On June 21, 1864, before his bloody March to the Sea, Sherman wrote to the secretary of war: “There is
a class of people [in the South] — men, women, and children, who must be killed or banished before you
can hope for peace and order.” How would U.N. war crimes investigators react if Slobodan Milosevic had
made this comment about ethnic Albanians?
On October 9, 1864, Sherman wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant: “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.” Sherman lived up to his boast — and left a swath of devastation and misery that
helped plunge the South into decades of poverty.
General Grant used similar tactics in Virginia, ordering his troops “make all the valleys south of the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad a desert as high up as possible.”
The Scorched Earth tactics the North used made life far more difficult for both white and black
survivors of the Civil UGGs Sheepskin Cuff Boots.
Lincoln was blinded by his belief in the righteousness of federal supremacy. The abuses and tyranny
that he authorized set legions of precedents that subverted the vision of government the Founding
Fathers bequeathed to America.
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