Sunday, March 20, 2016

Death is Mercy to Secessionists

 http://www.ncwbts150.com/images/ForagingYankees_000.jpg

Sherman viewed Southerners as he later viewed American Indians, to be exterminated or banished to reservations as punishment for having resisted government power. They were subjects and merely temporary occupants of land belonging to his government whom they served. The revealing excerpts below are taken from “Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama,” published in 1872.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Death is Mercy to Secessionists

Headquarters, Department of Tennessee, Vicksburg, January 1, 1863.

[To] 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, but we are not bound to ignore the fact that the people of the South have prejudices that form part of their nature, and which they cannot throw off without an effort of reason or the slower process of natural change.

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)

14 comments:

  1. Gen. Grant on the other hand was more aware, I think. But I have not done the research to know for sure. He wrote something along the lines of the problems involved in letting blacks have access to weapons after the war.

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    1. I'm not sure, but reminded me of this link which you may enjoy. Thanks.

      (Reminiscences Of My Great, Great Grandfather's Slaves)
      http://namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=58&highlight=moore
      "Isaac Watching his Corn at Night, Hears it Growing." In the latter, it is interesting that he owns a musket, pistol, sword, and dirk.

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  2. This lawless authoritarian Sherman was operating in the ignorance that the "Government of the United States" was a creation and agent of the State from which it received DELEGATED POWERS and for which it had none to prevent the secession of "free and independent States".

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  3. I saw the link you gave to me. I can say that in high school when I learned about the civil war there was not much discussion of who was right. Now it seems to me that the slaves were a ticking time bomb.

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    1. the slaves were a ticking time bomb.

      If they were, why did the vast majority stay on the farms for 4 year with the women and children of the household while the men were gone?

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  4. The problem I see is more along the lines of the eventual effect of the slaves on the USA. During the time they were slaves I do not see them as much of a problem. Perhaps I should have explained myself more clearly.

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    1. Not at all and I believe the problem started when we changed relief until you got a job with a time frame to welfare where you get it forever and passed down through generations, but it's not just the blacks anymore.

      6 pictures down, you'll see my mother's wet nurse.
      My Black North Carolina Kinfolk
      http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-black-north-carolina-kinfolk.html

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  5. I agree the welfare state might have been the origin of the problem

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    1. Yes, it certainly backfired. The best laid schemes of mice and men......

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  6. "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."

    And the war continues on. I see nothing different in the US Government today; it's just the same as it was back then.

    For those who wonder why the fight in the Southerner has never ended, re-read the letter above, and then imagine yourself in the same time and situation as this letter describes the conditions toward the South. Now imagine that the conditions you are now encountering haven't changed to the present day, and you will begin to understand why we feel the way we do.

    They are still trying to force illegal aliens on us to this day, without our consent, except that this time we's all Southerners now.


    Central Alabamaian

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    1. And the war continues on. I see nothing different in the US Government today; it's just the same as it was back then.

      Well said.

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      this time we's all Southerners now.

      Indeed we are. Thanks.

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  7. Replies
    1. Can't believe Johnston went to his funeral. Anyway, serves him right, as he died of pneumonia. :)

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