"Sherman said this about Southerners: "To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better . . . . Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources" (emphasis added).
Here you have a clear statement that Sherman's goal was to commit genocide against the people of Georgia. Remember that his famous "march" was not met by any serious military resistance other than a few cavalry skirmishes. It was almost entirely a campaign of death and destruction of civilians and their property. And he wanted to "repopulate" the state with fine New England stock such as himself, the son of a New England lawyer of Puritan descent.
Readers who are familiar with the U.S. Constitution may find it difficult to find the part of the document that permits the U.S. government to murder its own citizens or to completely suspend the Constitution during wartime, but Sherman apparently read between the lines better than most. "The Government of the United States has in North Alabama," he once declared, "any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war � to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything . . . . war is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact." "We will . . . take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper," said the maniacal murderer in the blue uniform.
Writing to his wife in 1862, Sherman informed her that "the war will soon assume a turn to extermination not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people . . . . There is a class of people, men women, and children, who must be killed or banished . . ."
