DiLorenzo, and you quoted him, said there were thousands of documents at the South Carolina University attesting to the rapes. I offered the link to search said documents and it came back with one report. If DiLorenzo can offer proof of his statements then fine, I'll take that. Just because he writes it doesn't make it so.
Fellmans book doesn't even have a bibliography. He confused Shermans mother and sister in the first of it. So he offers nothing but his opinion if he can't back up his facts. If you want to stick to the salting of the fields then by all means, carry on. You tell me that Fellman said they carry salt and steal salt in order to spread in the fields but logistically that isn't so and the south was rationing salt so at the most when they aren't raping, pillaging, stabbing dogs or pouring syrup in church organs, they theoretically could have spread salt on about 30 acres. Never mind that salt is vitally important to the sustainment of life during that time. Bullshit says I.
Do I consider moving women and children hundreds of miles from home an atrocity? Sure. I also understand the fact that they were aiding the Confederate war effort. Maybe the Confederates should have taken those women and children with them instead of leaving them behind?
Joshua Welch, factory superintendent of the cotton mill, left New Manchester with the company books and cash in hand. One of the mill managers was left in charge with instructions to work the mill to �the last extremity.�
Most of Roswell�s citizens of wealth had fled to safer parts and their grand homes stood silent. But the women and children who worked in the mills remained in Roswell with a few men, most too young, too old or too sick to fight. Olney Eldredge, superintendent of the cotton mill, was ordered to run the factories until driven out by the enemy.
But according to Sherman, whom you say is credible..
I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to the North...The poor women will make a howl. Let them take along their children and clothing, providing they have the means of hauling, or you can spare them.
So Garrard had the option to spare the women.
Grants quote about making the march and making georgia howl was October 9th in a telegraph to Grant.
Sherman to Grant The Roswell incident was in July. Two totally different quotes you are using.
I have ordered the arrest of the operators at the Confederate manufactories at Roswell and Sweetwater to be sent North. When they reach Nashville have them sent across the Ohio River and turned loose to earn a living where they won�t do us any harm.
General William T. Sherman
In reference to what you posted about him shooting children I actually, based on your views, took it to mean that He meant Sherman when you said He shot children that annoyed him. Still no proof of that.
If you are going to pick Sherman as credible then what do you speak of his willingness to help Atlantans to leave?
Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
Or the atrocities commited by the Confederate forces?
I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds of thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of families of rebel soldiers left in our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You depreciate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.
I've read his view on Indians. Were there atrocities? Yes. Giving Indians blankets infested with Small Pox, Forcing them to Reservations etc. etc. was a time full of atrocities. The fact of the matter is that it was a common view amongst almost all during that time. I can condemn the whole of the United States for the crimes on the Indians. That being said, I'll also have to condemn the Indians for waging war on women and children also.
Since DeLorenzo and your others like to quote Grimsley then maybe it would help if we read some his work:
The Myth of Sherman Civil War historians have long known that stories of widespread rape and murder by Union soldiers lack much historical foundation.
You call him a bad general and have outlandish claims but history and the facts show otherwise.
If you want to hate him for killing dogs, burning crops, buildings etc. and throwing silverware in a well and waging war then I totally understand. To hate him for myths that are perpetuated by shoddy writing then I do not agree.
