only way to end the protracted armed conflict of the American Civil War and terminate the rebellious, racist, slave-regime in the south was to bring the war home to the civilian population of the Confederacy. Defying conventional military wisdom, he turned his back on the Confederate field armies, captured and burned Atlanta, and commenced his "March to the Sea". According to Wikepedia"
He and U.S. Army commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken. Sherman therefore applied the principles of scorched earth, ordering his troops to burn crops, kill livestock, consume supplies, and destroy civilian infrastructure along their path."
While the Union Army respected the sanctity of private homes, all public buildings and infrastructure including railroads were subject to complete destruction. Needless to say, resistance was not tolerated. Millions of slaves were freed in the wake of his march.
Recognizing that it was not in their economic interest to continue the fight, civilian political support for the Confederacy began a precipitous collapse and the war soon ended. Despite rebellious pledges that the "South Would Rise Again", peace and prosperity has lasted 144 years.
Misguided attempts to distinguish Hamas Jihadists from the rest of the Palestinian population show ignorance of the political problem in war that was understood and solved by Sherman and Grant. Unfortunately, the "International Community" continues to reinforce the recalcitrant violence of the Palestinians by rewarding it with "humanitarian aid". Until the Palestinian civilian population rejects the war as not being in their interest, the conflict will continue as it has for 60 years.
Hah! Tell that to my ancestors who lost everything.
Sherman’s march was ugly, but it did the job. Same thing with the Battle of Berlin. Ultimately, the only way to win a war is to kill and break the enemy. Sadly, the people running our State Dept and the UN have (apparently) never really studied war—or if they, it was from the wrong people.
My ancestors got all your ancestors stuff.
So just what does Sharia Law have to say about “disproportionate responses”?
If the North had not passed laws aimed at preventing the South from selling cotton to Europe, so the cotton could be uses in northern mills ...
Sounds like “American Thinker” sees the Union as a “roach motel” or street gang; i.e., once in, never out. The esteemed economist Walter Williams disagrees strongly with this outlook.
Early on, the war was fought with rather genteel manners by the officers. In the early months, Union armies paid (or gave receipts) for supplies taken from land owners. As it ground on, it became total warfare.
I love reading the old diaries.
The problem is Liberals want to see Hamas win. Their notion of nirvana is the Middle East without a viable Israel and Jews.
Sherman belonged in a sanitorium. While Washington may have thought Union forces respected the sanctity of private homes, anyone whose families descend from those who lived through it will tell you otherwise.
The "international community" is part of that wide swath of humanity that is convinced that something intelligent issues forth each time their lips flap.
Hoo boy, here we go. Time to make some popcorn...
That it did.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music.
This generation cannot judge that generation. What we think is right was a different right to them ... the South will always believe that the North invaded them regardless ... it’s about time we put all this to rest ....
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Which laws were those? There were no laws against or taxes on exports until after the South initiated war. Then the Union started a blockade. Anyway, the Confederacy put an embargo on sales of cotton, on the highly mistaken theory that the resulting cotton famine would force European powers to intervene.
Bwahahaha! That is the Northern version of history, I suppose. The author ought to read Union correspondence in the Official Records.
Yep. That;s what Hitler said about Auschwitz, Stalin said about Ukraine, Pol Pot said about Cambodia, and Mao said about the Great Leap Forward.
You mean as the Union discovered it couldn't win against the Confederate army.
“War is cruelty. There is no use in trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
William T. Sherman
Out of our civil war there are two generals (one Northern the other Southern) that I admire greatly because they both believed in Total War. General William T. Sherman, USA and General Thomas J. Jackson, CSA.
Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi,
In the Field, Kingston, Georgia, November 9, 1864
1. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings viz.: The right wing, Major-General O. O. Howard commanding, composed of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left wing, Major-General H. W. Slocum commanding, composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.
2. The habitual order of march will be, wherever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier - General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the commander-in-chief.
3. There will be no general train of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition-train and provision-train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition - wagons, provision-wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each corps commander should change this order of march, by having his advance and rear brigades unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at 7 a.m., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.
4. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten days' provisions for his command, and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass; but, during a halt or camp, they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp. To regular foraging-parties must be intrusted the gathering of provisions and forage, at any distance from the road traveled.
5. To corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc.; and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested, no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or other -wise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility.
6. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile and the poor and industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging-parties may also take mules or horses, to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance,
7. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along; but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one, and that his first duty is to see to those who bear arms.
8. The organization, at once, of a good pioneer battalion for each army corps, composed if possible of negroes, should be attended to. This battalion should follow the advance-guard, repair roads and double them if possible, so that the columns will not be delayed after reaching bad places. Also, army commanders should practice the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the road, marching their troops on one side, and instruct their troops to assist wagons at steep hills or bad crossings of streams.
9. Captain O. M. Poe, chief-engineer, will assign to each wing of the army a pontoon-train, fully equipped and organized; and the commanders thereof will see to their being properly protected at all times.
By order of Major-General W. T. Sherman,
L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp.
Couldn't win honorably.
I'm not an expert by any means, but my understanding was that the North put a tariff in place that violated their right to trade, so the South had to leave the union. It was fought over money, not to end slavery. Lincoln even said in his First Inaugural that he did not care about the plight of the Negro.
Uh...those 3 examples you listed weren’t wars, but the result of ideological crimes against their own civilians. And, yes, I realize Americans fought on both sides of the Civil war, but it was still a war with combatants.
“So just what does Sharia Law have to say about “disproportionate responses”?”
Sharia proportionality is, “you write something nasty about Islam, and I KILL YOU!”
Now that is proportional.
“...I KILL YOU!”...”I’ve seen a dummy on YouTube say that any number of times.
The civil war was America's first ideological crusade. Anyway what difference does it make? Mass murder is not justified just because there is a war. Sherman would of course disagree, but that was my point.
I've seen a dummy on YouTube say that any number of times. Others talk about a religion of violins.
you need to do to your enemy what we did to Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Carpet bomb them or nuke them back to the stone age and make the populace want peace so bad, that they can change the direction of even the most hardened dictatorship.
(ps I believe the south had the right to secede but think they screwed up royally by attacking Fort Sumter and that supply ship...it would be tantamount to Castro attacking Gitmo in 1959 or 1960)
The only major source of federal income, besides land sales, was tariffs on imports. These taxes applied everywhere, and an Iowa farmer paid exactly the same tax on a British import (indirectly) as a South Carolina planter.
Some few of these tariffs were set up to provide protection to American businesses. Southerners were perfectly free to engage in businesses protected by these tariffs, but almost universally chose not to, so the benefits of protection went disproportionately to northern businesses.
Those who claim tariffs as the major reason for secession are generally conflating the SC threat to secede under Jackson in 1833 with the secession 27 years later. In fact, the tariff was not a big issue in 1860. Most southern state declarations of their reason for secession don’t even mention the tariff. All expatiate in detail on their need to protect their domestic instutions, a euphemism for slavery.
This is perfectly reasonable when you understand that the capital investment in slaves was considerably greater than that of all real estate in the southern states combined, both land and buildings.
“If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. I know thousands and millions of good people who at simple notice would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late.
All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.’”
William Tecumseh Sherman
“Sherman’s army, raped and killed every man woman and child they caught,”
Can you substantiate that comment?
Lincoln’s tariff was on imports. The South imported most of their manufactured goods from Europe. There were all those ships coming back from delivering cotton so the transportation costs for manufactured goods from Britain were much cheaper than importing from the North. Also, the British industries were more modern and more efficient so their prices were cheaper. The northerners wanted to pinch all of that trade. 85% of the tariff revenue was collected in the South and the southerners rightly considered the tariff harmful and unfair.
Are you still wringing your hands over Hiroshima and Nagasaki too?
Or like Curtis Lemay siad” Bomb them and Burn them”.
War cannot be fought with same rules as civilians. The more gentle you fight a war, the longer that war lasts, and the more dead.
Give them hell Sherman....a man before his times.
Jeff Dunham is one of the funniest, non-PC comedians around. He and ‘Tater Salad’.
VDH and others incorrectly assume Sherman was fighting a "war for equality"
Both were completely unnecessary. Japan had already made peace overtures. The only caveat they insisted on was that the emporer be left alone, which is exactly what McArthur did. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were principally intended to intimidate Stalin who at that time was believed to be a threat to all of Europe.
Are they making this stuff up? Sherman's looters were engaged in wanton destruction
In December 1864, Sherman wrote, "I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia . . . at $100,000,000; at least $20,000,000 of which has inured to our advantage, and the remainder is simple waste and destruction."
I'd be interested in some documentation of this claim. Most northerners were also farmers and presumably used about as many imports as southerners. Since there were many more northerners, it seems unlikely to me that 85% of tariffed imported items were consumed in the South.
BTW, if tariffs were morally unacceptable, how do you think the South planned to finance its government? Income taxes? Land taxes? Property taxes on slaves?
No women and children were killed in the Lawrence raid. Yet the raid was in retaliation for the killing of southern women.
"The Union army's embrace of the slaves, their angry shooting of the bloodhounds used to track escapees, their physical destruction of the plantation infrastructure, their psychological humiliation of the plantation class--all this helped to shatter both the material and psychological foundations of an oppressive aristocratic state."
form link at post forty:
As I said the rape and killing of women men and boys, both black and white, and little old ladies, in a match to the sea, would have done Alida the Hun proud.
A "peace overture" is hardly the same thing as unconditional surrender, now is it?
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