Lacking
the foresight to learn William T. Sherman’s particular view of
political liberty and representative government, the American South
pursued a more perfect Union in 1861 without his permission and thus
brought upon itself banishment as criminals who should forfeit their
property to those more appreciative of his master’s kindness and
dispensations. The North was, in his eyes, “beyond all question, right
in our lawful cause . . . “
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Wiping the South Out of National Existence
Headquarters, Department of Tennessee, January 1, 1863, Major R. M. Sawyer, AAG Army of Tennessee, Huntsville:
"Dear
Sawyer---In my former letter I have answered all your questions save
one, and that relates to the treatment of inhabitants known, or
suspected to be, hostile or "secesh." The war which prevails in our
land is essentially a war of races. The Southern people entered into a
clear compact of government, but still maintained a species of separate
interests, history and prejudices. These latter became stronger and
stronger, till they have led to war, which has developed the fruits of
the bitterest kind. We of the North are, beyond all question, right in
our lawful cause . . . Now, the question arises, should we treat as
absolute enemies all in the South who differ with us in opinions or
prejudices – [and] kill or banish them? Or should we give them time to
think and gradually change their conduct so as to conform to the new
order of things which is slowly and gradually creeping into their
country?
When
men take arms to resist our rightful authority, we are compelled to use
force because all reason and argument ceases when arms are resorted to.
If the people, or any of them, keep up a correspondence with parties in
hostility, they are spies, and can be punished with death or minor
punishment. These are well established principles of war, and the people
of the South having appealed to war, are barred from appealing to our
Constitution, which they have practically and publicly defied. They have
appealed to war and must abide its rules and laws.
The
United States, as a belligerent party claiming right in the soil as the
ultimate sovereign, have a right to change the population, and it may
be and it, both politic and best, that we should do so in certain
districts. When the inhabitants persist too long in hostility, it may be
both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their
lands to a more loyal and useful population. No man would deny that the
United States would be benefited by dispossessing a single prejudiced,
hard-headed and disloyal planter and substitute in his place a dozen or
more patient, industrious, good families, even if they be of foreign
birth. It is all idle nonsense for these Southern planters to say that
they made the South, that they own it, and that they can do as they
please---even to break up our government, and to shut up the natural
avenues of trade, intercourse and commerce.
We
know, and they know if they are intelligent beings, that, as compared
with the whole world they are but as five millions are to one thousand
millions -- that they did not create the land -- that their only title
to its use and enjoyment is the deed of the United States, and if they
appeal to war they hold their all by a very insecure tenure. For my
part, I believe that this war is the result of false political doctrine,
for which we are all as a people responsible, viz: That any and every
people has a right to self-government . . . In this belief, while I
assert for our Government the highest military prerogatives, I am
willing to bear in patience that political nonsense of . . . State
Rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, and other such trash as
have deluded the Southern people into war, anarchy, bloodshed, and the
foulest crimes that have disgraced any time or any people.
I
would advise the commanding officers at Huntsville and such other towns
as are occupied by our troops, to assemble the inhabitants and explain
to them these plain, self-evident propositions, and tell them that it is
for them now to say whether they and their children shall inherit their
share. The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and
all rights which they choose to enforce in war -- to take their lives,
their homes, their lands, their everything . . . and war is simply power
unrestrained by constitution or compact. If they want eternal warfare,
well and good; we will accept the issue and dispossess them, and put our
friends in possession. Many. many people, with less pertinacity than
the South, have been wiped out of national existence.
To
those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and
forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why,
death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better.
Satan and the rebellious saints of heaven were allowed a continuance of
existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment."
W.T. Sherman, Major General Commanding
(Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama, William Garrett, Plantation Printing Company's Press, 1872, pp. 486-488)
