SHERMAN'S MARCH
General Sherman, in his official report of his operations in Georgia, says: "We consumed the corn and fodder in the country thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah: also the sweet potatoes, hogs, sheep, poultry, and carried off more than 10,000 horses and mules. I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia at one hundred million dollars, at least, twenty millions of which inured to our benefit, and the remainder was simply waste and destruction." Could anything be more diabolical?
From Gen. Bradley Johnston's "Life of Gen. Jos. E. Johnston," I take the following extracts, descriptive of Sherman's march: "A solid wall of smoke by day forty miles wide, and from the horizon to the zenith, gave notice to the women and children of the fate that was moving on them. At early dawn the black veil showed the march of the burners. All day they watched it coming from the northwest, like a storm-cloud of destruction. All night it was lit up by forked tongues of flame, lighting the lurid darkness. The next morning it reached them. Terror borne on the air, fleet as the furies, spread out ahead, and murder, arson, rapine, enveloped them. Who can describe the agonies of mothers for their daughters, for their babes, for their fathers and young boys?
"This crime was organized and regulated with intelligence and method. Every morning details were sent out in advance and on the flanks. The burners spread themselves over the whole country for miles beyond either flank of the marching columns, and they robbed everything.
"All valuables, gold, silver, jewels, watches, etc., were brought in at night and a fair division made of them among all parties. The captain was entitled to so much, the colonel to his share, the general to his portion.
"Let a few other things also speak. Major-General Halleck, then, I believe, commander-in-chief, under the President, of the armies of the Union, on the 18th of December, 1864, dispatched as follows to General Sherman, then in Savannah: 'Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.'"
On the 26th of December, 1864, General Sherman made the following answer: "I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think that 'salt will be necessary.' When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the right wing, and the position will bring them naturally 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 upon South Carolina."
The Northern people have immortalized these dastardly deeds in the song, "Marching Through Georgia," and still exultingly sing and play it, which but perpetuates an infamy which should and does cause every American, worthy of the name, to hang his head in shame.
Here we have it from those high in authority approving and urging on the demons in human form who were perpetrating the most dastardly atrocities, and gloating over it, too. Who can doubt but that Hades burned hotter and his Satanic Majesty rubbed his hands in glee, when Stanton, Halleck, Sherman, et id genus omne, were hurled headlong into the bottomless pit?
How different was the conduct of General Lee and his army when invading the enemy's country! I give here General Lee's order when in Pennsylvania:
"Headquarters Army Northern Virginia,
June 27, 1863,
"Gen. Orders No. 73.
"The Commanding General has observed with marked satisfaction the conduct of the troops on the march. There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputation of this army, and that the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than our own.
"The Commanding General considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country....
"It will be remembered that we make war only upon armed men.
(Signed) R. E. Lee, General."
What a contrast! Robert E. Lee would have thrust his right hand into the fire and burned it off inch by inch before he would have written such words as Halleck and Sherman wrote.
W. T. Sherman was utterly incapable of entertaining or expressing such high and noble sentiments as emanated from Lee in the above-quoted order.
It is true that Early burned Chambersburg, but this was done in retaliation for wanton destruction of private houses in Virginia by the Yankee General Hunter, upon the refusal of the town to pay an indemnity in money.