Sherman Orders the Burning of Atlanta
Sunday November 15, 2009
On November 15, 1864, General Sherman gave orders to burn all public buildings, machine shops, depots, and arsenals in Atlanta during the Civil War. While setting out for Savannah that same day Sherman stated, "Behind us lay Atlanta smoldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in the air and hanging like a ball over the ruined city."
Comments
Sherman’s march was an unjustifiable act and the very things that he told his troops to do he hung them for doing the same thing a mere two years earlier. He knew better (West Point taught him that these were war crimes) than to commit atrocities against civilians (both he and Sheridan) and should have been held accountable rather than applauded as a hero.
My it must be wonderful to have 20/20 hindsight 140 years later. Would these liberal mush minds judge an other culture today with the same standard they apply to another time/culture?
How easy it is to judge those fighting for their lives while while you are sitting in comfort. “Anything is possible for the man who does not have to do it.”
Some people seem to think that Sherman did the burning to kill people. That is far from the truth. When Sherman captured Atlanta he ordered all civilians to leave. He ordered that all military and government buildings be destroyed by fire. If one cuts off their enemy’s supplies, the enemy can no longer fight. This was Sherman’s motivation. His actions were a direct cause to shortening the war.
Isn’t it sad that so many of us have the ability to detect what is in another’s mind? Sherman had long determined to end this war. West Point taught him to cut off the enemy supply line and you win the war. Had he not accomplished this, who knows how long the war would have continued and for that matter how it would have ended. It might be that had he not taken such drastic steps, we would have slavery today. Granted, his strategy was drastic, but effective. These arm chair historians need to do a little more research before they accuse him of war crimes and inhumane atrocities.
General Sherman is not the monster people conceive him to be. He ordered the people of Atlanta to leave and THEN burned it down. He had to do this or else the war would have dragged on forever. He is part of the reason why the Union won the war.
Also, civilians were not raped and murdered like someone else here wrote.
personally, I think Sherman was a genius. From a military standpoint, burning Atlanta was brilliant. It destroyed supplies, artilary, and amunition in the largest supply city of the Confederate. It’s not like there were people in the city…he wasn’t cruel he was just proving a point.
When Sherman got to the city, many of the buildings were already on fire. This fires (like cotton) were set by the people to deprive the Army of supplies. Sherman only continued what was started. He did his job to end the war.
Sherman only continued what the people had started. The military values such as cotton were set fire by the city folk to deprive the Army of military supplies. He only added to the already job that was already under way. He was a soldier doing his job. War is HELL!
Gov. Brown had ordered the people to burn bridges and anything else the Yankee Army could take with them. Yes Sherman did burn building of military value and the fire spread, he and Brown share.
Gov. Brown had ordered the people of Atlanta to burn bridges and anything the Yankee Army could use or take with them. Sherman ordered the burning of anything that could aid the Southern Army. A little blame for each!
The Southern ‘Aristocracy’ was an oppressive class system that was built on the backs of the poor and the slaves and the war was fought for the benefit of those who lived at the top. Sherman brought their war home to them. The man was brilliant.
Sherman was a cowerd and anyone who belives other wise are stupid, The Civil War was not over freeing the slaves, It was Lincon wanted a united
Sates, Yet one can read history books and believe
whole heartly that it was about freeing slaves.
The North did not treat the black any worse than the South. And the idots who spout off about how
repressed the balcks were should read American history. Keep blaming the South but you would be wrong, The history books are writen by the victor, and that was the North. i firmly believe that if Stonwall Jackson had lived he would have fought tooth and nail to win the civil was along with Robert E Lee. Sherman was evil and to allow the burning of so may southen places was an act of cowerdness.
Shermans idea was a really good one, if it wasn’t for his “Total War” idea and bringing the the war to the people and also cutting off the supplies to the confederate soldiers, I don’t think that the civil war would have ended where it did.
Hmmm, if Lee would’ve used the same tactics when he took his Virginia Army into Maryland how would history have treated him? Would he be viewed as a war criminal or Confederate Hero? Something to think about when you are quick to declare Sherman a genius.
The war was about slavery. The secession statements stated that it was about slavery. So now – were they lying, or is this just southern spin?
Evil is slavery. Burning buildings pales by comparison.
The war should properly be called “The Slaveholder’s Rebellion”.
Seems like somewhat similar arguments come up when scrutinizing Truman’s dropping atomic bombs on Japan. Although absolutely horrific, no doubt these actions ended the war with Japan earlier than otherwise, and spared millions of lives.
No doubt there was an element of revenge in US actions against Japan, but after the war the US was very generous towards Japan.
I guess Union forces had some revenge on the South as well, but finally the South was robbed of the will and the means to continue the war.
War is hell, and human weakness means, unfortunately, that revenge will happen.
The South supported the Federal Government (90%) of the budget with tariff on cotton.The war about Money.
Sherman did destroy Atlanta, and continued on to destroyed an interracial civilization of white and mixed
Indian all the way to Savannah. He did not approve of mix marriages
It is my opinion had we become two nation, the world would be a better place, Just maybe, WW1, WW2,
Korea, Viet Nam and the mess we are in today, may not have happen.
Paul
Let us see, what the generalīs own opinion was:
Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery…Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
RE:CAROL’S COMMENTS-HER REASONING & GRAMMAR SAY
IT ALL. SOUTHERNERS HAVE BEEN MISGUIDED & REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT THE NORTH WON THE WAR. WHEN DID
THEY FINALLY STOP TEACHING STUDENTS THAT THE SOUTH
LOST? THE REAL TRAGEDY WAS THE LOSS OF AMERICANS ON BOTH SIDES. IT MUST HAVE BEEN HORRIBLE FOR ALL OF THOSE BRAVE SOLDIERS. THE CONFEDERATES WERE MISLEAD BY JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Washington Lincoln & Their Colleagues Wow. Their absence is painfully felt in our midst today. Let’s resurrect their Legacy.
The burning of Atlanta should be viewed in the same light as the area bombing of Dresden by the Allies in 1945. Both were of minimal military value, but equally, both were significant symbolic punishments meted out in retribution to corrupt and evil systems and their warped civil support.
I write this on Feb. 12, 2010, a day on which schools and libraries where I now live, in Southern California (I was born in Illinois) are closed to honor the American President who, without even a declaration of war from his congress, took a series of actions that resulted in the deaths of over 600, 000 of his fellow Americans– black and white. Why? For many reasons (not the least being his campaign contributors from the munitions industry). But mainly, he saw clearly the task which lay ahead, the fulfilling of “manifest destiny,” namely the slaughter of millions of “savages,” who those of us who are more civilized call Native Americans. Lincoln saw correctly that a “house divided” could not do this.
No, this was not “the Bombing of Dresden” or the Bombing of Tokyo. It was more like Cain killing Abel. I can only wonder whether Atlanta Public Libraries are closed today to honor the birth of the worst scoundrel ever to occupy the White House. “The Land of Lincoln”– to revive a common slang term from decades ago, barf.
Oh my Gosh Patrick… How in the world did you come up with such diatribe???
We’re talking 1860’s here, not 2010… All this hine site balony! You can’t possible think that a man of God such as Abraham Lincoln, could have possibly desired the deaths of all those men, women, and children.. Of any human race.. But, I guess you do… Man, and you are from illinois.. People never cease to amaze me..
Lord, help Patrick and the others who harbor such derogatory thoughts, see the light… Your light.. amen..