Posted on 03/22/2010 10:10:57 AM PDT by Between the Lines
In my mind?
“I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!” —from a telegram, dated 9 Oct 1864, from W.T. Sherman to U.S. Grant. Vol II, p. 152
Yeah, when he says Until we can repopulate Georgia
Why do you think he used "repopulate'? Because eveyone was gonna go on vacation at Sandals? You can't change history, my man. sorry.
Stop posting that, please.
Uh.... apparently I followed the reasoning correctly as witnessed by his reply. It is you who are confused and unable to follow along.
“Firstly, there wouldn’t have been a war without there being a national government.”
LOL! Why? We had two World Wars without a World government. No offense, but I think you are a bit over your head here.
“Secondly, Lincoln and the other nationalists were of a ming to assert the supremacy of the national government without the Civil War giving them inspiration.”
Indeed...the War Between the States gave them the MEANS to achieve their nationalist desires.
“They thought that up all by themselves, so accustomed were they to the preeminence of the America as the U.S.”
Which is so historically wrong as to be laughable. Not sure if it’s your wording or you just don’t know better. It makes little sense that they would be “so accustomed” to such a thing when secession was a threat made by the north before it was put into practice by the south.
I recommend you bone up on American history before corresponding any further.
Dixie Ping
“Yeah, when he says Until we can repopulate Georgia
Why do you think he used ‘repopulate’?”
Don’t be fatuous. They didn’t repopulate, did they? I must have missed the part of “history” where the people of Georgia were relocated to concentration camps and folks from New York, etc. moved into their houses. No “repopulation” ever happened, which would lead normal people to believe Sherman didn’t mean it literally. Unless Sherman wanted to do it but didn’t get his way. In that case, what’s the difference, since he didn’t do it anyway? The best you could allege at that point is that it was a failed genocide.
When he says “until,” you’d be better off imagining it as “unless,” because that’s more to the point. Unless the Union army could magically replace the Southerners in Georgia with loyal union men, they’d constantly be a sore spot. Sherman’s saying he knew the local population would never sit idly by and let him occupy them. He knew it’d be prohibitively costly to hold onto the roads and such while leaving their backside exposed.
He might have done what other Union generals did and fought the other side’s army. But he didn’t want to, not least because his fighting prowess was far below his current reputation. He wanted, instead, to destroy the South’s “fighting ability,” which is not the same as committing genocide. But which, incidentally, involved killing civilians.
Yeah, what am I gonna do, believe the history or the man himself? Don’t be ridiculous.
<><><><><
The quotes you have provided, you do realize that they predate the march, right? By about 5 weeks.
I would be very interested in you providing some documentation to the contrary, indicating that Sherman engaged in genocide against the civilian population.
Or does that not matter because of what Sherman wrote?
Or does that not matter because of what Sherman wrote?”
Of course not. His intention is germaine...poor execution has nothing to do with anything. If Hitler had only killed 1 million Jews, would he have not been such a bad guy?
Cripes, give it up.
“Stop posting that, please.”
Oh...YES SIR!
LOL!
I think you hwurt his wittle feelwings.
poor execution has nothing to do with anything. If Hitler had only killed 1 million Jews, would he have not been such a bad guy?
Cripes, give it up.
<><><><<>
Why, because you have the monopoly on the truth of the matter? Really LOL, now.
So now you are backing off the genocide claim because Sherman botched the job with poor execution? So he would have been genocidal but he was incompetent so he was not genocidal.
And you brought up Hitler. Oy.
“I think you hwurt his wittle feelwings.”
I kept insisting on using history instead of “feelings” and quotes instead of re-interpretations of “what Sherman meant”....
Oh, he did plenty of fighting during the war, and he was pretty good at it too. Remember, he had to take Atlanta from Hood's army just to have the opportunity to do what he did later.
But he realized that victory would not be measured in the amount of blood spilled. It would finally be decided when one side or another either lost the will, or the ability to continue the war.
His plan for the March through Georgia was to destroy the supplies and transportation that supplied Lee and the other Southern armies that allowed them to continue fighting.
“Why, because you have the monopoly on the truth of the matter? Really LOL, now.”
No, in my country they are called “facts.”
“So now you are backing off the genocide claim because Sherman botched the job with poor execution?”
No, I’m continuing to make your argument look as stupid as it is.
“His plan for the March through Georgia was to destroy the supplies and transportation...”
...and the PEOPLE...
No, I’m continuing to make your argument look as stupid as it is.
<><><><><
You’ve done a pretty lousy job of it, given that you have provided not a single shred of documentation that the genocide you speak of ever actually happened. In fact, you’ve pretty much backed off the idea of genocide, hiding behind ‘he woulda been genocidal but he was incompetent in being genocidal’.
What Sherman said more than a month before the march is interesting historically, but his actions, what he did in the field is also important. In this case, considerably more important.
And you have completely failed to make the case for genocide.
No, in my country they are called “facts.”
<><><><><<>
Sooooo, Sherman writing about what he was going to do 5 weeks before the march constitutes facts about the march? In spite of the fact that what he wrote did not happen?
Wow. Your threshold for facts is a bit different than what I’m used to.
“LOL! Why? We had two World Wars without a World government. No offense, but I think you are a bit over your head here.”
Obviously, I meant there wouldn’t have been THAT war. No central government, no Civil War. There might have been wars between factions that became U.S. states under the Constitution, but such wars would’ve had nothing to do with the subject at hand, namely “the nationalist path that has given us Obama and ObamaCare.” I hardly think I’m “a bit over my head” to assert that the creation of the national government had something to do with the “nationalist path.”
“Indeed...the War Between the States gave them the MEANS to achieve their nationalist desires.”
So did the original creation of the national government. Moreso, I’d say.
“Which is so historically wrong as to be laughable. Not sure if it’s your wording or you just don’t know better. It makes little sense that they would be ‘so accustomed’ to such a thing when secession was a threat made by the north before it was put into practice by the south.”
Maybe it’s your inability to understand my words. I wonder, if we polled the posters on this thread, whether they’d agree that Lincoln and other federalists were more likely to defend the Constitution, against successionism, as perpetual because that’s the way Americans had lived for four score and seven years, whereas the various successionists movements that popped up here and there died as soon as the appeared. Which is really more laughable, that 80+ years of national government accustomed Lincoln to national government, or that the fact that some people in the North wanted to succeed at one point or another means, I guess, that there is no such thing as a custom of nationalism prior to the Civil War.
How do you figure the perpetual unionists came to their ideology? Was it out of the blue? Were the nationalists who started us on the path to Obama only after defeating the South like V.I. Lenin, creating the political world anew? Or did it have something to do, perhaps, with the fact that there had been a union for as long as they could remember, and that it was more important than the states because none of them had ever seen a state that wasn’t under the control of the national government?
What part of my argument, remind me, was “laughable”?
“Uh.... apparently I followed the reasoning correctly as witnessed by his reply. It is you who are confused and unable to follow along”
That proves nothing. He could have decided to address what it was that you were talking about, without regard to the simple point he had originally made. But even if I’m wrong and have no idea what he was talking about, he still made a good point. Namely that the Constitutional Convention put us on the road to nationalism long before the Civil War did, and that it not being able to pass without leaving slavery alone is neither here nor there.
“Oh...YES SIR!”
I should have clarified, though it should be obvious, that you should stop posting it to me. Which to request is not at all dictatorial, especially as I used the word “please.” So, please, stop with the petty sarcasm.
“poor execution has nothing to do with anything”
Oh, I see, he meant to “repopulate” Georgia but couldn’t quite follow through. Which is far more plausible that he never meant to do so and you simply misinterpreted him. Right.
But it died out in the Northern states and then the slaveholders wanted to reintroduce it, against the wishes of the people who lived in those states.
Seeking to have the law apply to all states is NOT a conspiracy,
So, does this mean if a governor invokes interposition against a federal law you'll be against him? Some "states' righter" you are.
if we are to believe that southern states were equal partners in governance. Or do you believe they the northern states were more equal and were supposed to have the final say in federal matters? Sure sounds like it.
Equal partners? Forcing slavery back into states where it had long since died off, against the wishes of the citizens of those states? That's what you call "equal partners?" No wonder your predecessors seceded from the Union when they realized they'd have to keep it to themselves from then on.
Ever hear of the Missouri Compromise worked out amongst the representatives of all the states, free and slave, in Congress? Ever hear of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which then repealed that compromise?
After this next civil war let's try to remember to outlaw the Democrat party altogether.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.