“‘Memorandum:—A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The owner may have it from the adjutant of the regiment upon proving property.’ Another:
“‘Smith’s Plantation, March 1, 1781.
“‘Brigade Orders. A woman having been robbed of a watch, a black silk handkerchief, a gallon of peach brandy and a shirt, and as, by the description, by a soldier of the guards, the camp and every man’s kit is to be immediately searched for the same by the officers of the Brigade.’
“Are there any poets in the audience, or other persons in whom the imaginative faculty has been largely cultivated? If so, let me beg him to do me the favor of conceiving, if he can, and make manifest to me, the idea of a notice of a lost watch being given, in general orders, by William Tecumseh Sherman, and the offer to return it on proof of property by the rebel owner! Let him imagine, if he can, the searching of every man’s kit in the army for a stolen watch, a shirt, a black silk handkerchief and a gallon of peach brandy! Sherman says ‘such is war.’ I venture to say that up to the period when that ‘great march’ taught us the contrary, no humane general or civilized people in Christendom believed that ‘such was war.’ Has civilization gone backward since Lord Cornwallis’ day? Have arson and vulgar theft been ennobled into heroic virtues? If so, when and by whom? Has the art of discovering a poor man’s hidden treasure by fraud or torture been elevated into the strategy which wins a campaign? If so, when and by whom?
“No, it will not do to slur over these things by a vague reference to the inevitable cruelties of war. The time is fast coming when the conduct of that campaign will be looked upon in the light of real humanity, and investigated in the real historic spirit which evolves truth; and all the partisan songs which have been sung, or orations which subservient orators have spoken about that great march to the sea; and all the caricatures of Southern leaders which the bitterness of a diseased sectional sentiment has inspired; and all the glamour of a great success, shall not avail to restrain the inexorable, the illuminating pen of history. Truth, like charity, never faileth. Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but when the truth, which is perfect, has come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
“Now let us contrast General Sherman with his greatest foe; likewise the greatest, the most humane general of modern times, and see whether he regarded the pitiless destruction of the substance of women and children and inoffensive inhabitants a legitimate war:
“‘Headquarters Army of Northern Va.,
June 27, 1863.
“‘General Order No. 73. The commanding general has observed with marked satisfaction the conduct of troops on this 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 an 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 barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our country.... It will be remembered that we make war only upon armed men.
R. E. Lee, General.’
“The humanity and Christian spirit of this order was such as to challenge the admiration of foreign nations. The ‘London Times’ commented upon it, and its American correspondent said: ‘The greatest surprise has been expressed to me by officers from the Austrian, Prussian and English armies, each of which has representatives here, that volunteer troops, provoked by nearly twenty-seven months of unparalleled ruthlessness and wantonness, of which their country has been the scene, should be under such control, and willing to act in harmony with the long-suffering and forbearance of President Davis and General Lee.’