Rabid Cougar said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Does the burning of Chambersburg, PA by the Confederates change anyone's opinion?

Burning of Chambersburg

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Nope. They should have paid the ransom. Several other towns did so when McCauslan showed up. I don't believe ransom was an option in Georgia and South Carolina.

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Is it not an outrage if you blackmail them first?

BQ78 said:

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In general scenarios, it was the Federals who ratcheted things closer to Hard War and the Confederates tended to respond in kind. Chambersburg was retaliation for David Hunter's burning of the upper Shenandoah.

Both sides were awful and we seem to be arguing over what pig looks better with lipstick on it.

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That's how I tend to see it. Is there any evidence that Sherman's March end the war sooner than it would have without?

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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BQ78 said:

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In general scenarios, it was the Federals who ratcheted things closer to Hard War and the Confederates tended to respond in kind. Chambersburg was retaliation for David Hunter's burning of the upper Shenandoah.

Both sides were awful and we seem to be arguing over what pig looks better with lipstick on it.

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That's how I tend to see it. Is there any evidence that Sherman's March end the war sooner than it would have without?

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It's hard to quantify. Confederate desertion rates spiked towards the end of 1864 and the March absolutely limited agricultural supplies to Lee. It also repositioned Sherman's army to move against the Carolinas and towards Grant if necessary. That alone helped move the war towards an end.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Does the burning of Chambersburg, PA by the Confederates change anyone's opinion?

Burning of Chambersburg

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Nope. They should have paid the ransom. Several other towns did so when McCauslan showed up. I don't believe ransom was an option in Georgia and South Carolina.

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So polite stealing and destruction of private property is what Sherman should have done?

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No. He did exactly what he should have done to accomplish his mission. Personally think that Lee should have laid waste to Maryland and Pennsylvania during his excursions.

The Valley was an entirely different situation. Lots of retribution going back and forth way before Sherman did his business. Just got worse as the war went on.

Sapper Redux said:

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Rabid Cougar said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Does the burning of Chambersburg, PA by the Confederates change anyone's opinion?

Burning of Chambersburg

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Nope. They should have paid the ransom. Several other towns did so when McCauslan showed up. I don't believe ransom was an option in Georgia and South Carolina.

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Is it not an outrage if you blackmail them first?

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Nope. Extortion is always an option.

Is it an acceptable option?

Not to mention the devastating and long-term economic effects until 1920. As per the National Bureau of Economic Research.

This didn't just affect whites but freedmen who were already experiencing tumult.

Edit: not sure why the link isn't working. It's easily Google-able.

They summarily executed southern civilians by lot.

You are going to have to back this up to be believed. It is not in your article and not anything I have read before.

BQ78 said:

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They summarily executed southern civilians by lot.

You are going to have to back this up to be believed. It is not in your article and not anything I have read before.

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William T Sherman:
"…war is simply power unrestrained by the Constitution "

https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4400&context=etd
P.41

" In Kingston, Georgia, Sherman wrote to U.S. Major General Philip H. Sheridan, "I am satisfied…that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory, so that hard, bull-dog fighting, and a great deal of it, yet remains to be done….Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results."
https://scv.org/part-xiii-general-shermans-atrocities-and-war-crimes/

Also read Walter Brian Cisco's "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians".

UTExan said:

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BQ78 said:

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They summarily executed southern civilians by lot.

You are going to have to back this up to be believed. It is not in your article and not anything I have read before.

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William T Sherman:
"…war is simply power unrestrained by the Constitution "

https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4400&context=etd
P.41

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Page 41 has nothing of the sort.

Sapper Redux said:

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UTExan said:

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BQ78 said:

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They summarily executed southern civilians by lot.

You are going to have to back this up to be believed. It is not in your article and not anything I have read before.

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William T Sherman:
"…war is simply power unrestrained by the Constitution "

https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4400&context=etd
P.41

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Page 41 has nothing of the sort.

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You're correct. It's page 36. I was going by the electronic count but the actual page heading for the paper's quote is p. 36.
Do you have anything of substance or additional sources to contribute or are you just here to attack sources because they are "Confederate "? You didn't expect the GAR to highlight their own atrocities, did you?

Disprove the sources if you have a factual basis in additional material.

I've already pointed out that the interpretation of Sherman's quote that you provided is biased. The thesis you're referencing makes no claims about shooting Southern civilians. It notes that Sherman believed the war was the result of the Southern rich looking to protect their own interests and that the blood of the war was on their heads.

I wouldn't use the GAR as a source uncritically precisely because they have a narrative to push. Why would use sources with even more of a narrative to push?

Sapper Redux said:

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I've already pointed out that the interpretation of Sherman's quote that you provided is biased. The thesis you're referencing makes no claims about shooting Southern civilians. It notes that Sherman believed the war was the result of the Southern rich looking to protect their own interests and that the blood of the war was on their heads.

I wouldn't use the GAR as a source uncritically precisely because they have a narrative to push. Why would use sources with even more of a narrative to push?

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Any scholarly work from southern authors published before 2000 is heavily biased by the "lost cause" myth and must be taken with a grain of salt.

Normally the victors write the history. In the case of the Civil War the losers published first.

See but it feels like *everything* is lost cause now.

I've heard stories of NPS and third-party tour guides at Gettysburg being shouted down merely describing Confederate successes on July 1. Some get dirty looks attempting to read primary sources on the battle, such as O.R.s, because they're not Union in origin.

So no date, location, officers in charge or civilians executed by drawing lots. That's what I thought.

I did a living history for the 160th Antietam as Confederate Infantry and saw zero issues, everyone there was engaged and enjoyed the program.

The Palmyra Massacre was a lot taken by Confederate POWs captured under arms, fighting US soldiers, not civilians. It was also in retaliation for the execution of Union POWs.

Recommend you read Lonnie Speer's War of Vengeance for the particulars

I thought your original accusation was saying Sherman's troops executed civilians by lot on his March to the Sea. The War in Missouri was a different animal with plenty of atrocities on both sides. There were plenty of murders and the war there did not end with the war, i.e. the James-Younger Gang. But as brutal as it was in Missouri there were no executions of civilians by the drawing of lots.

the_batman26 said:

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See but it feels like *everything* is lost cause now.

I've heard stories of NPS and third-party tour guides at Gettysburg being shouted down merely describing Confederate successes on July 1. Some get dirty looks attempting to read primary sources on the battle, such as O.R.s, because they're not Union in origin.

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Yes, unfortunately the pendulum has swung the opposite direction. We need to weed the truth from the lost cause myth. It will take another generation before we come to the consensus of the "truth".

We should begin with Sherman.

Sherman was a modern general (in the same vein as say a Patton) and not a war criminal.
Longstreet was a good corps commander and did not fail at Gettysburg (that was Lee's mistake)
Lee was not a saint and but was good general of an army (not necessarily the armies)
Grant was not a butcher, but rather a good general of the armies.

I'm not saying terrible atrocities didn't occur by both sides throughout the war, I'm arguing that Federal forces executing civilians after the drawing of lots never happened. Not by Sherman or even in war-crime riddled Missouri

Members of Col. Joseph Porter's Regiment of the Missouri State Guard are not civilians.

The book "With Porter in North Missouri" by Joseph A Mudd states that federal militia in Missouri killed "hundreds" of prisoners, Confederate and civilian.
https://www.mogenweb.org/monroe/sidnerstory.htm

Your contention that they were all military is questionable. Being a political partisan is different than being an active military participant.

Back to Columbia, SC:
Yankee soldiers gang-raped two girls which resulted in Joseph Wheeler's cavalry tracking down the rapists and killing them. In Cheraw, Union troops selected, by lot a Confederate prisoner to be executed in retaliation: he was a middle aged Methodist minister with nine children.
Captain Daniel Oakley of the 2nd Massachusetts bitterly lamented the destruction of property and ravaging of women due to the license Sherman granted his thugs to damage, loot and rape. (p. 117 of Scruggs' book).

Sherman was an effective and victorious general. Just as looking at the Confederates and secessionists with today's eyes paints a dim view of "The Lost Cause" it is also hard to view someone like Sherman who was hard and un-remorseful and only counted victory as the ultimate goal. They were men of their times, possibly flawed but still products of their times.

Sherman's march through SC and GA was harsh and terrible, vile really. But the effort that Sherman led against the Indians out west might have been worse in terms of blood lust and open ended "free for all" orders and approvals. Without a doubt he was a harsh blood thirsty man and had no problem killing innocents if it improved his chance of victory. Did he do this and employ these tactics in SC and GA? In my opinion probably. His statements and records that document his position toward Indians, in terms of women and children, are fairly clear and they do not paint him in a good light at all. But again, he was a man of his time and just like many Southerner's viewed blacks as sub-human he likely viewed the Indians that way as well.

Years ago I read a kind of biography written by a young woman in GA that survived the civil war and one of the things that stuck out to me was her relation of the hunger that they experienced as Sherman's troops advanced. And it wasn't due to Sherman's troops, but to the Confederates as they retreated and were basically starving and took all that they could get their hands on. But she related that when the Yankees came, the population was treated harshly and abused, and while the Confederates had taken their food, the Yankees were well fed and just mean and vindictive towards them with beatings, rapes, and other privations.

UTExan said:

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doubledog said:

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UTExan said:

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Sherman was a war criminal who should have been shot or hanged. He shocked Prussian officers with the viciousness of his army in its conduct toward civilians. He is a stain on the history of the US Army, far worse than any other commander in wreaking undeserved misery on southern civilians, livestock and property.

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So by your reasoning, Eisenhower is a war criminal for allowing the Army Air Corps firebombing of Dresden (just to name one) in World War II, because of the viciousness of the Air Corps in its conduct toward civilians.

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I believe that was actually the Strategic Bombing folks, but your suggestion has some merit. Same for target selection of Hiroshima. But that was organized violence. What Union commanders did was allow, even encourage rape/murder, terrorism against civilians, summary executions, etc. Lincoln shut down opposition to the war effort emanating from northern press. Southerners also participated in and planned terrorist acts against northern civilians, but Sherman's March is one for the war crimes books.

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You are correct Dresden was the British. Ok back to Eisenhower, the U.S. Army also committed isolated rapes and terrorisms in their March across France and Germany, does that make Eisenhower a war criminal?
The encouragement from Sherman is questionable, I think his Special Field Order no 120 specifically stated

" Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp."

Does not sound like he encouraged terrorism against civilians.

doubledog said:

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UTExan said:

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doubledog said:

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UTExan said:

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Sherman was a war criminal who should have been shot or hanged. He shocked Prussian officers with the viciousness of his army in its conduct toward civilians. He is a stain on the history of the US Army, far worse than any other commander in wreaking undeserved misery on southern civilians, livestock and property.

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So by your reasoning, Eisenhower is a war criminal for allowing the Army Air Corps firebombing of Dresden (just to name one) in World War II, because of the viciousness of the Air Corps in its conduct toward civilians.

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I believe that was actually the Strategic Bombing folks, but your suggestion has some merit. Same for target selection of Hiroshima. But that was organized violence. What Union commanders did was allow, even encourage rape/murder, terrorism against civilians, summary executions, etc. Lincoln shut down opposition to the war effort emanating from northern press. Southerners also participated in and planned terrorist acts against northern civilians, but Sherman's March is one for the war crimes books.

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You are correct Dresden was the British. Ok back to Eisenhower, the U.S. Army also committed isolated rapes and terrorisms in their March across France and Germany, does that make Eisenhower a war criminal?
The encouragement from Sherman is questionable, I think his Special Field Order no 120 specifically stated

" Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp."

Does not sound like he encouraged terrorism against civilians.

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The abuse of civilians during his Georgia campaign was not isolated. Nor was it during his South Carolina campaign. Looting, burning, murder/gang rape=war crimes.
It's not that hard.