That can be easily denied, since he ordered the burning of precisely one city - Atlanta - and before he did that he took six weeks to make sure it was evacuated and he also made provision that the churches and hospitals (some still standing today) would be spared.
with little to no opposition.
Once John Bell Hood turned tail and ran, Sherman encountered zero opposition.
He may not have ordered the plundering but he stood by and let his men rape, loot, and kill defenseless women and children.
This simply did not happen. Contemporary reports from the time in Southern newspapers, as well as accounts from private journals and letters - of both Southerners and Union troops - describe plenty of looting (this was the purpose of the exercise, just like JEB Stuart and other of Lee's officers in Pennsylvania), but nothing regarding the rape and murder of defenseless women and children.
This is no myth.
Oh, that part is most certainly a myth. While individual Confederate and Union soldiers committed all sorts of individual crimes against civilians throughout all the theaters of the war, Sherman's March was described by both sides as an orderly and organized affair which accomplished its main purpose: to seize as much provisions and livestock as the army could carry without slowing its march to Savannah, while making sure all the rail connections in their rear were either secured or cut.
If you think this behavior is “heroic” shame on you.
Were the actions of Confederate looters in Pennsylvania under Lee's command "heroic"? Did their actions, ordered by him, make him not a "heroic" commander?
The fact is, armies need food and transportation for themselves and they need to deny the enemy food and transportation.
Sherman's March affected less than 10% of the Georgia population and took less than 5% of the state's crop yield that year.
What the March proved was that support for the Confederacy in the South was a mile wide and an inch deep.
Your original post was uncalled for and is akin to the Westborough Baptist church demonstrating at a veteran’s funeral.
What a strange statement.
My original post was completely uncontroversial. What about it could possibly be compared to the rantings of proud Mississippian Fred Phelps?
You said: "That can be easily denied, since he ordered the burning of precisely one city - Atlanta."
Not only can your contention be denied, but proved a canard.
Scores of towns and villages in Georgia and South Carolina were torched by Sherman's troops. If you want to assert that he did not order any further burning after Atlanta in Sept of 1864, the word had not reached his officers by February of 1865. Here is documentation from a post by Rustbucket: the burning and destruction of those listed SC towns and villages.
Hardeeville: "[SHERMAN'S MARCH THROUGH THE CAROLIINAS] Confederates skirmish at Hardeeville and federals burn the town all night/1865" Link
Barnwell: "The town of Barnwell was burned as was part of Orangeburg and Winnsboro." Link
Grahamville: "Most of the buildings in the town were burned by Gen. Sherman’s troops in 1865." Link
Gallisonville: "burned and left in ruin" Link
McPhersonville: General Logan (Union) to General Howard (Union), January 7 - March 31, 1865 report: "In accordance with your Field Order, Numbers 29, I moved the corps from McPhersonville to Hickory Hill, breaking camp at 7 a.m. Before the rear of my column passed through McPhersonville I regret to inform you that the village was in flames. This was doubtlessly induced by the desertion of their houses by the entire population, for on our entrance into the village not a human being was to be found." Link
Barnwell: "The town of Barnwell was burned as was part of Orangeburg and Winnsboro." Link
Blackville: "On February 12th the army marched out of Blackville, leaving a trail of smoke behind them. A few homes and other buildings survived due to the vigilance and fast work of the villagers." Link
Orangeburg: "Sherman's men push back the Confederate forces at Orangeburg and begin to destroy the railway there and set fire to the town. By the end of the day nearly half the town is destroyed by the fire." Link
Lexington: "The town suffered tremendous loss of buildings in 1865 under the occupation of forces under the command of Gen. Sherman (Lexington was under control of the army guarding the Western Flank of Shermans troops.) Most businesses and homes, the county jail and courthouse and St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church were all burned." Link
Columbia: "The city of Columbia surrenders to Sherman. Union troops occupy the city. A fire breaks out, and by the next day, nearly two-thirds of the city has been destroyed." Link. And: Union Captain George Whitfield Pepper reported in his 1866 book that he met crowds of soldiers returning from Columbia "waving gold watches, handfuls of gold, jewelry, and rebel shinplasters [rb: paper money] in the air, and boasting of having burned the town."
Winnsboro: "During the Civil War, it was looted and partially burned by Union troops in 1865, but many older structures remain." Link. And: "On his march north from the capital city of Columbia in February 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman had stopped just long enough to burn most of the town, an act that was not soon forgotten." Link. And: ""There were about thirty buildings burned, including dwellings and stores. The Yankees did not seem to care whether a building was occupied or not, but picked out-houses where, in their burning, they would communicate the flames to other premises. Every particle of property burned belonged to private individuals. No public property was destroyed. ... The Yankees also set fire to, and destroyed, the Episcopal Church, situated in the northwestern portion of the town; and while it was burning they took the organ, played upon it, and sang blasphemous songs. Many of the citizens were plundered; wedding rings and mementoes of deceased husbands or parents were stolen as ruthlessly as gold coin would have been. Watches and jewelry were cut from the persons of ladies, and, in some instances, their shoes removed on the pretence of searching for rings." Link
Camden: "Ultimately, like so many other towns in South Carolina, Camden did not escape the wrath of Sherman's men. In February 1865, many of its buildings were once again burned." Link. And: “Most of Camden escaped the torch …” Link. And: "On the 24th of February 1865, during the Civil War, a part of Gen. W. T.Sherman's. army entered Camden and burned stores of tobacco and cotton, and several buildings." Link. And: "In Camden, the Federals burned the railroad depots, a bridge, two thousand bales of cotton, food warehouses, and a flour mill." Link
Cheraw: "Outlying plantations and summer homes are burned, but no in town dwellings or churches are destroyed. Valuables are stolen and there is much vandalism. The official headquarters is the Matheson House. Sherman himself stays on McIver Street. When they leave the town will be destitute, and without food for more than a day or two. Almost the entire business district is destroyed by an accidental Yankee explosion." Link
Williston: "The Union forces then tore up railroad tracks and burned many of Williston’s homes." Link
That is a vast misrepresentation of the truth. In his memoirs Sherman boasted that his army destroyed more than $100 million in private property and carried home $20 million more during his "march to the sea."
From The Augusta Chronicle [Georgia] as reported in an 1864 issue of the New Orleans Daily Picayune:
In their route they [Sherman's troops] destroyed, as far as possible, all mills, cribs, and carried off all stock, provisions, and negroes, and when their horses gave out they shot them. At Canton they killed over 100. ... All along their route the road was strewn with dead horses, Farmers having devoted a large share of their attention to syrup making, there is a large quantity of cotton ungathered in the field, which was left by Federals, but there is not a horse or ox in the country, hence the saving of corn will be a difficult matter. At Madison, they broke open Oglesby's office and carried off all his medicines. ...
On going to McCradle's place he [a Georgia legislator] found his fine house and ginhouse burned, every horse and mule gone, and in his lot 100 dead horses, that looked like good stock, that were evidently killed to deprive the planters of them.
...No farm on the road to the place, and as far as we hear from toward Atlanta, escaped their brutal ravages. They ravaged the country below there to the Oconee River. The roads were strewn with the debris of their progress. Dead horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chicken, corn, wheat, cotton, books, paper, broken vessels, coffee mills, and fragments of nearly every species of property strewed the wayside.
...They gutted every store, and plundered more or less of everything. ... Many families have not a pound of meat or peck of meal or flour.