Hi, DU - On the History Channel right now: Sherman's march to the sea

[CatWoman]

and destroys Atlanta in the process.

:hi:

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. Cat, I'm sure our Northern brethren are already at their TVs

Getting their jollies and their rocks off, so to speak. Seems that there are a few here still fighting that cursed war. And the folks here at DU who are fighting it seem to be mostly from north of the Mason-Dixon line.

[pinto]

3. Geez. Let's not do this. I have no idea what the "spin" of the piece is, if any, but

baiting like this does little beyond encouraging regional slams, which DU discourages.

[Ishoutandscream2]

4. Give it time

That goddamned war seems to give a few some sort of satisfaction.

[CatWoman]

5. here in Atlanta

people still curse Sherman.

[RB TexLa]

9. I'm from a southern state where our flagship university is naming a building in his honor

[mrcheerful]

2. My great grand father, Andrew Jackson Meeker was with Sherman on that march.

Outside of that tid bit, nothing after the war stuck out, he was a simple Ohio farmer until his death.

[Lex]

11. I'm distantly related to Gen. John Logan who helped burn down Atlanta

but I'm a southerner--one part of my family tree traces back to Illinois and to Gen. Logan though.

[Forkboy]

6. Awesome...that's one of my favorite episodes!

[CatWoman]

8. um

are you being sarcastic??

:hi:

[Forkboy]

17. Of course not.

Jeez,what kind of guy do you think I am?

There's only two kinds of Shermans so I'll win out either way because I love WW2 stuff!

[charlie]

21. 3 kinds

if you love the best cock-of-the-walk strut in TV history.

[Forkboy]

28. There you go...another good Sherman!

Shermans abound! :)

[CatWoman]

23. ha!!!

Jeez,what kind of guy do you think I am?

you REALLY don't want me to answer that, do you?

:loveya:

:)

[Forkboy]

27. I'm kind of torn on that question.

:evilgrin:

:loveya:

[BlooInBloo]

14. LOL!

[Rick Myers]

7. Really a great story! Watching now! n/t

[El Supremo]

10. Man, do I hate this song.

http://freepages.music.rootsweb.com/~edgmon/marching.mid

Bring the good ol' Bugle boys! We'll sing another song, Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along, Sing it like we used to sing it fifty thousand strong, While we were marching through Georgia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee. Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free, So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea, While we were marching through Georgia.

How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound, How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found, How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground, While we were marching through Georgia.

Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears, When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years; Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers, While we were marching through Georgia.

"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never make the coast!" So the saucy rebels said and 'twas a handsome boast Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the Host While we were marching through Georgia.

So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train, Sixty miles of latitude, three hundred to the main; Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain While we were marching through Georgia.

[supernova]

12. I've never heard that

song before, but I understand how it could grate.

[Selatius]

13. It may have been OK back in those days, but today, that would be called a war crime.

This is no better than the Nazis leveling Warsaw after the folks there decided to resist occupation or the Allied bombing of Dresden. They say the US Civil War was the first total war, and for good reason. It was the first war where civilian infrastructure became fair game as targets.

[supernova]

16. I've often wondered

what the Civil War would have been like if we had had all the international institutions we do now back then. Would UN peacekeepers have been placed in the south? Would there have been a physical wall built at the Mason-Dixon Line?

I wonder about that stuff sometimes. Anybody else?

[Vinnie From Indy]

18. Hardly!

The Alexander the Great, the Mongols etc etc etc all devastated "civilian" infrastructure. That concept of war is as old as mankind.

[Selatius]

22. Well, I was talking about it in a modern context.

The future world wars would show an equal if not greater disregard for the life of civilians and civilian infrastructure. Of course, in antiquity, armies routinely sacked cities and committed mass genocide. Historians call it the first total war not simply because of willful targeting of civilians/civilian infrastructure on a massive scale but because it was also, in some ways, the first mechanized, mass production war. Of course, mechanized killing would reach a greater level in World War One and beyond.

[CatWoman]

24. look, for instance, at what the Romans did to to the Temple of Jerusalem

and before that, Carthage.

[Glorfindel]

15. Good ol' Uncle Billy Sherman...some of his rabble strung up my

great-great grandfather (a man in his 70's) by his thumbs to try to make him tell where his gold was hidden. He didn't, and his son, my great-grandfather, plowed it up 20 years later: $30,000.00 in US gold coins, quite a tidy sum back then. I learned my deep and abiding contempt for Sherman at my parents' knees, and nothing will ever change that. I can't imagine watching such a program; I wouldn't sleep for weeks. You have a stronger constitution than I do! :toast:

[Vinnie From Indy]

19. I am sure there are some Northern families of

soldiers that died in Andersonville prison that were told the same type of stories of hating your fellow American. You should break the chain!

[Glorfindel]

20. I have broken the chain. It dies with me, as I'm childless.

And if I could endure the wretched climate, I'd live "at the North" in a heartbeat, but I just don't like cold weather, except at Christmastime. I have far more in common with today's citizens of the Northeast, the Northwest, and the Upper Midwest than I do with my fellow southerners. Andersonville was inexcusable, but so was Belle Isle, where one of my great-granduncles died a prisoner of war.

[CatWoman]

25. you know, I am by birth a Southerner

born in the cradle of slavery: Virginia.

And I enthusiastically applaud Sherman's efforts, to include the destruction of Atlanta, Savannah and Charleston.

The war would not have ended without said actions.

[Glorfindel]

26. Duly noted.

Thank you for sharing. I won't forget it.