UNION SOLDIER…

“At the very beginning of the campaign at Dalton, the Federal soldiery had received encouragement to become vandals. When Sherman cut loose from Atlanta everybody had license to throw off restraint and make Georgia drain the bitter cup. 

The Federal who wants to learn what it was to license an army to become vandals should mount a horse at Atlanta and follow Sherman ‘s rout for fifty miles. He can hear stories from the lips of women that would make him ashamed of the flag that waved over him as he wnet into battle. 

When the army had passed nothing was left but a trail of desolation and despair. No houses escaped robbery, no woman escaped insult, no building escaped the firebrand, except by some strange interposition. 

War may liscense an army to subsist on the enemy, but civilized warfare stops at livestock, forage and provisions. It does not enter the house of the sick and helpless and rob women of their finger rings and carry off their clothing.” 

Photo: Yankee pickets outside Atlanta