People in the US state of Georgia are still seething about the dopest march to the sea ever marched. Seriously, not even just ultra-chuds, mentions of General Sherman really hit nerves. Lol, stay mad you Peachy Pooters.

  • Civility [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    A) no, it really fucking doesn't.

    B) Sherman was pro-slavery, that may have been a consequence of the war but it wasn't why he was fighting.

    C) After the civil war, Sherman was promoted to Lieutenant General in command of the Military of Missouri, where he

    On September 23, 1868 General William T. Sherman wrote to his brother Senator John Sherman from the headquarters of the Military Division of Missouri. In his letter Sherman discussed the ensuing struggles between the United States Army and the Plains Indians and expressed some of his thoughts on how best to deal with the situation. Many of these thoughts appear to point to one thing: Total War.

    After being placed in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi (renamed the Missouri a year later) in July of 1865, Sherman appears to have built upon the “hard war” tactics of destroying homes and property that he utilized during the American Civil War and developed a “total war” strategy by which to deal with the Plains Indians. Explaining in his letter that all Indians have been provided with reservations on which to live, Sherman concluded, “All (Indians) who cling to their old hunting grounds are hostile and will remain so till killed off.” He continued by calling the conflict a “predatory war” and insisted that the U.S. Army must “take chances and clean out Indians as we (the army) encounter them.”

    This strategy was not applied only to Indian men. On the topic of Indians, Sherman is quoted in a work by historian John F. Marszalek to have said, “During an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate age. As long as resistance is made, death must be meted out, but the moment all resistance ceases, the firing will stop and all survivors turned over to the proper Indian agent.”

    According to Marszalek, Sherman believed strongly in the social Darwinian philosophy that had become popular in the years following the Civil War and viewed the Indians as inferior beings who were standing in the way of Whites and the progress of modern American Culture. Historian Michael Fellman supports these claims asserting that Sherman indeed agreed strongly with the idea of “Natural Law” and quotes him as saying, “It is an inevitable conflict of races, one that must occur when a stronger gradually displaces a weaker” --source

    He did so well at exterminating the Sioux, Cherokee, Navajo and countless other peoples that in 1869 he was promoted to General of The Army, the highest military position in the United States, and placed in charge of waging the same sort of total war of extermination against all the native people's of North America. He had command over the US army until 1883. He personally oversaw and ordered the genocide of far more native Americans, with far more glee, than he ever did confederates.

    D) Like fucking Churchill, Sherman was a murderous, genocidal reactionary imperialist who liberals glorify (out of nationalist fervor) because (for largely horrible reasons) he ended up in conflict with other reactionaries, despite the fact that they both ordered the murder of far more of the people they were colonising, and with far less reluctance. Saying "it's cool and good the Nazis/Confederates lost" is absolutely fine, but posting Churchill in front of a British flag smoking a cigar and making a "witty" quote or some nonsense about god save the queen, or a flattering depiction of Sherman in front of the Union flag with a patriotic US song (land of the free 🤢) crosses a fucking line and should not have a place on this site because both of those men did terrible things to colonised people, for what those flags represent, than they ever did good with their reactionary infighting, and unlike the reactionary infighting liberals and anglophone society in general heaps praises on those men for, there is an active effort to deny, cover up and downplay far worst colonial genocides they spearheaded, ordered and oversaw, which posting about them so positively participates in.