150th Anniversary of Sherman's March

[Old Bay]

There was another Civil War thread here recently where I was essentially educated for the first time on the actual causes of the war. It was a very unsettling feeling and now I wonder what other history lessons were politicized. 

 

I honestly don't recall what was taught as the cause of the Civil War.  I've always had an interest so I think I didn't really take what the stock history book said and read other stuff (even at 10 years old).  The one thing I really remember being mind blown on was Pocahontas.  My 4th grade history book got that completely wrong.

[abdcskins]

Great thread - I visited Gettysburg last week and my interest in the Civil War has been renewed. I learned some stuff reading this thread.

[mcsluggo]

a little kerosene for the fire

 

http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/

 

 

 

Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party

Tea Partiers say you don’t understand them because you don’t understand American history. That’s probably true, but not in the way they want you to think.

 

 

[Jumbo]

In the words of the reflective, nostalgic, and heartfelt ballad by Band of Horses, "let's do it all again."

 

 

 

 

(too soon?)

[Bang]

Sherman was among the first to recognize that civilian populations were every bit as much war-fighters as actual soldiers. They fed, clothed and supplied the army.

By throwing old notions of wartime "civility" by the wayside and attacking the civilian ability to do that and by ripping up and twisting all the railroads, he destroyed the south's ability to wage war effectively, and ushered in modern warfare that considers civilian infrastructure and manufacturing as military targets.

 

I am a big fan of Jeff Shaara's Civil War novels. I am currently reading "A Chain of Thunder" which is an account of the siege of Vicksburg. While these books are fictional in that it imagines the historical figures as characters in a novel, the story takes completely from historic record. So while the words assigned to the characters are imagined, the actions and accuracy of the events are not.

This is the second of a trilogy, the third of which is about the March.

High recommendation for anyone interested. Your library will have them. He's written 5 novels of 2 Civil War trilogies. (the second novel of the first trilogy is by his father, and is one of my favorite books. "The Killer Angels" is an outstanding account of the battle of Gettysburg.)

 

~Bang

[Dan T.]

a little kerosene for the fire

 

http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/

 

 

[Going Commando]

Sherman was among the first to recognize that civilian populations were every bit as much war-fighters as actual soldiers. They fed, clothed and supplied the army.

By throwing old notions of wartime "civility" by the wayside and attacking the civilian ability to do that and by ripping up and twisting all the railroads, he destroyed the south's ability to wage war effectively, and ushered in modern warfare that considers civilian infrastructure and manufacturing as military targets.

Sherman definitely wasn't the first to wage total war and target civilian infrastructure.  Militants have been putting towns to the sword and sewing salt in their fields since antiquity. If anything, Sherman's campaigns were gentle and humane by historical standards.  Certainly pales in comparison to the excesses of any significant previous European continental war.  The Napoleonic Wars ravaged civilian populations, they estimate maybe a million casualties.  And it gets worse from there.  They estimate the atrocities of the Thirty Years War reduced the population of Germany somewhere between 25-40%.  Swedish Mercenary armies, among others, essentially destroyed the land that is Germany today and set the clock back on German civilization at least 100 years. They destroyed farms and villages and caused huge famines and spread epidemic diseases at an incredible rate. And the anecdotal accounts of the cruelty of the Swedish mercs will turn your stomach. Waves of witch-hunting, mass burnings, wanton torture, stuff like funneling water saturated with feces into the mouths of victims until their bellies were distended and then pressing them between boards and trampling them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwedentrunk

Probably gets worse the further you go back too. Don't know many specifics about the atrocities of the Hundred Years War, but I imagine they were awful in scope. The Mongolian invasions and the Tatar Yoke period of Russian history are famous for the amount of human misery they inflicted. Part of what allowed small Mongolian armies to be so devastatingly rangy, fast, and effective was how expert they were at living off the land.

Civilians have always suffered in big wars. If anything, the American Civil War is probably notable as one of the only major conflicts conducted with a marked level of civility and humanity. No mass exterminations of civilian populations. No systematic, widespread torture or rape. No famines or major epidemic diseases killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. No guerilla warfare after the surrender of Lee that extended the suffering and conflict for decades. I think that if the destruction of the Civil War had been on the scale of continental European wars, we'd still be trying to recover from it today. 150 years wouldn't be long enough. And we wouldn't have become a global superpower any time soon.

 

I am a big fan of Jeff Shaara's Civil War novels. I am currently reading "A Chain of Thunder" which is an account of the siege of Vicksburg. While these books are fictional in that it imagines the historical figures as characters in a novel, the story takes completely from historic record. So while the words assigned to the characters are imagined, the actions and accuracy of the events are not.

This is the second of a trilogy, the third of which is about the March.

High recommendation for anyone interested. Your library will have them. He's written 5 novels of 2 Civil War trilogies. (the second novel of the first trilogy is by his father, and is one of my favorite books. "The Killer Angels" is an outstanding account of the battle of Gettysburg.)

 

~Bang

I love the work of the Shaaras too. I read Killer Angels as an assigned reading in H.S. and it made a huge impression on me. Read Gods and Generals later on my own, but I haven't read anything else by them.

[Old Bay]

Probably gets worse the further you go back too. Don't know many specifics about the atrocities of the Hundred Years War, but I imagine they were awful in scope. 

 

Hundred Years War (Medieval in general) there was the chevauchee.  A lot of campaigns were based off of raiding and wanton destruction of the civilian population.  Pitched battles were often a very last resort as it risked way too much.  Quick strikes against your opponent's vitals was a lot more cost effective.  It got so bad the Church had to step in and say that armies couldn't fight on certain days to give people a break from all the atrocities. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauch%C3%A9e

 

 

I love the work of the Shaaras too. I read Killer Angels as an assigned reading in H.S. and it made a huge impression on me. Read Gods and Generals later on my own, but I haven't read anything else by them.

 

I enjoyed Killer Angels.  I've never read any of the other stuff in that series.  But, I would caution not to take everything in it as historical fact.  I know that in the beginning when they mention Buford fighting at Thoroughfare Gap and holding off Longstreet, but it was actually an infantry brigade under James Ricketts that did that.  I think there are a few other things in there as well (like with Stuart's late arrival) to be wary of.  That doesn't stop me from liking it (just like it doesn't stop me from liking the movie Gettysburg).  Just more chances to find out what really happened.

[Predicto]

a little kerosene for the fire

 

http://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/

 

 

that was a very good article.   A little inflammatory in places, and definitely from a point of view that many people reject, but still a plus read.

[Larry]

It always makes the civil war threads entertaining. Bourgeoisie Internet warriors comfortably passing judgement from their work cubicles on entire swaths of humanity

The great heaping gobs of irony are good, too.

[Dan T.]

that was a very good article.   A little inflammatory in places, and definitely from a point of view that many people reject, but still a plus read.

 

I wish we had a resident Tea Partier to offer a rebuttal.

[Going Commando]

that was a very good article.   A little inflammatory in places, and definitely from a point of view that many people reject, but still a plus read.

He's a good writer. Good at creating a narrative from elements of pop culture. He's got a flair for the smart, provocative voice. It's tasty red meat for today's leftist. This is red meat I can't enjoy though, because it's a fantasy and he's not a historian. I'd be surprised if he has much real knowledge of the historiography of the period and I get the sense he's got a poor understanding of the social and intellectual history of the 19th century and the history of the politics of the war and Reconstruction. He seems to think that the Civil War historiography takes those old lost cause historians seriously. He's also operating on some pretty basic factual distortions/misunderstandings/over-simplifications that are skewing his conclusions. For instance comparing the activities of the Klan to Modern Day insurgencies in Iraq is a reach. It's the kind of thing that makes his agenda pretty naked, and it's also the kind of narrative-driven revisionism and false equivalency he complains about coming from the lost cause movement.

[Going Commando]

I wish we had a resident Tea Partier to offer a rebuttal.

Don't imagine it would be very edifying. Tea Partiers are usually half-educated at best, and have such a skewed and incomplete understanding of elements of American history. They approach history with an agenda to reinforce the ideology of their movement with intellectual legitimacy and reinforce their biases and beliefs.