quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Nation:
War has not always been ugly on a civilian poplulation...not until Lincoln.
quote:
Originally posted by Mr.Dittohead:
The beating they took afterward is their own fault. Accept the consequences or stay at home on the porch.
Yes, it was the civilian populations own fault...they deserved it, right? Here is what they
"deserved":
As a matter of policy (not just random collateral damage) Lincoln instituted a war of terrorism to be waged systematically against women and children in the South...but of course they
"deserved" it.
The administration's battle plan was known as the "Anaconda Plan" because it sought to blockade all Southern ports starving the Southern civilians. Even drugs and medicines were on the government's list of items that were to be kept out of the hands of Southernern civilians...but of course that's what they "deserved".
General George McClellan, the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac, wrote Lincoln a letter asking him to see to it that the war was conducted according to
"the highest principles known to Christian civilization" and to avoid targeting the civilian population to the extent that that was possible. What did Lincoln do? Heed the advice? Naw he replaced McClellan a few months later and got somebody who would give the Southern civilians what they "deserved".
General Sherman writes General Grant:
"the amount of plundering, burning, and stealing done by our own army makes me ashamed of it. I would quit the service if I could for I fear we are drifting toward vandalism . . . .thus you and I and every commander must go through the war justly chargeable of crimes at which we blush."Why blush General Sherman, they "deserved" it.
Sherman soon got with program and started giving the civilian population what they "deserved".
General William Tecumseh Sherman's "march to the sea" his army pillaged, plundered, raped, and murdered civilians while facing very little Confederate Army resistance...but of course the people of Georgia "deserved" it.
In 1862 Sherman was having difficulty subduing Confederate sharpshooters who were harassing federal gunboats on the Mississippi River near Memphis. He then adopted the theory of "collective responsibility" to "justify" attacking innocent civilians in retaliation for such attacks. So he began taking civilian hostages and either trading them for federal prisoners of war or simply executing them..."deservedly" so...
Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, were burned to the ground by Sherman's troops even though there was
NO Confederate army to oppose them. After the burnings his soldiers sacked the town, stealing anything of value and destroying the rest. Sherman boasted that
"for five days, ten thousand of our men worked hard and with a will, in that work of destruction, with axes, sledges, crowbars, clawbars, and with fire.... Meridian no longer exists."But of course as we all know, the citizens of Meridian "deserved" it.
In 1862 Sherman wrote his wife that his purpose in the war would be
"extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people" of the South.
In October of 1864 Sherman ordered troops to go to Fairmount, Georgia...to give them what they "deserved" and
"burn ten or twelve houses" and "kill a few at random," and "let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon."The University of South Carolina's library contains a large collection of thousands diaries and letters of Southern women that were brutally raped by Union soldiers...but I'm sure Mr. Dittohead that these women "deserved" it.
According to a Sherman biographer:
"With the utter disregard for blacks that was the norm among Union troops, the soldiers ransacked the slave cabins, taking whatever they liked. A routine procedure would be to hang a slave by his neck until he told federal soldiers where the plantation owners' valuables were hidden."But I guess they deserved it.
General Philip Sheridan troops essentially burned the entire Shenandoah Valley to the ground...as he described it, they
"destroyed over 2200 barns . . . over 70 mills . . . have driven in front of the army over 4000 head of stock, and have killed . . . not less than 3000 sheep. . . . Tomorrow I will continue the destruction."One of his soldiers wrote home saying he had personally set 60 private homes on fire and that
"it was a hard looking sight to see the women and children turned out of doors at this season of the year."...that "the whole country around is wrapped in flames, the heavens are aglow with the light thereof . . . such mourning, such lamentations, such crying and pleading for mercy by defenseless women... I never saw or want to see again."Why did this soldier worry so? I'm sure they all "deserved" it.
And since they "deserved" it, after it was over in the Shennandoah Valley, Lincoln personally conveyed to Sheridan
"the thanks of the Nation."Sherman admitted after the war, that he was taught at West Point that he could be hanged for the things he did.
Sherman biographer Lee Kennett wrote:
"Had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified...in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violations of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants."Oh surely they "deserved" it...