Posted on 03/31/2006 6:24:26 PM PST by quidnunc
Too true ... I visited the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Ill. and it was awe inspiring ....but Douglas had it right. Lincoln didn't free any slaves. He couldn't free those in the North because they were free already ... he couldn't free them in the Border States because he didn't want them going over to the South (he hedged in his Emancipation Proclamation) and finally he couldn't free those in the South because the war was still going on and he had no control over the South. In retrospect, a lot of the "slaves" stayed at the plantations when their masters went to war to take care of the place, also, some of them went with their masters to serve them while they were fighting ....
(American history not taught in government public schools) ....
Whatever Sherman was, he was certainly a great General. He may have saved the Union. If he had not taken Atlanta, Lincoln might well have lost the 1864 election to McLellan, who would have likely made peace with the South. Slavery and an unspeakably immoral South would have survived until who knows when, and both the North and the South would have been much weaker than the two combined. Sherman simply believed in all-out war, like Nathan Bedford Forrest and many others. Were they all war criminals? Was Curtis LeMay a war criminal for wanting to bomb North Vietnam "back to the stone age," assuming he wanted to do that. Was Truman a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb? Were Nixon and Johnson war criminals for unleashing B-52's on North Vietnam? Was George Patton a War criminal for driving as hard and fast as he could across Europe without stopping every 15 minutes and giving the Germans some time to change their minds and surrender?
ML/NJ
lol! Such an amazing display of erudition! In fact Sherman ordered his subordinate General Watkins to round up and randomly execute "secessionists" in retaliation for attacks by the Confederate Army. A technique which another army would use on another continent some 60 years later.
I don't blame you for trying to whitewash Sherman's behavior. He threw out the Christian precepts against total war and brought hell to the defenseless civilian population. In his defense he may well have been insane, and not responsible for his amoral depravity. Which cannot excuse those who used him as their instrument.
"My only belief is that Western liberalism will prove stronger than 8th-century primordialism, but not if we in the West don't believe in our own values."
Pretty much nails it...
They sure as hell believe in theirs.
Hey, you've convinced me- I'm an ends-justifies-the-means kinda guy, and Might does make Right. And if it doesn't, who the hell cares? The other side are Losers.
"Kill them all, and God will sort out the good and the bad."
In actuality most of those executed were local officials who were tied to the treasonous government of the Confederacy, who's army's record of atrocities surpasses that of the US Army in the War of Southern Insurrection.
Race is made-up way to think about people. We are all humans. If you want to make up categories, you can do it any way you like, I guess. If you want to call all blue-eyed, red-headed Norsemen a race, you are free to do so. Mexican is no sillier than Negroid as a racial category.
Are you saying the execution of war should be charitable? Do you think we should be more charitable in Iraq? Should we tread gently?
Apply what you're saying to Iraq, or WWII, and see if it makes any sense.
Let me make it easy: it doesn't.
In his defense he may well have been insane, and not responsible for his amoral depravity. Which cannot excuse those who used him as their instrument.
Or those who obeyed his orders.
(Gen. Wm. T. Sherman)One of my heroes since childhood:
Mine too, Clemenza though as I grew up in the South when I sang the praises of Sherman it brought about much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Sherman brought the concept of total war on the South and "made Georgia howl"......then he made South Carolina howl louder. Single handedly gave Lincoln the election in 1864 by sacking Atlanta.
Here's my favorite quote by my favorite Civil War General
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace"
The bombing of Dresden was immoral. City = target, great swaths of the city together with its population indiscriminately incinerated. God will judge. It doesn't matter who does it. It's wrong.
No need for the "sorry." I only meant to state an opinion.
I understand that a moral argument can be made against Dresden, or Hiroshima, for that matter.
I don't agree with it. Germany and Japan were aggressors in a nasty war, and we had to do what it takes to win.
Same with the South. Same with Iraq.
After the war is ended, I'm all for charity and lack of malice. But while it's being fought, I don't see any value in trying to win it gently.
My family came to this country after the Civil War, so it isn't the emotional issue that it is for others. I still think of the war as the greatest tragedy ever to befall this nation. It should have been prevented. Unfortunatly, the "personal had become political" by the 1850s and there was no going back.
Ok, thanks ... it's hard to read into some of these posts what the person feels ... so I try to write in such a way as to not invoke hostility .... make sense??
Regards,
Jane
People who think the civil war could have been avoided delude themselves. It was inevitable and crushing the secessionist states was necessary to make the "slavemaster thing" not quite so appealing as it had been for 80 years.
Read a great book not long ago entitled John Brown:Abolitionist which does the best job of anything I've ever read in depicting the mood of the times....it was murderous and was only going to be settled one way...just as it was.
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