American Thinker: At a time when Confederate monuments are being pulled down, it would make sense to think one of the military geniuses who defeated the real live Confederates might, conversely, be honored, right?
Not in an age of idiocy.
So the 200th birthday of General William T. Sherman, destroyer of Atlanta and much of the South across the Civil War, the master strategist who, alongside U.S. Grant, led the Union forces to victory, goes virtually unnoted.
He’s been called the first modern general, the general of total war, a man whose place in history is certainly worth some kind of notation. At a minimum, his total warfare is what finally got the slaves freed in the South, which, while some historians quibble about it, was pretty much what the Civil War was about.
It shows that all the Confederate statue pull-downs weren’t really about slavery or virtue-signaling. Total war isn’t a popular thing, any more than victory is to this bunch, even if it means black people could finally be physically out of chains. That was the way black people were freed, though. Today’s leftists are convinced that the only way to enact any change of that kind is through Gandhi-an nonviolent resistance — which did work to end bad social constructs that followed the Civil War but were useless in freeing people in physical chains. Only true physical force (by Sherman and Grant) really worked in that circumstance. That might explain why the wokesters are not cheering Sherman’s birthday, or appreciating anything Sherman achieved by force, which was rather consequential to the Confederates in the days when it mattered. Statues are so much easier.
h/t Forcibly Deranged.
Break out the popcorn!
nah … he served under Republicans & killed a lot of Indians
Sherman knew that when you attack you must completely destroy your opponent to win, because all they have to do to win is survive your attack.
Bad ass dude,we need more of them.
There were fine people on both sides.
As a native Atlantan, that is all I’m going to say about that.
Whut about Mr Peabody? Why isn’t he mentioned???
I call Dog Bias!!
Is that the guy that was named after a tank?
how brutal!
/top lefty college educated student
As a Southerner by the grace of God Sherman is remembered as an arsonist
I hear that he made a good second career selling lawn mower engines
Fort Sherman on the lake shore of CDA, Id. was named after him and Sherman Ave. is the main drag thru downtown CDA.
As I learned in Marine Corp boot camp; the purpose of war is to destroy the enemy or his will to fight.
Honoring Sherman is to say that the ends justify the means.
Sherman’s means were barbaric; monstrous.
Sherman is still rightly despised even today by Southerners that know history because of his vile, murderous acts against innocent civilians as is noted in this comment taken from the artlcle’s comment section.
“My great grandfathers were Confederate officers although one was too old to fight so he was captain of the Home Guard and hanged his own cousin for desertion.
My grandparents were born within a few years after the end of the war and two of them lived during Reconstruction.
The stories they told about the Yankees…..when they came through parts of Virginia and North Carolina.
They pillaged, raped, robbed, burned down houses and barns. They stole what livestock they could use and slaughtered the rest. They threw the dead carcasses in the streams and poisoned the wells.
They salted the fields so they could not grow anything; they ring-barked the fruit and nut trees; they tore up fences and burned then the wood.
They raped, robbed and murdered innocent citizens.
They burned down houses and barns and fields.
My own mother remembers the stories her grandmother told her about starving.
The Yankees took everything and left innocent citizens with nothing.
My great-grandmother said they were reduced to eating shoe leather and drinking something that was made from a concoction of acorns.
Today Sherman would be tried for war crimes.
Well, maybe. The godless Millennials would probably cheer for Sherman.”
As a Georgian, and Southerner, (yes, by the grace of God,) I can honestly say I am not a fan of Sherman.
Anyone know why Grant got Lincoln’s eye? Not the capture of two forts. It was because he over ran a Confederate camp and killed the sick and injured. Sherman was terrible up against an opposing army. But he knew how to kill women and children, and that was his only talent. Custer was such a great fighter, till Little Big Horn. But the Indians had figured his strategy and were wait for him. That strategy was to attack and kill the women and children while the men were fighting at another area. Yes, these were really great men.
Sherman’s March
By Clyde Wilson on Feb 18, 2015
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/clyde-wilson-library/shermans-march/
Rehabbing Sherman
By James Rutledge Roesch on Nov 18, 2014
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/rehabbing-sherman/
david7135, I think I remember a story of Sitting Bull taking the children to shelter as his first action before joining the battle against Custer.
Union or Else
By Karen Stokes on Feb 17, 2017
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/union-or-else/
Death is Mercy to Secessionists
By Bernard Thuersam on Mar 21, 2016
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/death-is-mercy-to-secessionists/
Conduct of the Northern Army
By Karen Stokes on Nov 28, 2014
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/conduct-of-the-northern-army/
The “Hard Hand of War”
By Kirkpatrick Sale on Jan 5, 2015
https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-hard-hand-of-war/
Thanks for the excellent links Cato. The second one (in your first comment) is spot on as to how history has been revised (and is still being revised) to wash away the blood soaked stains of the true evil that was “the war against southern independence”.
There seem to be good arguments both for and against Sherman.
The rape and pillage of southern farms and towns is abhorrent. I usually find myself defending the Southern states and southerners from leftist charges that they are some sort of American Nazis. The Confederacy did not maintain concentration or death camps. There was no policy of extermination of races that I have ever read of. A member of Davis’s cabinet was a Jewish man. Slaves were at least assets and no plantation owner would, in his right mind, destroy his own assets. The Confederacy was established to protect an economic system – one that needed to end, somehow, in some way. But it was no tyranny either.
One of the important Civil Ware issues that I have read about was the economic make up of the new states to the west – were they to be free labor or slave labor? That was viciously fought over in Kansas – called “Bleeding Kansas” in the 1850’s. With all due respect to our southern brothers, I say that free labor had to win. There was no other way for the country to continue – at least as one united country.
I despise the tearing down of Confederate statues. There is one in Alexandria VA that honors all Confederate soldiers. I’m surprised the leftists haven’t torn it down yet. Statues are part of our history and those leaders should be honored. I do so.
BTW, I think General Phil Sheridan was known as an Indian fighter more that Sherman was. Terrible things happened to Indian women, children, and old people -like what happened in Georgia. But their way of life could not last. If you look at a map of Indian Reservations today, you have to conclude they control huge amounts of territory – like the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota – it’s probably bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Indian nations have a lot to be thankful for to be part of the US.
Not a Sherman fan, but reading this history (that I read on AT earlier today) and contrasting it with the history of the bombing of Hiroshima, (that was just broadcast on Smithsonian channel), forces an interesting assessment about attitudes for those two events after reading or watching them on the same day just hours apart.
Can we judge a generals’ actions or methods at a time, then in a Civil War, compared to now?
In 1779, G Washington sent J Sullivan to do some revenge work.
Sullivan’s Expedition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Expedition
Speaking of how and what we would have done now compared to then, is similar to the Left when they talk out of context when speaking, for instance, of the Founders as being slave holders.
Interesting how that was one of the reasons we were fighting a war against each other 80 years post Constitution ratification.
There is a great statue of Sherman and Victory on the corner of 59th and Fifth in Grand Army Plaza, Manhattan, done by Augustus Saint Gaudens, 1902.
The busts of R Lee and S Jackson were removed from a place called the ‘Hall of Fame of Great Americans’. This was built in around 1900.
It took a jackboot like A Cuomo to remove them in 2017:
https://ny.curbed.com/2017/8/16/16158414/bronx-community-college-confederate-busts-nyc
Don’t even think the federal government held the high moral ground;
look at the negroes that die everyday through 60,000,000 abortions
promulgated by the government. The zeitgeist was to destroy
the southern man and his views of secession. Since then the federal government
has gone around the world killing and destroying countries.
Fritz,
You are correct. Sitting Bill went with the women and children to a rear portion of the village. But he could not fight. He was recovering from his dream ordeal. But warriors were with this group and best back what calvary that got across the river, a hard thing to do. When you look at the list of Sioux dead, there is a disproportionate number of women.
We DON’T think of him around our parts (North Carolina)…
We are about to have another civil war here.
Who do you want on your side?
Some one like Sherman or ?
david7135, thanks for that. Appreciate your knowledge of this great history.
@ Geoff C. The Saltine – hold your horses there! What civil war are you talking about, the one the Left wants?
They are provoking and we should NOT take any bait but hold our line(s). They/Feds are just a waiting for us to make a wrong move.
That said, there will be no ‘Mason Dixon Line’ in the future.
One could understand the justification the Russians used to punish the German people by the systematic raping and pillaging of German women and countryside and the enslavement and murder of German soldiers and civilians especially considering what the Germans had done to them. What Sherman did to his own former countrymen who were destined to be his countrymen again was an act of sadism. How ironic that it’s the policies of the Northern victors that have truly enslaved the black people that they claimed to save.
What’s with all the negativity about a
littleconsistent stream of rape, infanticide, and torture? I thought only warcriminalsheroes, were to be allowed to vote in New Improved United States Land? I keep being told that “If you don’t loves up a good ol’ genocide, you’re morally unfit to rule us!” What’s with all the tears for losers who deserved to be killed? And have alltheirthat tasty loot taken?@Geoff C. – in today’s terms, Sherman would be leading a pack of antifa thugs to destroy the defenseless suburbs (women, children and men too old to fight) while the men of the suburbs were away fighting on the front lines of said war. I would take most any human being with a soul and conscience over Sherman in any situation. Murdering / raping the defenseless families of what was until recently your fellow countrymen and deliberately leaving their wives and children to starve (including the slaves you were supposedly “freeing”) does not constitute bravery, military brilliance or any other positive notions – it is pure evil, plain and simple.
Another bloody butcher anticipating the “total” war of the 20th century.
Actually more of a throwback to the Khan’s and Tamerlane’s hordes – making war on civilians.
His rampaging army raped and pillaged its way across the South.
Fuck him.
izlamo delenda est …
Every time I use my Ariens snowblower with the Tecumseh engine it always starts within 2 pulls and has wiped out any and every snow fall for over 30 years . God bless W. T. Sherman he also made some kick ass tanks.
One of Sherman’s few positive aspects were his memorable quotes.
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian”
“I’d like to kill all journalists. But if we did I’m certain we’d be getting reports from hell before breakfast”
“If I owned Texas and I owned hell, id rent out Texas and live in hell”
Lee punished his soldiers severely who were caught stealing from civilians or who had committed crimes like rape. Lee was an honorable man who knew the difference between war and murderous rampage. Sherman had the heart of a mass murderer and wasn’t fit to wear a military uniform. People like him are what made up the Nazi Party later on. It makes you wonder about the willingness of so many Northern soldiers to carry out his orders to commit such atrocities. This willingness carries on until this day as evidenced by the Ruby Ridge and Waco actions. There are too many people who work for our government who would happily kill anyone they were told to kill so long as they were given orders to do so.