What Sherman Did For America Was Save It

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PoliTalker

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What Sherman Did For America Was To Save It By Destroying Atlanta, Cutting Georgia In Half, And Handing Lincoln An Election Victory.

It had to be done.

He knew what he was doing. He knew it was horrible, but he also believed it was necessary to end the war and thus end the carnage and destruction. He didn't like war, but he was very skilled at fighting it. He also violated the Emancipation Proclamation, which sadly resulted in the deaths of many freedmen. Sherman did not fight to end slavery. He fought to save the USA.

"By August, Republicans across the country were experiencing feelings of extreme anxiety, fearing that Lincoln would be defeated. The outlook was so grim that Thurlow Weed told the president directly that his "re-election was an impossibility." Acknowledging this, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would nonetheless defeat the Confederacy by an all-out military effort before turning over the White House:[146]

'This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.'[147]

Lincoln's re-election prospects grew brighter after the Union Navy seized Mobile Bay in late August and General Sherman captured Atlanta a few weeks later.[148] " wiki

This is long, (about an hour) but if you want some very informative viewing you will learn that Lincoln was not looking very good to win the presidency, and needed something to change or he would lose. If Lincoln lost, the USA would have been broken up into two smaller nations sharing a history, an uneasy border, a lot of resentment, and the simmering potential for more conflict:


Here is the URL if you want to copy it or open it in a new window.

[U]www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kSUDp2BC0[/U]

Because Lincoln was assassinated, all hopes for ending the conflict surrounding the Civil War died with him. We have lived with that conflict ever since.
 
If Sherman did not hand Lincoln this victory in Atlanta, Lincoln would have lost the 1864 election. His opponent was running on a platform of making a truce with the South, giving up on saving the Union or saving the Constitution. To allow States to leave as they please would have destroyed the USA.

To save America, Atlanta had to be destroyed.
 
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The Emancipation Proclamation declared that slaves freed by Union troops in the rebel states were free and to be protected by Union Troops.

Sherman took Atlanta, but then knew he faced the same problem in holding it that the South did. Holding Atlanta meant depending on a long and vulnerable supply line. He knew he could not stay.

He also knew that everything which might be used for the Confederate war effort had to be destroyed in order to bring the war to a quicker end.

For that reason, he destroyed food production and manufacturing in Atlanta and all along the way to Savannah.

He had to go to Savannah because Confederate General Hood had circled around to the west and was in the process of cutting Sherman off from returning to the North. By going to Savannah, Sherman could get resupplied by sea.

Sherman was brilliant, and it reawakened support in the North for winning the war, and thus gave Lincoln the victory that was needed to finish the grueling job.

Sherman's troops collected a cadre of feed slaves who followed them along to Savannah. Sherman, fearing that there would be insufficient food and supplies ahead, purposely cut off the freed slaves by destroying a bridge after he crossed it. This was in direct violation of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Many of those slaves were recaptured by their slave holders and thus lost their freedom.
 
PoliTalker said:
What Sherman Did For America Was To Save It By Destroying Atlanta, Cutting Georgia In Half, And Handing Lincoln An Election Victory.

It had to be done.

He knew what he was doing. He knew it was horrible, but he also believed it was necessary to end the war and thus end the carnage and destruction. He didn't like war, but he was very skilled at fighting it. He also violated the Emancipation Proclamation, which sadly resulted in the deaths of many freedmen. Sherman did not fight to end slavery. He fought to save the USA.

"By August, Republicans across the country were experiencing feelings of extreme anxiety, fearing that Lincoln would be defeated. The outlook was so grim that Thurlow Weed told the president directly that his "re-election was an impossibility." Acknowledging this, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would nonetheless defeat the Confederacy by an all-out military effort before turning over the White House:[146]

'This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.'[147]

Lincoln's re-election prospects grew brighter after the Union Navy seized Mobile Bay in late August and General Sherman captured Atlanta a few weeks later.[148] " wiki

This is long, (about an hour) but if you want some very informative viewing you will learn that Lincoln was not looking very good to win the presidency, and needed something to change or he would lose. If Lincoln lost, the USA would have been broken up into two smaller nations sharing a history, an uneasy border, a lot of resentment, and the simmering potential for more conflict:


Here is the URL if you want to copy it or open it in a new window.

[U]www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kSUDp2BC0[/U]

Because Lincoln was assassinated, all hopes for ending the conflict surrounding the Civil War died with him. We have lived with that conflict ever since.
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Imperfect humans acting imperfectly. What a surprise. You have to admire people who take decisive action. This is true of people i agree with and those I don't. The easiest thing in the world is to do nothing. People fail to act all the time for fear of failure or ridicule or condemnation. Thank God we have had people in the past willing to make hard choices. I fear those people are becoming fewer in number every year
 
PoliTalker said:
What Sherman Did For America Was To Save It By Destroying Atlanta, Cutting Georgia In Half, And Handing Lincoln An Election Victory.

It had to be done.....
Click to expand...
No, it didn't have to be done. Neither did Lincoln have to invade the South. What you are doing is justifying mass murder for political reasons.

It's the equivalent of Captain Smith of the Titanic executing passengers who didn't have a seat on a lifeboat for humanitarian reasons. "It had to be done".

The RMS Titanic had 2224 passengers but only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people. Due to design flaws, not all of the lifeboats could be launched on a ship down by the bow. Over 1500 people died, mostly by hypothermia in the freezing waters.

"It had to be done" is as much bullshit as "Bombing for Peace" and "We had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Anyone who says "it had to be done" should never, ever question the US use of nukes, Vietnam, Iraq or any other action. "It had to be done".
 
Dutch Uncle said:
No, it didn't have to be done. Neither did Lincoln have to invade the South. What you are doing is justifying mass murder for political reasons.

It's the equivalent of Captain Smith of the Titanic executing passengers who didn't have a seat on a lifeboat for humanitarian reasons. "It had to be done".

The RMS Titanic had 2224 passengers but only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people. Due to design flaws, not all of the lifeboats could be launched on a ship down by the bow. Over 1500 people died, mostly by hypothermia in the freezing waters.

"It had to be done" is as much bullshit as "Bombing for Peace" and "We had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Anyone who says "it had to be done" should never, ever question the US use of nukes, Vietnam, Iraq or any other action. "It had to be done".
Click to expand...

We didn't bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki to save either one of those cities specifically. We did it because swift and severe decision making on our part made it abundantly clear to the Japanese that continuing the war would have been far more devastating for them than for us. They made the right choice.
 
Yakuda said:
We didn't bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki to save either one of those cities specifically. We did it because swift and severe decision making on our part made it abundantly clear to the Japanese that continuing the war would have been far more devastating for them than for us. They made the right choice.
Click to expand...

Agreed it was the right choice. How many times have you seen Liberals say we didn't have to use the bombs? How many times have you seen them say "Japan was about to surrender. The military just wanted to test their new toys"?

It's hypocritical of anyone to justify mass killing for political purposes when those purposes suit their agenda and then for them to condemn that action when it doesn't suit their agenda.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
No, it didn't have to be done. Neither did Lincoln have to invade the South. What you are doing is justifying mass murder for political reasons.

It's the equivalent of Captain Smith of the Titanic executing passengers who didn't have a seat on a lifeboat for humanitarian reasons. "It had to be done".

The RMS Titanic had 2224 passengers but only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people. Due to design flaws, not all of the lifeboats could be launched on a ship down by the bow. Over 1500 people died, mostly by hypothermia in the freezing waters.

"It had to be done" is as much bullshit as "Bombing for Peace" and "We had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Anyone who says "it had to be done" should never, ever question the US use of nukes, Vietnam, Iraq or any other action. "It had to be done".
Click to expand...

What Sherman did broke the back of the South's military capability. This resulted in Lincoln getting reelected, and making it extremely difficult for the South to continue waging war against the North.

In the statement "It had to be done," the meaning was the belief that unless it was done, the United States would have been broken up.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed it was the right choice. How many times have you seen Liberals say we didn't have to use the bombs? How many times have you seen them say "Japan was about to surrender. The military just wanted to test their new toys"?

It's hypocritical of anyone to justify mass killing for political purposes when those purposes suit their agenda and then for them to condemn that action when it doesn't suit their agenda.
Click to expand...

I don't take anything leftists say with much regard but I know they present a significant danger to America. The terrorsists have even gotten out of their way as they realize the left will take us down faster than they could.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Dutch Uncle,



What Sherman did broke the back of the South's military capability. This resulted in Lincoln getting reelected, and making it extremely difficult for the South to continue waging war against the North.

In the statement "It had to be done," the meaning was the belief that unless it was done, the United States would have been broken up.
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So you agree that massacring a village like My Lai is necessary if it furthers the cause of the war. I disagree. What Sherman did was a war crime by today's standards. To praise him for doing it is like praising a slaver because he rarely hanged his slaves, only beat them when necessary and it was all completely legal at the time. Sorry, man, but I'm not buying it.

My_Lai_massacre.jpg
 
The South was fighting a losing battle with itself.

The importation of slaves had already been outlawed.

The South was OK with this because they already had plenty, and slaves make more slaves.

The South really didn't want too many slaves out of fear that they would revolt.

But the South faced a problem here. Slaves already outnumbered whites. Even without more importation, the numbers were growing, not shrinking. Whites feared that if slaves became freedmen that they would eventually take over power from whites. That was their worst fear. To have others control them they way they had controlled others. That's where racism flourished. By maintaining the belief that whites were born superior, they were able to justify that which could not be justified otherwise.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
So you agree that massacring a village like My Lai is necessary if it furthers the cause of the war. I disagree. What Sherman did was a war crime by today's standards. To praise him for doing it is like praising a slaver because he rarely hanged his slaves, only beat them when necessary and it was all completely legal at the time. Sorry, man, but I'm not buying it.

My_Lai_massacre.jpg
Click to expand...

Sherman's thinking was that by showing everyone how horrible war really is that it would be rejected. And here you are rejecting what he did. It worked, and it brought the war to a quicker conclusion. Sherman's strategy was considered brilliant. A very popular and effective WWII tank was named after him.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Sherman's thinking was that by showing everyone how horrible war really is that it would be rejected. And here you are rejecting what he did. It worked, and it brought the war to a quicker conclusion. Sherman's strategy was considered brilliant. A very popular and effective WWII tank was named after him.
Click to expand...
Wow. So if, as a military officer, I committed an atrocity then it's okay as long as I say "I was only showing how horribel war really was"? Who knew?

Sherman followed the burning of Atlanta with a "scorched earth" march to the Savannah. Leaving starving men, women and children of all colors in his wake. It's why Scorched Earth is a war crime and banned by the Geneva Convention. Your applauding of his actions as being justified is immoral.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/appl...6739003e636b/d67c3971bcff1c10c125641e0052b545
Art 14. Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population

Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.
 
It is correct that without the south the remaining states were screwed.
Sherman was a butcher, nothing more nothing less.
Lincoln went through generals looking for one brutal enough, finally found one in Sherman.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
Wow. So if, as a military officer, I committed an atrocity then it's okay as long as I say "I was only showing how horribel war really was"? Who knew?

Sherman followed the burning of Atlanta with a "scorched earth" march to the Savannah. Leaving starving men, women and children of all colors in his wake. It's why Scorched Earth is a war crime and banned by the Geneva Convention. Your applauding of his actions as being justified is immoral.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/appl...6739003e636b/d67c3971bcff1c10c125641e0052b545
Art 14. Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population

Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.
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There was no Geneva at the time.

The plan to take Atlanta was part of the Northern strategy to crush the South's ability to continue the war. The plan was conceived by Grant and Sherman in Cincinnati in March 1864. Depriving the South of Atlanta would take away vast amounts of supplies needed to support an army.

The March to the Sea was not part of the plan, but depriving the South of things which could help it fight the war was. That is why infrastructure was destroyed in Atlanta.

Hood had moved to cut off Sherman's supply lines to the North. Sherman was trapped, so he did what he had to do to deal with the problem. That was when he realized the solution was to march to Savannah, where he could get resupplied by sea. Since he had no supplies, he was forced to take what he needed along the way.

If the South had never seceded nor attacked the North none of it would have happened.

One of the problems with war is that by the time hostilities break out, good options become rare.

After capturing Atlanta, Sherman could:

Turn around and try to fight back to the North with an army that had very little food, or he could:

March to Savannah, and take what he needed along the way.

He chose b.

Worked out for him, but it was devastating for the South.

Since his goal was to cripple the South's war effort, choice b was in accordance with that.

None of this justifies what was done, merely explains it.
 
If you are interested in the Civil war, read Grant's autobiography. It tells you about the ins and outs of the war. They were fighting in forests and had to make their own roads. The Rebs tore up the rare train tracks. The North straightened them out. Then the Rebs wrapped the tracks around trees and bent them into pretzels. They had to haul heavy cannons up mountains and hills, through forests and over rivers. The real problems were extremely tough to conquer. Forget about the politics, just see how tough the whole war was.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Dutch Uncle,
There was no Geneva at the time....
Click to expand...
No shit. Just like slavery, it was legal at the time. You applauding a war crime while bemoaning the slavers is hypocrisy. Secession was a matter of debate and not ruled illegal until after the war.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
No shit. Just like slavery, it was legal at the time. You applauding a war crime while bemoaning the slavers is hypocrisy. Secession was a matter of debate and not ruled illegal until after the war.
Click to expand...

I am not applauding war crimes, just sharing a view of history. There was no such thing as war crimes at the time. I've talked about how Sherman violated the Emancipation Proclamation. There is no provision for States to leave the Union found in the Constitution. There is nothing wrong or shameful about criticizing slavery. Slavery was wrong. We are a better nation for having ended it. It is interesting that Sherman was not held responsible for violating the Emancipation Proclamation. I suppose Lincoln would have had to do that. He was a little busy at the time, and he didn't last long after the war.
 
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