150th anniversary of butcher's Overland Campaign

[Cyclops]

I think the significance of Grants push (combined with Shermans march) was the USA finally began to apply brute strength to the rebels.

IIRC Sherman explicitly referenced the annhilation of native americans when discussing a campaign against the South (but I can't find the damn quote) something about wiping the rebs out "as our forefathers did the Indians". This was cruelty by whites on whites, and I think the cuase for much of the resentment felt in the South to this day.

[conon394]

This was cruelty by whites on whites, and I think the cuase for much of the resentment felt in the South to this day.

You know sure I'm a damn Yankee but the South's pissing and moaning about a loosing a war they started and then lost (closing on what almost 200 years ago) is rather annoying. Reconstruction got mostly abandoned and aside from WV the North did not chop them into new states - Things could have been far more ugly for the South they need to just get over it.

The whole Country had to put up with the the inflated political power of the South on the backs of slaves since 1800 - honestly it would have been funny if the North had decided every black person got two votes to every white one in the south/CSA for ~75 years or some such.

I will see if I can dig up the paper but it interesting to say note how systematically black status and voting rights etc was suppressed as soon as New York flipped to the South based Democratic Republicans vs the Federalists in 1800. New York might not have gone back to slavery but the oh so enlightened T Jefferson and his fellow aristocrats made sure blacks were even less then second class citizens and knew it.

[hellheaven1987]

IIRC Sherman explicitly referenced the annhilation of native americans when discussing a campaign against the South (but I can't find the damn quote) something about wiping the rebs out "as our forefathers did the Indians". This was cruelty by whites on whites, and I think the cuase for much of the resentment felt in the South to this day.

Sherman thought Native Americans were foreigners, so he thought conflicts against Native Americans were foreigners vs Americans.

[Hanny]

I think the significance of Grants push (combined with Shermans march) was the USA finally began to apply brute strength to the rebels.

IIRC Sherman explicitly referenced the annhilation of native americans when discussing a campaign against the South (but I can't find the damn quote) something about wiping the rebs out "as our forefathers did the Indians". This was cruelty by whites on whites, and I think the cuase for much of the resentment felt in the South to this day.

http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_wts1159


He thought ita race war, Indians being not citizens of any race protected by any laws was meerly an extension of how he viewed total war, from 1862 onwards he employed collective responsobility for southern civilians for actions taken by others, and hung or shot them in response. CS Sec of war otoh limited it to those caught and convicted in a mil trial for pro Northern civilans caught burning bridges etc.


Sherman once wrote to his wife that his purpose was the "extermination, not of soldiers alone but of the people" He wrote to Stanton in 64:
"There is a class of people men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." Stanton replied, "Your letter of the 21st of June has just reached me and meets my approval."


Sherman was a great writter to his wife, setting out his thoughts:
"The government of the U.S. has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their land, their everything...war is simply unrestrained by the Constitution...to the persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better.”