Civil War??? Part IV

To General Kilpatrick Sherman wrote: "It is petty nonsense for Wheeler and Beauregard and such vain heroes to talk of our warring against women and children. If they claim to be men they should defend their women and children and prevent us reaching their homes." In a moment of candor he wrote Grant: "You and I and every commander must go through the war justly chargeable with crimes."

While ransacking Georgia, Sherman removed two thousand women, children, and elderly to Ohio where they were forced to work in Union war factories. Families were separated, property confiscated, and even wedding bands taken from their hands. The U.S. never tried to reunite them.

Crimes were committed on both sides, but the Confederate offenses were a fraction of the Federals'. The Southern leadership spoke and acted against abuses, while Lincoln ran a "loose ship" of administration, under which authorities could tacitly countenance abuses while professing to be against them. Lincoln once asked McClellan if he could get close enough to Richmond to shell the civilian population of the city.

When Jefferson Davis was urged to retaliate in kind, and adopt a cruel war policy like the U.S., cabinet member Judah P. Benjamin said "he was immovable in resistance to such counsels, insisting that it was repugnant to every sentiment of justice and humanity that the innocent should be made victims for the crimes of such monsters."


Why America lost the "Civil War"
http://calltodecision.com/Civil%20War.html | October 30, 2002 | Nat G. Rudulph