philly rabbit
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An editorial appearing in the newspaper, The Augusta Constitutionalist, August 26, 1864.
The vandals in front of us having failed to take the city by fair means, and in open combat are resorting to the last expedite of a baffled, unprincipled, and disconsolate bully - that of it's destruction by fire. Within the last four and twenty hours as many as nine buildings have touched the ground, and are now visible only in smoldering walls and charred ruins. During these conflagrations the Yankee batteries played vigorously upon the fire battalion. They obtained the range by the clouds of smoke and flame and had nothing more noble to do than to drop their shells in among the humane noncombatants at their work of charity, and the frightened and houseless women and children fleeing from the wrath of the two fierce and consuming enemies. Can anything be more typical of the desperation of the ruffians who came here under the illusion of winning an easy victory, or the infamy of the universal Yankee nation? It is a perfect symbol of the fear of the intolerable wretch who commands them. Sherman, who said that the waste coat of God almighty was not big enough to make him a coat, supports his pretentions to the character indicated by this blasphemy in every conceivable way, and rolls up mountain upon mountain of guilt every hour that he inspires the breath of life. Of all the Yankee generals he is the poorest, the vainest, the meanest. He is without honor as a man, or conscience as a human being. His wit, by which he sets great store, is that of a Dutch dissenting class leader, his wisdom that of a circus clown, his temper that of Meg Merriles, his honesty that of Ananias and Sapphira, his ambition that of Beast Butler, and his appearance and manners those of Uriah Heep. his fate will be upon the earth wreck and ruin, the exposure of his littleness and puppiness, the disgrace of his military pretentions and the discomfiture of all his schemes; in the world to come - though I judged not least I be judged - you can imagine what awards will be assigned to a villain, who not content with insulting the purity of womanhood and assailing the innocence of children, points his blasphemous tongue like a hissing adder to the face of his Maker. Ugh! what a disgust the thing inspires! Scorn him honest men of all lands! Cast him out as an odious reptile incapable of good, potent only for evil! A paltry villain, a currish knave, the very Fawkes of society, the situs cates of war, a dull sharper, a cheat and shame upon the name of soldier, the very embodiment of an ill-begotten, ill-bred and destined caterpillar, clinging only to sloth and mildew, climbing no higher than the scum of a rank and putrid atmosphere.
- Henry Watterson, writing from inside Atlanta during Sherman's bombardment.
General Sherman, the lunatic terrorist commanding one of the armies of the divided house that couldn't stand by itself reigned down missiles upon the heads of Atlanta's civilians, at least in numbers of five thousand with many of them refugees seeking shelter inside the city with their homes destroyed by Yankees during ensuing battles outside the city's boundaries. Thirty seven days he kept up his murderous cannonade upon Atlanta's innocents even with the knowledge provided by his spies within that anything of any value to the confederates including all machinery had already been removed before lunatic Sherman began his cannonade.
General Hood's confederate army which stretched from Atlanta to Jonesboro 15 miles to the south was unable to guard the Macon and Western railroad at all points which served as the confederates last provider of supplies was dug into trenches before Sherman but Sherman ignoring his enemy before him fired relentlessly upon the city in what was a completely unnecessary act of war criminality being the railroad was cut off by his forces anyway forcing Hood to retreat.
This incident was just one of many in America's first venture into total war on a civilian population.
The vandals in front of us having failed to take the city by fair means, and in open combat are resorting to the last expedite of a baffled, unprincipled, and disconsolate bully - that of it's destruction by fire. Within the last four and twenty hours as many as nine buildings have touched the ground, and are now visible only in smoldering walls and charred ruins. During these conflagrations the Yankee batteries played vigorously upon the fire battalion. They obtained the range by the clouds of smoke and flame and had nothing more noble to do than to drop their shells in among the humane noncombatants at their work of charity, and the frightened and houseless women and children fleeing from the wrath of the two fierce and consuming enemies. Can anything be more typical of the desperation of the ruffians who came here under the illusion of winning an easy victory, or the infamy of the universal Yankee nation? It is a perfect symbol of the fear of the intolerable wretch who commands them. Sherman, who said that the waste coat of God almighty was not big enough to make him a coat, supports his pretentions to the character indicated by this blasphemy in every conceivable way, and rolls up mountain upon mountain of guilt every hour that he inspires the breath of life. Of all the Yankee generals he is the poorest, the vainest, the meanest. He is without honor as a man, or conscience as a human being. His wit, by which he sets great store, is that of a Dutch dissenting class leader, his wisdom that of a circus clown, his temper that of Meg Merriles, his honesty that of Ananias and Sapphira, his ambition that of Beast Butler, and his appearance and manners those of Uriah Heep. his fate will be upon the earth wreck and ruin, the exposure of his littleness and puppiness, the disgrace of his military pretentions and the discomfiture of all his schemes; in the world to come - though I judged not least I be judged - you can imagine what awards will be assigned to a villain, who not content with insulting the purity of womanhood and assailing the innocence of children, points his blasphemous tongue like a hissing adder to the face of his Maker. Ugh! what a disgust the thing inspires! Scorn him honest men of all lands! Cast him out as an odious reptile incapable of good, potent only for evil! A paltry villain, a currish knave, the very Fawkes of society, the situs cates of war, a dull sharper, a cheat and shame upon the name of soldier, the very embodiment of an ill-begotten, ill-bred and destined caterpillar, clinging only to sloth and mildew, climbing no higher than the scum of a rank and putrid atmosphere.
- Henry Watterson, writing from inside Atlanta during Sherman's bombardment.
General Sherman, the lunatic terrorist commanding one of the armies of the divided house that couldn't stand by itself reigned down missiles upon the heads of Atlanta's civilians, at least in numbers of five thousand with many of them refugees seeking shelter inside the city with their homes destroyed by Yankees during ensuing battles outside the city's boundaries. Thirty seven days he kept up his murderous cannonade upon Atlanta's innocents even with the knowledge provided by his spies within that anything of any value to the confederates including all machinery had already been removed before lunatic Sherman began his cannonade.
General Hood's confederate army which stretched from Atlanta to Jonesboro 15 miles to the south was unable to guard the Macon and Western railroad at all points which served as the confederates last provider of supplies was dug into trenches before Sherman but Sherman ignoring his enemy before him fired relentlessly upon the city in what was a completely unnecessary act of war criminality being the railroad was cut off by his forces anyway forcing Hood to retreat.
This incident was just one of many in America's first venture into total war on a civilian population.
