On Indian Genocide:
Drawing on Michael Fellman's book, Citizen Sherman, the general is quoted as saying the following about the Plains Indians shortly after the war: "It is one of those irreconcilable conflicts that will end only in one way, one or the other must be exterminated . . . . We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to the extermination, men, women and children" (p. 26). According to Fellman, Sherman "had given [General Phillip] Sheridan prior authorization to slaughter as many women and children as well as men Sheridan or his subordinates felt was necessary . . . . Sherman would cover the political and media front" and "maintained personal deniability." "The more Indians we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed next year," wrote Sherman. "They all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers."
Valerie quotes Professor Harry Stout of Yale Divinity School as recently writing that Sherman's "religion" was "America, and America's God was a jealous God of law and order." All those who "resisted" were "reprobates who deserved death."
But Sherman's "religion" was not "America," which at the time was comprised of some 30 million people. His God was the federal government or, more specifically, the Lincoln administration and Lincoln himself. This is what motivated Sherman, not the ending of slavery or anything else. After all, the citizens of the Southern states were Americans and included the descendants of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Patrick Henry, among other notable historical figures (Robert E. Lee's wife, Mary Custis Lee, was descended from Martha Washington's family).
It was Lincoln, not "America," who defined obeying his own dictatorial orders as "law and order." There was no national plebiscite that decided to pillage, plunder and burn Southern cities and towns and murder civilians by the tens of thousands, as Lincoln's army did. And even if there was, it certainly would not have been approved by all of "America," as Sherman contended. Lincoln won only 39% of the popular vote in 1860 and still only 55% in 1864 despite having rigged the elections by shutting down hundreds of opposition newspapers, imprisoning tens of thousands of political dissenters without due process, and having soldiers intimidate Democratic Party voters throughout the North. The fact that he also had to recruit and pay hundreds of thousands of European mercenaries, and invoke conscription, speaks volumes about how popular his war was among Americans of the Northern states. Moreover, it is absurd to label the bombing, pillaging and plundering of the entire South, along with killing its people by the hundreds of thousands, as "law and order" or the protection of life, liberty and property, as called for by the U.S. Constitution.
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On Genocide in the South:
Quoting again from the Fellman biography, 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 . . ."
In a January 1865 letter to General Grant, Sherman once again explained his philosophy of mass murder: "We are not fighting against enemy armies but against an enemy people; both young and old, rich and poor must feel the iron hand of war . . ."
Europeans, meanwhile, were comparing Sherman to the Marquis de Sade and predicting that future wars outside of America would likely be waged against innocent civilians, once Sherman's "success" was understood. They also considered Sherman's war crimes to be the mark of an unsuccessful military man. He did not establish any particularly stellar record as a military commander under fire; his "forte" was the mass murder of civilians and acts of terrorism reigned upon Southern cities with weapons of mass destruction.
Lincoln always knew about all of this, as Walter Brian Cisco explains in his must-read book, War Crimes Against Southern Civilians. He gladly rewarded and praised generals such as Sherman and Sheridan for murdering and terrorizing citizens – American citizens – all in the name of defending "law and order in America."
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