Posted on 11/18/2001 6:16:15 AM PST by WarIsHellAintItYall
Fox News Sunday Talking Heads Schedule-Today’s guest is General Sherman
(Tomy Slow) Good morning from Fox News. Our questioners today are Mara Lemurson of Public Radio, Jarold Reverso, our newest Fox news field correspondent, and Will O’Really of the O’Really Max Factor.
(Tomy Slow) Today, we have with us General William T. Sherman who will be giving us an update on the war. General Sherman is commander of the Southern Command. Welcome General Sherman.
(General Sherman) Thank you.
(Tomy Slow) General, it is being reported that the opposing forces are being split in the South. Give us an assessment.
(General Sherman) Well Tomy, let me say how pleased I am to be here today, but as you well know we are conducting a war and I can’t tell you anything that might compromise our military operations.
I can tell you that as I left Atlanta, one of my captains was busy torching the city. We ran the 14,000 city residents out of town, and burned 95% of the city. That was more than 4,000 houses, shops, stores, mills, and depots-all burned to the ground. Grand sight. I even had one of the post bands, I think it was the Second Massachusetts volunteers, playing martial and operatic selections as we burned the place.
(Slow) But General, you held the city long enough to be able to destroy the war material factories there. Why burn it? Why burn the homes, the churches? These aren’t necessary for a military victory.
(Sherman) Necessary for the war effort.
(Mara Lemurson) General, we understand that shortly after the Kennesaw skirmish, you took several dozen civilians, men and women, and shipped them up North. Why did you do that? Isn’t that kidnapping?
(Sherman) They were making munitions. Would have started back as soon as we left.
(Lemurson) But General, kidnapping civilians could have been avoided by simply destroying the factory. Why did you choose the most severe solution? These were just women and older men. You put them on trains bound for Ohio. Why?
(Sherman) War is Hell! Next question!
(Jarold Reverso) General, tell us what it is like out there now. Are there lots of fights? People getting shot, and stuff? Dead bodies. Tell us, tell us.
(Sherman) It was exciting. I love the smell of smoke in the morning. But it was more fun in Tennessee, boy.
(Reverso) Why was that?
(Sherman) Well, we’d move, they would attack. We’d flank, they’d attack. We’d flank, they’d attack.
(Slow) Sounds like you were going around in circles, General.
(Sherman) Shut up funny boy. War is Hell.
(Reverso) General, were there lots of battles? This was a really big military campaign, wasn’t it.
(Sherman) Yeah, I would say so. Hood kept moving around threatening to cut off the supplies coming in by rail. As we headed towards Savannah, Smith and Cobb were pesky, but, never really a problem. We pushed on. We burned a wide avenue, destroying the railroads, seizing all provisions, pillaging, plundering and burning.
(Reverso) Good stuff General. Keep going.
(Sherman) We were “marching through Georgia”. We destroyed 100 miles of railroads, consumed the corn and fodder 30 miles on each side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah. We took cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry, and also carried away 10,000 horses and mules. We took countless slaves away. I estimate that the damage done to the state was $100 million, at least $80 million in simple damages inflicted without military necessity.
(Reverso) That’s a great story General.
(Sherman) We did get a bit loose in our foraging, but War is Hell, Jarold!
(O’Really) A little loose? Your own officers, Howard and Slocum said that they were ashamed of the depravity. They said the destruction was four times what you have claimed. They say it was over 400 miles of railroads, 15,000 horses and mules, hundreds of thousands of pounds of food, and that practically every farm was damaged or crops burned. Since by your own admission, there was very little military action, what does this have to do with war?
(Sherman) War is Hell! Get it?
(Mara Lemurson) General, we know that you captured Savannah on December 22, 1864. We have it from reliable sources that you were seen drinking Mint Juleps on Tybee Island with some of the ladies of the city. Don’t you think the people of the Union States deserve to know how its military leaders are conducting their personal lives during this terrible conflict?
(General Sherman) Ms. Lemurson, history will long remember the military accomplishments of this great campaign. These inappropriate rumors about civilians serve only to distract us from our military objectives. I have not had sexual relations with any single woman of the city on or before the date you mentioned.
(Tomy Slow) General, the Southern newspapers call you, and I quote, the “Attila of the West” and they say that you have “the spirit of a thousand fiends centered in one.”
(General Sherman) Shut up, pretty boy. It is a great honor to be rebuked by the enemy.
(Tomy Slow) But General the atrocities against civilians attributed to you is unprecedented and some say illegal. What do you say to these people?
(General Sherman) War, like the thunderbolt, follows its laws and turns not aside even if the beautiful, the virtuous and the charitable stand in its path. How do you like that, string-bean?
(Will O’Really) General are you justifying the burning and destruction of private citizens’ homes, the stealing of private citizens’ property, the kidnapping of private citizens, the wanton burning of the state on your assumptions of the proper conduct of warfare?
(General Sherman) You cannot have a partial war; if you have war you have total war. I am conducting total war on our enemy. I am not conducting a tea party. In Chattanooga I was given the order to move against Confederate General Johnston and to get to the interior of the enemy and I inflicted as much pain as possible.
(O’Really) (throwing hands up) Wait a minute General. War is waged against armies, not defenseless people.
(General Sherman) Look, if I left them alone, they would be helping their army.
(O’Really) (Leaning forward) So you took away the ability of the people to survive. You burned them into submission.
(General Sherman) So what! You did the same things to the slaves, so you get the same.
(O’Really) (Standing up, moving around the table) This is a no spin zone. You bear the responsibility of your own actions, General. You don’t rationalize your utter destruction of the citizens of this country based on your concept of morality. Who do you think you are, Abraham Lincoln?
(General Sherman) (Standing up, reaching for something) Look O’Really, war is hell and Lincoln said I could do whatever I wanted. Yeah, I kidnapped those people. And when we took Atlanta, we issued orders for all the people to leave. (Beginning to pace around the table). I ordered my troops to destroy any thing that could be used for warfare. Then I burned the entire place. I did it because everything before had not been enough. Then we decided to head for Savannah. Yeah, we burned everything along the way; barns, houses, corn cribs. We destroyed all the railroads. We did it because we could. (Reaching into pocket) They couldn’t ship any food to the troops.
(O’Really) But that also cut off all the food to the Union prisoners in Andersonville.
(General Sherman) (now delicately rolling two mini balls in his left hand) It was Lincoln and Seward’s decision to leave our troops in Confederate hands. I said war is Hell, O’Really. I was moving onto Savannah; I didn’t care. They thought they had beaten me in Tennessee. They did for a while, but I showed them. I was brilliant. They thought they had me at Kennesaw, but I flanked again. I was really brilliant there.
Then I took Savannah. Nice people here. Nice ladies. Like these Southern belles.
Now, I am going to Charleston. But wait, maybe I won’t be nice to them. Yes, that’s the ticket. Charleston is where it all began. I will make them howl. I wonder if the strawberries will be ripe by the time I get to Columbia.
(Will O’Really) General Sherman. Another General has said this:
“The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly--the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which imparts sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.”
(Will O’Really) What do you think of General Lee’s comment?
(General Sherman) What does Lee know about making war?
(O’Really) Well, isn’t that the point, General Sherman. General Lee is defending his country from invaders. He isn’t making war, he is defending against it. You are the one making war. If you are not, why are you in Savannah?
(General Sherman) (rapidly moving mini balls in hand) We are here to make war, make them howl, make them pay. Genius is in simplicity, not morality. Its o.k. with Lincoln
(O’Really) Seems as if there are no limits on what Lincoln would do to cause one part of the country to attack the other.
(Slow) Genius, without morality, is evil genius.
(Reverso) You are a respected General, Sir, and I will not let you be attacked for your behavior with the ladies of Savannah.
(Lemurson) Oh, stuff it Jarold.
Wasn't Ft. Sumter about 550 miles from the nearest Union town?
...
(General Sherman) (rapidly moving mini balls in hand)
I believe the proper term was "minie balls."
I like yours better, though.
Are you accusing Sherman of castrating Confederates, too?
Your Lee quote shows that Lee was a very good talker, though perhaps a little too inclined to get caught up in cant. One who fought mostly in areas where sympathizers with his cause lived could much more easily advocate good treatment of the captured, than one fighting where the locals may have been bitterly hostile.
Curiously, this chivalry did not apply to the treatment of Blacks whom Lee's Army came upon, nor to Black soldiers captured by Confederate Armies. Nor would those who suffered from the bloody guerilla wars in the Border States take much comfort from Lee's words.
You do your best to make your Sherman sound worse than the historical record, but at least he doesn't try to make himself sound better than he was or war sound better, higher, or nobler than it is
Aside from the paranoid reference, all the data is taken from various sources. His actions were as bad as described, no better rationalized today by his simplistic moral constructs, than in his day.
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