USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 38
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Later General Sherman said, "War is hell." If we could re- cord here all the testimony in our possession from the people of Georgia and South Carolina, who had the misfortune to live along the line of his famous "march to the sea," during the whole length of which he was warring against and depredating on women, children, servants, old men, and non-combatants (regard- ing which he wrote in his telegram to Grant, "I can make this march and make Georgia howl."-Boynton, page 129), it would show that he had certainly contributed all in his power to make war "HELL," as he termed it, and has justly earned the distinc- tion of being called the ruling genius of his creation.
We will first let General Sherman himself tell what was done by him and his men on this famous, or rather infamous, march. He says of it in his official report :-
"We consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah; also the sweet potatoes, hogs, sheep, cattle, and poultry, and car- ried off more than ten thousand horses and mules. I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia at one hundred million dollars, at least twenty million of which inured to our benefit, and the remainder was simply waste and destruction."
But we will introduce our witnesses, and these are some of his own soldiers, who accompanied him on his march. Captain Daniel Oakley, of the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volun- teers, in "Battles and Leaders," says this :-
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"It was sad to see the wanton destruction of property, which was the work of 'bummers' who were marauding through the country, committing every sort of outrage. There was no re- straint, except with the column of the regular foraging parties. The country was necessarily left to take care of itself, and became a howling waste. The 'Coffee Coolers' of the army of the Potomac were archangels compared to our 'bummers,' who often fell to the tender mercies of Wheeler's cavalry, and were never heard of again, meeting a fate richly deserved."
Another Northern soldier, writing for the Detroit Free Press, gives the following graphic account, after describing the burning of Marietta: "Soldiers rode from house to house, entered with- out ceremony, and kindled fires in closets and garrets, and stood by to see that they were not extinguished."
He further says :-
"Had one been able to climb to such a hight at Atlanta as to enable him to see for forty miles around, the day Sherman marched out, he would have been appalled at the destruction. Hundreds of houses had been burned, every rod of fence de- stroyed, nearly every fruit tree cut down, and the face of the country so changed that any one born in that section of country could hardly recognize it. The vindictiveness of war would have trampled the very earth out of sight had such a thing been pos- sible."
Again he says :-
"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 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 went into battle. When the army had passed, nothing was left but a trail of desolation and despair. No houses escaped robbery, no women escaped insult, no building escaped the firebrand, except by some strange interposition. War may license an army to subsist on the enemy, but civilized warfare stops at livestock,
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forage, and provisions. It does not enter the houses of the sick and helpless, and rob women of their finger rings and carry off their clothing."
He then tells of the deliberate burning of Atlanta by Sherman's order, of the driving out from the city of its whole population of all ages, sexes, and conditions, into the fields of a desolated coun- try, to starve and die, as far as he knew or cared. You have only to read these recitals, and you have the picture which Sher- man made, and which he truly denominated "hell."
The correspondence between Mayor Calhoun and two council- men of Atlanta, representing to General Sherman the frightful suffering that would be visited on the people of that city by the execution of his inhuman order, and General Sherman's reply, can be found in the second volume of "Sherman's Memoirs," pages 124, 125. We can cite only one or two items from each. The letter of the former says, among other things :-
"Many poor women are in advanced stage of pregnancy, others now having young children, and whose husbands, for the greater part, are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, 'I have such a sick one at my house ; who will wait on them when I am gone?' Others say, 'What shall we do? We have no house to go to, and no means to buy, build, or rent any ; no parents or friends to go to.'
"This being so (they say) how is it possible for the people still here (mostly women and children) to find any shelter? And how can they live through the winter in the woods-no shelter or subsistence, in the midst of strangers who know them not, and without the power to assist them, however much were they willing to do so?
"This (they say) is but a feeble picture of the consequences of the measure. You know the woe, the horrors, and the suffering cannot be described by words, imagination can only concieve it, and we ask you, General Sherman, to take these things into con- sideration."
To this pathetic appeal, Sherman cooly replied on the next day, his letter commencing as follows :-
"I have your letter of the IIth, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I
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have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet I shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have an interest."
After he had started on his "march to the sea," he gives an account of how the foraging details were made and carried out each day, and concludes by saying :-
"Although the foraging was attended with great danger and hard work, there seemed to be a charm about it that attracted the soldiers, and it was a privilege to be detailed on such a party.
"Lastly, they returned mounted on all sorts of beasts, which were at once taken from them and appropriated to the general use, but the next day they would start out again on foot, only to repeat the experience of the day before. No doubt (he says) many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence were committed by these parties of foragers, usually called 'bummers,' for I have since heard of jewelry taken from women and the plunder of articles that never reached the commissary."-See "Sherman's Memoirs," Vol. II, page 182.
He not only does not say that he tried to prevent his army from committing these outrages, but says, on page 255, in referring to his march through South Carolina: "I would not restrain the army lest its vigor and energy should be impaired."
He tells, on page 185, how, when he reached Gen. Howell Cobb's plantation, he sent word back to General Davis to explain whose plantation it was, and instructed him to spare nothing.
To show what a heartless wretch he was, I quote what he tells on page 194, about one of his officers having been wounded by the explosion of a torpedo that had been hidden in the line of march, and upon which this officer had stepped. He says :-
"I immediately ordered a lot of rebel prisoners to be brought from the provost guard, armed with picks and spades, and made them march in close order along the road, so as to explode their own torpedoes, or to discover and dig them up. They begged hard, but I reiterated the order, and could hardly restrain from laughing at their stepping so gingerly along the road, where it was supposed that sunken torpedoes might explode at each step."
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It may be fairly inferred from General Sherman's middle name (Tecumseh) that some of his ancestors were Indians ; but whether this be true or not, no one can read this statement of his without being convinced that he was a savage. But he was not only a confessed savage, as we have seen; but a confessed vandal as well. On page 256, in telling of a night he spent in one of the splendid old houses of South Carolina, he says: "The proprietors had formerly dispensed a hospitality that distinguished the old regime of that proud State. I slept on the floor of the house, but the night was so bitter cold that I got up by the fire several times, and when it burned low I rekindled it with an old mantel clock and the wreck of a bedstead that stood in the corner of the room-the only act of vandalism that I recall done by myself personally during the war."
Since the admissions of a criminal are always taken as con- clusive proof of his crime, we now know from his own lips that General Sherman was a vandal.
But we also find, on page 237, that he confessed having told a falsehood about General Hampton, so we cannot credit his state- ment that the foregoing was his only act of vandalism. Indeed, we think we have most satisfactory evidence to the contrary. (It will be noted, however, that Sherman makes a distinction between his personal acts of vandalism and those he committed through others.)
A part of this evidence is to be found in the following letter from Lieutenant Thos. J. Myers, published in "Southern Histor- ical Society Papers," Vol. XII, page 113, with the following head note :- +
"The following letter was found in the streets of Columbia, S. C., after the army of General Sherman had left. The original is still preserved, and can be shown and substantiated if anybody desires. We are indebted to a distinguished lady of this city for a copy, sent with a request for publication. We can add nothing in the way of comment on such a document, it speaks for itself."
The letter which is a re-publication from the Alderson (W. Va.) Statesman, of Oct. 29, 1883, is as follows :-
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"CAMP NEAR CAMDEN, S. C., Feb. 26, 1865.
" My Dear Wife :-
" I have no time for particulars. We have had a glorious time in this State. Unrestricted license to plunder and burn was the order of the day. The 'chivalry ' have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, etc., etc., are as common in camp as blackberries. The terms of plunder are as follows: The valuables procured are estimated by companies. Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place. One fifth and first choice falls to the commander-in-chief and his staff, one fifth to corps com- mander and staff, one fifth to field officers, and two fifths to the company. Officers are not allowed to join in these expeditions, unless disguised a's privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a rough suit of clothes from one of my men, and was successful in his place. He got a large quantity of silver (among other things an old milk pitcher), and a very fine gold watch from a Mr. DeSaussure of this place (Columbia). DeSaussure is one of the F. F .V.'s of South Carolina, and was made to fork out liberally. Officers over the rank of captain are not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribution. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect themselves the subordinate officers and privates keep everything back that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, ear-rings, breast pins, etc., etc., of which, if I live to get home, I have a quart. I am not joking. I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and the girls, and some No. I diamond rings and pins among them. General Sherman has enough gold and silver to start a bank. His share in gold watches and chains alone at Columbia was 275.
"But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general officers and many besides have valuables of every description, down to ladies' pocket handkerchiefs. I have my share of them, too.
"We took gold and silver enough from the d-d rebels to have redeemed their infernal currency twice over. I wish all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the old Bay State. It
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would deck her out in glorious style; but, alas, it will be scattered all over the North and Middle States.
"The damned niggers, as a general thing, preferred to stay at home, particularly after they found out that we wanted only the able-bodied men, and to tell the truth, the youngest and best Jook- ing women. Sometimes we took them off by way of repaying influential secessionists. But a part of these we soon managed to lose, sometimes in crossing rivers, sometimes in other ways. I shall write you again from Wilmington, Goldsboro, or some other place in North Carolina. The order to march has arrived and I must close hurriedly.
"Love to grandmother and Aunt Charlotte. Take care of yourself and the children. Don't show this letter out of the family.
" Your affectionate husband, " THOMAS J. MYERS, Lieut., etc.
"P. S .- I will send this by the first flag of truce to be mailed, unless I have an opportunity of sending it to Hilton Head. Tell Lottie I am saving a pearl bracelet and earrings for her, but Lambert got the necklace and breastpin of the same set. I am trying to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina Secession Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia. T. J. M."
This letter is addressed to Mrs. Thomas J. Myers, Boston, Mass.
Imagine, if it is possible to do so, Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson commanding an army licensed by them to plunder the defenseless, and then sharing in the fruits of this plundering.
We can barely allude to Sherman's burning of Columbia, the proof of which is too conclusive to admit of controversy. On Dec. 18, 1864, Gen. H. W. Halleck, major-general and chief of staff of the armies of the United States, wrote Sherman as fol- lows :-
"Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be thrown on
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its site, it may prevent the future growth of nullification and secession."
To this suggestion from this high (?) source to commit mur- der, arson, and robbery, and pretend it was by accident, Sherman replied on Dec. 24, 1864, as follows :-
"I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and do not think that salt will be necessary. When I move, the fifteenth corps will be on the right wing, and their position will naturally bring them into Charleston first ; and if you have watched the history of that corps, you will have remarked that they generally do their work pretty well; the truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance on South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate, but feel that she deserves all that is in store for her. I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville." - "Sherman's Memoirs," Vol. II, pages 223, 227, 228.
We say proof of his ordering (or permitting, which is just as bad), the destruction of Columbia is overwhelming. (See re- port of Chancellor Carroll, chairman of a committee appointed to investigate the facts about this, in Gen. Bradley T. Johnson's "Life of Johnston," from which several of these extracts are taken.)
Our people owe General Johnson a debt of gratitude for this and his other contributions to Confederate history. And Sherman had the effrontery to write in his "Memoirs," that in his official report of this conflagration, he distinctly charged it to Gen Wade Hampton, and confesses, " I did so pointedly, to shake the faith of his people in him." -" Sherman's Memoirs," Vol. II, page 287.
The man who confessed to the world that he made this false charge with such a motive needs no characterization at the hands of this committee.
General Sherman set out to make Georgia howl, and preferred, as he said, to march through that State " smashing things " to the sea. He wrote to Grant after his march through South Carolina : "The people of South Carolina, instead of feeding
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Lee's army, will now call on Lee to feed them." -" Memoirs," Vol. II, page 298.
So complete had been his destruction in that State, he also says: " Having utterly ruined Columbia, the right wing began its march northward."-Id., page 288.
On Feb. 21, 1865, only a few days after the burning of Col- umbia, General Hampton wrote to General Sherman, charging him with being responsible for its destruction, and other out- rages, in which he says, among other things :-
" You permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of these offenses against humanity and the rules of war. You fired into Columbia without a word of warning. After its surrender by the mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving in its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march can be traced by the lurid light of burning houses, and in more than one household there is an agony far more bitter than death.
" The Indian scalped his victim, regardless of age or sex, but with all his barbarity, he always respected the person of his fe- male captives. Your soldiers, more savage than the Indian, in- sult those whose natural protectors are absent." -" Great Civil War," Vol. III, page 601.
But while no one will dispute the fact that Sherman has a clear title to the distinction we have accorded him, yet, unfortu- nately for the people of the South, he had other efficient and willing aids in his work of devastation, destruction, and vandal- ism; and we must now take up, for a time, the work of his close second, General Philip H. Sheridan. This officer is re- ported as having said that the true principles for conducting war are :-
" First, deal as hard blows to the enemy's soldiers as possible, and then cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country that they will long for peace and press their government to make it. Nothing should be left to the people but eyes to lament the war."
He certainly acted on the last of these principles in his dealings with the people of the beautiful valley of Virginia, which by his
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vandalism was converted from one of the most fertile and beauti- ful portions of our land into a veritable " Valley of the Shadow of Death." He actually boasted that he had so desolated it that "a crow flying over would have to carry his own rations."
In Sheridan's letter to Grant, dated Woodstock, Oct. 7, 1864, he says of his work :-
"In moving back to this point, the whole country, from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain, has been made untenable for the rebel army. I have destroyed over 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay, and farming implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over 4000 head of stock; and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3000 sheep. This destruction includes the Luray Valley and Little Fort Valley, as well as the main valley. A large number of horses have been obtained, a proper estimate of which I can not make now.
" Lieut. Jno. R. Meigs, my engineer officer, was murdered be- yond Harrisonburg, near Dayton. For this atrocious act all the houses within an area of five miles were burned."
It is not generally known, we believe, that this policy of devas- tation on the part of Sheridan was directly inspired and ordered by General Grant, who, in his " Memoirs," writes with great satisfaction and levity of the outrages committed by Sherman and Sheridan, before referred to, and which he, of course, under- stood would be committed, from the terms of Sherman's telegrams to him, and which he, at least, acquiesced in.
On the 5th of August, 1864, Grant wrote to Gen. David Hunter, who preceded Sheridan in command of the Valley, as follows :-
"In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, where it is expected you will have to go first or last, it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage, and stock wanted for the use of your command, such as cannot be consumed, destroy."
And says Mr. Horace Greely :-
" This order, Sheridan, in returning down the valley, executed to the letter. Whatever of grain or forage had escaped appro- priation by one or another of the armies which had so frequently chased each other up and down this narrow but fertile vale,
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was now given to the torch." - "American Conflict," Vol. II, PP. 610, 611; " Grant's Memoirs," Vol. II, Pp. 581, 364, 365.
The facts about the alleged murder of Lieutenant Meigs, for which Sheridan says he burned all the houses within an area of five miles, are these: Three Confederate cavalry scouts, in uniform, and with their arms, got within Sheridan's lines, and encountered Lieutenant Meigs with two Federal soldiers. These parties came on each other suddenly. Meigs was ordered to sur- render by one of our men, and he replied by shooting and wounding this man, who in turn fired and killed Meigs. One of the men with Meigs was captured and the other escaped. It was for this perfectly justifiable conduct in war that Sheridan says he ordered all the houses of private citizens within an area of five miles to be burned. (See proof of the facts of this occurrence, to the satisfaction of Lieutenant Meig's father, Ninth South, in " Sonthern Historical Society Papers," page 77.)
Butler's infamous order No. 28, directing that "any lady of New Orleans who should by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, shall be regarded and treated as a woman of the town, plying her avocation," not only infuriated the people of the South and caused the author to be outlawed by our government, and de- nominated " The Beast," but Lord Palmerston, in the British House of Commons, took occasion to be astonished, to blush, and to proclaim his deepest indignation at the tenor of that order. (See "Greely," page 100.)
But we are sick of these recitals, and must conclude our col- lation, already longer than we had intended it should be. We therefore only allude to the orders found on the person of Dahl- gren, " to burn, sack, and destroy the city of Richmond, to kill Jeff Davis and his cabinet on the spot," etc., etc.
The infamous deeds of Gen. Edward A. Wild, both in Virginia . and Georgia, and of Col. John McNeil in Missouri, some of which can be found set forth in the first volume of "Southern Historical Papers," pages 226, 232, are shocking and disgraceful beyond description.
Now contrast with all there orders and all this conduct on the part of the Federal officers and soldiers, the address of
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General Early to the people of York, Pa., when our army invaded that State in the Gettysburg campaign; or better still, the order of Gen. Robert E. Lee to his army on that march. We will let that order speak for itself. Here it is :-
" HEADQUARTERS, A. N. V., " CHAMBERSBURG, PA., June 27, 1863.
" General Orders, No. 73.
" The Commanding General has marked with satisfaction the conduct of the troops on the march, and confidently anticipates results commensurate with the High spirit they have manifested. No troops could have displayed greater fortitude or better per- formed the arduous marches of the first ten days. Their conduct in other respects has, with few exceptions, been in keeping with their character as soldiers, and entitles them to approbation and praise.
" There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some, that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of the army; and the duties exacted of us by civili- zation and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of our enemy than in our own.
" The Commanding General considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. . Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators and all con- nected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and effi- ciency of the army and destructive to the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that we make war only on armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemy, and offending against Him to whom vengeance be- longeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain. The Commanding General therefore earnestly exhorts the troops to abstain, with most scrupulous care, from
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