Sherman The War Nerd: Why Sherman was right to burn Atlanta

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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KUWAIT CITY — There are times when the sheer ignorance and ingratitude of the American public makes you sick.
This week marks the 150th anniversary of Sherman’s March from Atlanta to the Sea, which set off on November 16, 1864—the most remarkable military campaign on the 19th century, the campaign which got Lincoln reelected, broke the back of the Confederacy, and slapped most of Dixie’s insane diehards into the realization they were defeated.
You’d think our newspaper of record, the New York Times, would find an appropriate way to mark the occasion, but the best the old Confederate-gray lady could come up with was a churlish, venomous little screed by an obscure neo-Confederate diehard named Phil Leigh. Leigh poses a stupid question: “Who Burned Atlanta?” and comes up with a stupider answer: “Sherman, that bad, bad man!”
Leigh actually thinks he’s fixing blame—blame!—for Sherman’s perfectly sensible, conventional action, the burning of a major rail center in his rear before setting out unsupported across enemy territory.
What next? Will the NYT dig up some crusty tenth-generation Tory sulking in the suburbs of Toronto to ask, “Who Killed All Those Innocent Redcoats on Bunker Hill?” Or a sob story by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s last surviving sailor asking, “Who Sank All Our Carriers?”
Leigh’s silly article could only work on totally ignorant readers, or on his fellow tenth-generation sulkers brooding about what went wrong circa 1863. And the funny side of that is that Sherman, more than anyone else in U.S. history, devoted his life to trying to slap these Dixie dreamers into waking up and thinking like grown-ups.


http://pando.com/2014/11/20/the-war-nerd-why-sherman-was-right-to-burn-atlanta/

Whatever problems the article may or may not have, he at least has Phil Leigh pegged right.
 
Write-ups that include the words "ignorant", "ingratitude", "stupid", "insane", etc. to describe opposing opinions, automatically made themselves ignorable, in my opinion.

That first sentence is a gem...
 
Write-ups that include the words "ignorant", "ingratitude", "stupid", "insane", etc. to describe opposing opinions, automatically made themselves ignorable, in my opinion.

That first sentence is a gem...

As I said, there may be problems with the article. He is over the top in some of his statements.
 
I agree that Leigh's piece is pretty lame but, really, so is this one. He seems to know that Sherman's March began in mid-November but then says it's the campaign that saved the election for Lincoln. And "the most remarkable military campaign of the 19th Century?" Really? Napoleon marched into Russia with 450,000 men in that century. And calling the New York times the "Confederate grey lady" is just goofy.

This screed isn't up to par of just about any of the regular posters on this site. Not sure what makes this fella the "War Nerd." Seems more like just a nerd.
 
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I agree that Leigh's piece is pretty lame but, really, so is this one. He seems to know that Sherman's March began in mid-November but then says it's the campaign that saved the election for Lincoln. And "the most remarkable military campaign of the 19th Century?" Really? Napoleon marched into Russia with 450,000 men in that century. And calling the New York times the "Confederate grey lady" is just goofy.

This screed isn't up to par of just about any of the regular posters on this site. Not sure what makes this fella the "War Nerd." Seems more like just a nerd.

Well, Napoleon's campaign in Russia didn't end so well for Napoleon. :smile:

I think he's most interested in slamming Phil Leigh, but he definitely needs to check his own facts.
 
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