Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Which 'guilty' Southern civilian fired upon Union troops at Charleston, S.C. after cessation of hostilities, to cause the burnings? Why were poor, non-slaveholder civilian homes inhabited by women & children robbed, looted and burned when resistance was not offered by the occupants?
Regards,
Rob Adams
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Don't know what you're talking about, Rob, since to my memory Charleston, SC was not burned. Perhaps you can post your source for claiming Federal troops burned Charleston.
No problem. I made the mistake while reading & typing, at the same time. ;-) I will attempt to clarify my reply.
I didn't intend to state the "cessation of hostlities" as in the war was over, but I refer to the Georgia countryside after the Atlanta Campaign was finished. There was a lack of any viable Confederate army in Georgia to confront Sherman's army during the 'Atlanta to the Sea,' march. Unless Home Guard or Wheeler's harassment are deemed major factors, there wasn't an organized hostile army in the Atlanta-to-Savannah zone; that I'm aware of? Hood abandoned Atlanta and marched his army through Alabama and into Tennessee.
Military targets such as rolling mills, plants etc,..were legitimate target's of destruction. I don't see how small, occupied, private dwellings were considered legitimate military targets. Do you agree/deny that single-family homes were robbed and subsequently burned by Federal troops under command of Gen. W.T. Sherman in Georgia, during 1864?
I have no casualty numbers of Southern civilians killed but have used the "below 1,000" to "tens of thousands" as stated on former quotes, as a loose figure. The true number cannot, in my opinion, be stated with any accuracy. Do you have accurate civilian casualty numbers along with sources?
I refer to the Georgia countryside after the Atlanta Campaign was finished. There was a lack of any viable Confederate army in Georgia to confront Sherman's army during the 'Atlanta to the Sea,' march. Unless Home Guard or Wheeler's harassment are deemed major factors, there wasn't an organized hostile army in the Atlanta-to-Savannah zone; that I'm aware of? Hood abandoned Atlanta and marched his army through Alabama and into Tennessee.
Military targets such as rolling mills, plants etc,..were legitimate target's of destruction. I don't see how small, occupied, private dwellings were considered legitimate military targets.
"There was a 'standing order' of sorts that any building from which fire was directed at the troops would be destroyed, and the rule applied to private residents as well. By the same token anyone who impeded the army's progress by burning a bridge would have his house burned if he was identified, and this happened at least once on the march." [Lee Kennett, Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers & Civilians During Sherman's Campaign, p. 275]
That is one way a private dwelling can be a legitimate military target. Another way would be as a reprisal against a scorched earth policy:
"Sherman had in fact already made it clear in his Special Field Order No. 127 that he would use this kind of reprisal if the Confederates adopted a scorched earth policy: 'Should the enemy burn forage and corn on our route houses, barns and cotton gins must also be burned to keep them company.'" [Ibid.]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alabaman
Do you agree/deny that single-family homes were robbed and subsequently burned by Federal troops under command of Gen. W.T. Sherman in Georgia, during 1864?
I agree there were some soldiers who disobeyed orders and robbed some homes and there were some soldiers who disobeyed orders and burned some homes of innocent civilians.
"There is a persistent tradition that Sherman's troops burned vast numbers of rural homes--'thousands' was the word used by Chaplain Bradley--and in the decades after the war any chimneys standing alone about the Georgia countryside got the lugubrious name 'Sherman's sentinels.' But what evidence there is indicates that only a minority of the houses along the army's path were fired by the Northern soldiers--probably a smaller proportion than during the evacuation of North Georgia. That is the impression to be gained from reading the more meticulous diarists; a house in the countryside going up in flames was noted. Henry Hitchcock was constantly on watch for them but did not note very many. Later studies of the areas the army passed through likewise show that the majority of the houses survived the holocaust of 1864. Using detailed maps prepared by one of Sherman's topographical engineers for the sixty-odd-mile stretch between Covington and Milledgeville, a geographer at the University of Georgia went back over the route in 1955 and discovered that many of the structures had survived not only Sherman's passage, but also accidental fires and termites, and were peacefully succumbing to dry rot. As for Milledgeville and the surrounding area, the author of another study found that 'the actual destruction of private dwellings ... was rare indeed, either in the town or along the route of march.'" [Ibid., pp. 275-276]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alabaman
I have no casualty numbers of Southern civilians killed but have used the "below 1,000" to "tens of thousands" as stated on former quotes, as a loose figure. The true number cannot, in my opinion, be stated with any accuracy. Do you have accurate civilian casualty numbers along with sources?
Regards,
Rob Adams
I don't know of many innocent civilian deaths at all other than singular anecdotes and what is shown in court-martial records, and none at all ordered by any commander, excepting Wheeler's attack on black refugees at Ebenezer Creek. I have not come across any credible numbers regarding an estimate of innocent civilians killed.
"Sherman, in his march across Georgia and up through Carolina, had sixty thousand men with him. I don't know what percentage of them were illiterate. I know there were very few men in there with a delicacy of manners that you'd expect nowadays. And the whole time he made that march, those sixty thousand men, I had not heard of one case of rape. And that is one of the finest compliments I know you can pay this country and the soldiers it produced that we did not engage in these usual horrendous things that are common in civil war."
Per your post#216, of course it did and of course firing on Ft. Sumter had something to do with 'forced Union.' If neither had taken place, there would have been no war.
Unionblue
Neil,
If Sumter being fired on was the reason for the invasion, why did Lincoln invade Virginia? Why not just bomb the heck out of Charleston to make it a tit for tat?
If Sumter being fired on was the reason for the invasion, why did Lincoln invade Virginia? Why not just bomb the heck out of Charleston to make it a tit for tat?
Because Sumter wasn't the point.
Secession was.
Hal
Simple military logistics.
The firing on Fort Sumter set off an armed rebellion. There was at that time an entity known as the confederacy, made up of 7 states, and it was that entity that was in armed rebellion against the United States. In order to put down the rebellion, all 7 states had to be subdued, and to do that you had to march an army into them. Since they had no aircraft at that time, they had to march through states bordering on this confederacy. Virginia was to be a state through which the army marched until she seceded too and became a part of the armed rebellion.
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