Sherman: "WAR IS HELL"

[Warph]

                                     

General William Tecumseh Sherman to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta

In the mind of General William Tecumseh Sherman, who made famous the phrase "War is hell," there was no doubt as to the integrity of the North's cause. Sherman was renowned as a fierce - some would say tyrannical - military leader, and in September 1864 he gave orders for the city of Atlanta to be evacuated and burned. Despite appeals from the citizens of Atlanta, including reminders that there were elderly and pregnant women whom it would be difficult and even perilous to move, Sherman's decision was final. He explained himself to the mayor and council members of the city.

===============================================================

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION of the MISSISSIPPI in the FIELD

Atlanta, Georgia,
James M. Calhoun, Mayor,
E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta.

Gentleman: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes in inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufacturers, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such things at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

      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. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

      You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

      We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.

      You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, bu the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

      But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

      Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes in Atlanta. Yours in haste,
W.T. Sherman, Major-General commanding

[redcliffsw]

Well, look what we're seeing there!  It's one of Obama's heroes.  Sherman was not acting in the defense of liberty.
Sherman was just another socialist/Republican bent on making others comply with his own desires. 

Warph, your post is sufficient evidence against Sherman, the tyrant and hateful man.   

[Warph]

Confederate Generals

http://www.americancivilwar.com/south/Southern_Commanders.html

[Warph]

                               

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) Bio:

He was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years. He served as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret vigilante organization which launched a reign of terrorism against African-Americans, Northerners that had moved to the postwar South, Southerners who supported the Union, and Republicans during the Reconstruction era in the Southern United States.

A cavalry and military commander in the war, Forrest is one of the war's most unusual figures. Less educated than many of his fellow officers, Forrest had amassed a fortune prior to the war as a planter, real estate investor, and slave trader. He was one of the few officers in either army to enlist as a private and be promoted to general officer and division commander by the end of the war. Although Forrest lacked formal military education, he had a gift for strategy and tactics. He created and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname The Wizard of the Saddle.

He was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow for allowing forces under his command to conduct a massacre upon hundreds of black Union Army and white Southern Unionist prisoners. In their postwar writings, Confederate President Jefferson Dais and General Robert E. Lee both expressed their belief that the Confederate high command had failed to fully utilize Forrest's talents


Fort Pillow was the "atrocity" of the war:  
Gen. Forrest's men stormed the fort. Incompetent and blundering command of the defense brought extraordinary losses to the defenders. Bitter local animosities and racial antipathies added to the slaughter. A Congressional committee of inquiry made the "atrocity" official.

Some accounts accused Forrest of ordering black prisoners to be massacred after a victory at Tennessee's Fort Pillow in 1864:http://www.civilwarhome.com/forrestpillow.htm
       
The finding of the committee as to a deliberate policy of destruction of the garrison rests partly upon Forrest's note demanding surrender and partly upon testimony of wounded survivors that "officers," or "Chalmers" or "Forrest" had ordered a slaughter of the defenders. As to the note demanding surrender, Forrest was probably correct in saying that he could not be responsible for the consequences if the demand was refused, but this was by no means the same as saying that he was ordering a slaughter. As a matter of fact, it was no more than a repetition of the device which he had used before and was to use again with success in securing surrender of places with minimum loss of life to his own command and, for that matter, to the defenders.

       
The testimony of survivors on the point of the attitude of officers is mixed. The very first survivor examined-Elias, a colored soldier-said that the rebels "killed all the men after they surrendered, until orders were given to stop. . . ."
"Till who gave orders?"
"They told me his name was Forrest."          


The same witness told of seeing a soldier shoot one of the wounded men in the hand, when "an officer told the secesh soldier if be did that again he would arrest him." Lieutenant Leaming testified that when there were shots outside the hut to which he had been carried after being wounded he heard an officer ride up and say: "Stop that firing; arrest that man," and that another officer-prisoner told him "that they had been shooting them, but the general had had it stopped."

     
One witness, Frank Hogan, colored, testified that a "secesh first lieutenant" shot a captain of the Negro regiment, while others testified that they were told that the shootings were ordered by General Forrest. One imaginative witness, however, declared that "towards evening, General Forrest issued an order not to kill any more negroes, because they wanted them to help haul the artillery out."
"Were colored men used for that purpose?"
"Yes sir. I saw them pulling the artillery, and I saw the secesh whip them as they were going out, just like they were horses."  

       
The only witness in the whole record who professed to have- seen Forrest ordering, or otherwise participating, in the shootings was Jacob Thompson, colored civilian, who told the committee that he fought with the garrison:
"When were you shot?" be was asked. "After I surrendered."
"Who shot you?"
"A private."
"What did he say?"
"He said, 'God damn you, I will shoot you, old friend."'
"Did you see anybody else shot?"
"Yes, sir; they just called them out like dogs, and shot them down. I reckon they shot about fifty, white and black, right there. They nailed some black sergeants to the logs, and set the logs on fire."
"When did you see that?"
"When I went there in the morning I saw them; they were burning all together."
"Did they kill them before they burned them?"
"No sir, they nailed them to the logs; drove the nails right through their hands."
"How many did you see in that condition?"
"Some four or five; I saw two white men burned.
"Did you notice bow they were nailed?"
        "I saw one nailed to the side of a house; he looked like be was nailed right through his wrist. I was trying then to get to the boat when I saw it." [This, it is to be noted, was after the arrival of Ferguson and his two boats, with their numerous landing parties-none of whom reports having seen such sights.]
        "Did you see them kill any white men?"
        "They killed some eight or nine there. I reckon they killed more than twenty after it was all over; called them out from under the hill, and shot them down. They would call out a white man and shoot him down, and call out a colored man and shoot him down; do it just as fast as they could make their guns go off."
        "Did you see any rebel officers about there when this was going on?"
        "Yes, sir; old Forrest was one."
        "Did you know Forrest?"
        "Yes, sir; he was a little bit of a man. I had seen him before at Jackson."
        "Are you sure he was there when this was going on?"
        "Yes, sir."
        Beside this one bit of positive evidence to connect Forrest with whatever shootings went on after resistance ceased, from a witness who knew him as "a little bit of a man," there is the statement of Sergeant Benjamin Robinson, colored, that "General Forrest rode his horse over me three or four times. I did not know him until I heard his men call his name. He said to some negro men there that he knew them; that they had been in his nigger yard in Memphis. He said he was not worth five dollars when he started, and had got rich trading in negroes." Other references to Forrest in the testimony are to the effect that soldiers hallooed "Forrest says, no quarter! no quarter!" and the next one hallooed, "Black flag! black flag!"or that the "general cry from the time they charged the fort until an hour afterwards was, 'Kill 'em, kill 'em; God damn 'em; that's Forrest's orders, not to leave one alive."
       
That some of Forrest's men believed that he had made some such order is indicated in the letter of Sergeant Achilles V. Clark, of the Twentieth Tennessee, written from Brownsville to his sisters on the nineteenth:
       
"The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor, deluded negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The white men fared but little better.... I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued."

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest first Grand Wizard of the KKK:
The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a general during the American Civil War.

During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred. Between 1868 and 1870 the Ku Klux Klan played an important role in restoring white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

In 1869, he ordered the Klan to disband because of the members' increasing violence. Two years later, a congressional investigation concluded his involvement had been limited to his attempt to disband it.

Sons of Confederate Veterans member Greg Stewart said he believes Forrest distanced himself from the Klan later in life. It's a point many historians agree upon, though some believe it was too little, too late, because the Klan had already turned violent before Forrest left.

Forrest would later appear before Congress to defend himself against charges of war crimes, and though he was found not guilty, he was known to many, for the rest of his life, as the Butcher of Fort Pillow.

[srkruzich]

There is a major difference between killing soldiers, albiet surrendered soldiers is wrong, and the destruction, rape, murder, that sherman and his army perpetuated on all of georgia and south carolina. 

As far as Forrest authorizing the killing of soldiers that surrendered, i take it that he was never convicted by a court of his peers and that being a Union court too.  I would say if the Union courts did not convict him then it probably did not happen as the "eyewitness" account stated.

[Warph]

     Civil War Union Generals

      http://americancivilwar.com/north/Union_Generals/

[redcliffsw]

Tribute to General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA

[Warph]

Well, look what we're seeing there!  It's one of Obama's heroes.  Sherman was not acting in the defense of liberty.
Sherman was just another socialist/Republican bent on making others comply with his own desires. 

Warph, your post is sufficient evidence against Sherman, the tyrant and hateful man.   

Red... there is no doubt that what Sherman did to Atlanta was a horrendous crime against humanity.  Sherman was acting in defense of winning the War... and this one act took the sails out of the South.  After the War, came reconstruction in the South, which did not fare well at all.  With its abundance of natural resources, favorable climate, and navigable rivers, the South should have been a magnet for manufacturing after the War (don't put all the blame on the carpetbaggers) but southerners were more interested in trying to maintain the past, to replicating as near as possible, the social economy of the slave system.  The more they struggled to maintain a dead status quo, the more they were throttled by it.  Scant was the opportunity for blacks or whites in a society in which universal education was discouraged and the perpetuation of an antiquated dysfunctional social order overwhelmed economic considerations.  Red, you have to know this... the reconstruction era was a bitch.  You and Steve probably know more about the War than anyone one here.  My immediate family has lived in the South for more than sixty years.  My parents are buried in Atlanta... so I do know a little about what I write.

There is a major difference between killing soldiers, albiet surrendered soldiers is wrong, and the destruction, rape, murder, that sherman and his army perpetuated on all of georgia and south carolina. 

As far as Forrest authorizing the killing of soldiers that surrendered, i take it that he was never convicted by a court of his peers and that being a Union court too.  I would say if the Union courts did not convict him then it probably did not happen as the "eyewitness" account stated.

Steve... the politics of War.  It could have went either way but, clearer head prevailed.  Remember, we had a nut case in A. Johnson trying to lead...if the union courts had convicted Forrest, one of the hero's of the South... it would have made the complicated and very shaky South worse than what it was.  This was a time for reconstruction... this was a time for all wounds to heal.

[srkruzich]

Red... there is no doubt that what Sherman did to Atlanta was a horrendous crime against humanity.  Sherman was acting in defense of winning the War... and this one act took the sails out of the South.  After the War, came reconstruction in the South, which did not fare well at all.  With its abundance of natural resources, favorable climate, and navigable rivers, the South should have been a magnet for manufacturing after the War (don't put all the blame on the carpetbaggers) but southerners were more interested in trying to maintain the past, to replicating as near as possible, the social economy of the slave system.  The more they struggled to maintain a dead status quo, the more they were throttled by it.  Scant was the opportunity for blacks or whites in a society in which universal education was discouraged and the perpetuation of an antiquated dysfunctional social order overwhelmed economic considerations.  Red, you have to know this... the reconstruction era was a bitch.  You and Steve probably know more about the War than anyone one here.  My immediate family has lived in the South for more than sixty years.  My parents are buried in Atlanta... so I do know a little about what I write.

WEll the problem warph is that slavery was unconstitutional in the constitution of the Confederate States of America.   As we all know Lincoln didn't give a rats fanny about slaves, that he only escalated the war over slavery in 1864 because he was losing.  He needed more people to join and fight so he pushed for slavery to end only in the south!  Notice that Slavery did not end in the north til well after 1880 i believe. And they had violated law for years prior to the war, i believe it was 1850 where they banned importation of slaves yet  new england kept importing slaves and taking them south to sell.
In fact to avoid the embargo, northerners were docking at southern ports to offload slaves to avoid getting caught.
General Lee was a abolitionist.  When he married his wife, he freed all of her slaves that she inherited.  He would have nothing to do with slavery.  MOST of the confederate army did not own any slaves. They didn't have enough money for their own families much less to feed cclothe and doctor slaves or even to buy them.

Sherman  had no soul. No morals, no respect for anything or anyone outside of his own miserable self.   I know there were a few instances where soldiers raped and murdered women on the southern side but they were caught and executed on the spot. No quarter was given for this type of behavior.  You won't find where the men were given free reigh  to murder rape and pillage the non-combatants.  Old folks children women were executed after being raped tortured.  This is not war, this was I have no words for it.   It has to be as low as mankind can possibly go.   

I've seen many journals of the day he razed atlanta, and he did so with the inhabitants in atlanta.  The citizens had no where to go, and many were killed for being there.  I doubt we will ever know how many.

The south to this day has a deep hatred for anything sherman. It will never go away IMO.  I think people there equate him on the same level as hitler. and Lincoln isn't far behind him for ordering sherman to do it.

Steve... the politics of War.  It could have went either way but, clearer head prevailed.  Remember, we had a nut case in A. Johnson trying to lead...if the union courts had convicted Forrest, one of the hero's of the South... it would have made the complicated and very shaky South worse than what it was.  This was a time for reconstruction... this was a time for all wounds to heal.

You may be right, but i don't think it has anything to do with racial issues blacks as well as whites were being killed. I don't know what his motivation would be other than one that the ancient way of war was you did kill all there was no surrender.  It could have been too that they couldn't take prisoners and couldn't allow them to be freed to go back to fighting the south again.  Here again he was a strategist and may have felt that he had no other option.   At the point where he took fort pillow anderson sc wsa full and the other camps were too. what do you do with prisoners you can't keep?

Not   saying bedford was angelic, but compared to what sherman did, Forrest walked on water

[srkruzich]

You are right, i lived in the middle of most of the battle sites.  Chicamauga, Fort mountain, Kennessaw, Stone mountain, and the other route through north ga that his men took, through ellijay, down to gainesville, down to stone mountain. All through that area there are still native georgians with houses 100+ years old that are full of civil war history.  Maybe one day one of their children will release the documents and we will get a more accurate picture. But the southerners just do not give this information freely because of the way the history has been doctored.