ForeverFree
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- Joined
- Feb 6, 2010
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Scene from the 1945 Bombing of Dresden. Some 35,000 Germans were killed, many were civilians.
Click on link for source.
One of the more common talking points on this forum is the perceived merciless and inhumane nature of Sherman's march through Georgia. The most recent is here: A Southerner's Perspective. This thread is closed, having gone down in flames after just 35 posts. I suspect this thread will flame out fairly quickly as well. We'll see.
First things first: there is no doubt that civilians in the Confederacy went through suffering during the war, and as a result of Sherman's march. I would not have wanted to be in their shoes.
But I've also felt that the criticism of Sherman and his men has been unnecessarily and incorrectly harsh. At times it seems that Sherman's march is made out to be the most merciless, inhumane, and disgusting military action ever seen, the unchecked actions of crazed and extremist monsters. But I don't see that.
My feelings come from the perspective of someone who grew up in the aftermath of WWII and the Viet Nam War. By comparison, what happened during Sherman's march pales. To me, Sherman's march can be seen as relatively humane and decent - things could have gone much, much worse. That deserves some recognition.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Over a hundred thousand dead, many of the civilians.
My initial frame of reference, of course, is the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All told, 150,000 - 240,000 died within 4 months of the two bombing. Many more were injured by the blasts. What most people don't know is that the atom bombings followed a campaign of Allied firebombing that killed over 300,000 Japanese, mostly civilians. A single bombing raid on Tokyo killed between 88,000 - 125,000 men, women, and children in the city, mostly civilians.
Germany also felt the full brunt of Allied bombing. The most famous - or infamous - case of Allied attack was at Dresden, where many refugees had gone to flee the advancing Red Army. The city was not defended by anti-aircraft weapons, and was helpless before the Allied attack. Some have complained about the numerous atrocities that were committed against German civilians, such as massive rapes by the Russian Army.
But nothing matches the mass killings of civilians during the bombings of Japanese and German cities. Certainly these military actions shortened the war and saved Allied lives. But the death toll on helpless civilians boggles the mind. Was the huge killing of civilians cause to call these events war crimes? You be the judge.
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It's hard to see what happened to Confederate civilians as anywhere comparable to the above. Historian Stephanie McCurry discusses a conference she attended in Israel in June 2011 where civil wars throughout history were discussed. She notes in the current issue of Civil War Times (October 2012):
I suspect that dozens of posts are in the waiting, characterizing this as apologia, partisan, anti-Southern, etc. Some will say that they couldn't care less about happened elsewhere. But I wonder how many folks will provide their own criteria by which to objectively determine if, indeed, the acts of the Union are as "bad" as they make it out to be? "Bad" compared to what?... that is the question.
The evidence seems to be that, comparatively speaking, there is reason to say that the Union, despite engaging in a conflict in which more Union men than Confederates died, and despite the huge death toll, was "restrained" in its treatment of civilians on a relative/objective basis. I would think that this is something students of history would find laudatory... we will see how this works out.
- Alan
Scene from the 1945 Bombing of Dresden. Some 35,000 Germans were killed, many were civilians.
Click on link for source.
One of the more common talking points on this forum is the perceived merciless and inhumane nature of Sherman's march through Georgia. The most recent is here: A Southerner's Perspective. This thread is closed, having gone down in flames after just 35 posts. I suspect this thread will flame out fairly quickly as well. We'll see.
First things first: there is no doubt that civilians in the Confederacy went through suffering during the war, and as a result of Sherman's march. I would not have wanted to be in their shoes.
But I've also felt that the criticism of Sherman and his men has been unnecessarily and incorrectly harsh. At times it seems that Sherman's march is made out to be the most merciless, inhumane, and disgusting military action ever seen, the unchecked actions of crazed and extremist monsters. But I don't see that.
My feelings come from the perspective of someone who grew up in the aftermath of WWII and the Viet Nam War. By comparison, what happened during Sherman's march pales. To me, Sherman's march can be seen as relatively humane and decent - things could have gone much, much worse. That deserves some recognition.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Over a hundred thousand dead, many of the civilians.
My initial frame of reference, of course, is the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All told, 150,000 - 240,000 died within 4 months of the two bombing. Many more were injured by the blasts. What most people don't know is that the atom bombings followed a campaign of Allied firebombing that killed over 300,000 Japanese, mostly civilians. A single bombing raid on Tokyo killed between 88,000 - 125,000 men, women, and children in the city, mostly civilians.
Germany also felt the full brunt of Allied bombing. The most famous - or infamous - case of Allied attack was at Dresden, where many refugees had gone to flee the advancing Red Army. The city was not defended by anti-aircraft weapons, and was helpless before the Allied attack. Some have complained about the numerous atrocities that were committed against German civilians, such as massive rapes by the Russian Army.
But nothing matches the mass killings of civilians during the bombings of Japanese and German cities. Certainly these military actions shortened the war and saved Allied lives. But the death toll on helpless civilians boggles the mind. Was the huge killing of civilians cause to call these events war crimes? You be the judge.
****
It's hard to see what happened to Confederate civilians as anywhere comparable to the above. Historian Stephanie McCurry discusses a conference she attended in Israel in June 2011 where civil wars throughout history were discussed. She notes in the current issue of Civil War Times (October 2012):
The level of barbarity and violence reached in the United States pales even in comparison to the other major example of a civil conflict fought conventionally. In the Spanish Civil War (1936-9), there were, in addition to 300,00 battlefield deaths, at least 200,000 extrajudicial killings of civilians-including the purposeful killing of many women and children behind the lines. Three-quarters of them were killed by Franco's forces in mass executions... More than half a million refugees were forced into exile, and many died in French concentration camps... There is little in the American record to compare to this systematic targeting, terrorizing and exterminating of civilians for purposes of political repression...
It is a sad truth that the civil wars of our own time constantly force the Civil War into new perspective. Observers of recent genocidal wars in Africa or Yugoslavia are unimpressed with the violance of the American war. What strikes them most is the level of restraint observed by Union troops in their treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians. What other country, they ask, adopted rules of war in the midst of the fighting? Indeed. It is one of the most impressive and - yes - unique features of our war; that the Lincoln administration was willing to bind itself to a set of regulations limiting the latitude of the Union army in its operations, including in occupied territory and guerrilla warfare. It says something profound.
There are real limits to this view, more than we are yet aware. For the record holds abundant evidence of one kind of violence to which we have yet to do justice: the torture, rape, and murder of enslaved men, women and children by both armies, but especially Confederate forces. While the Spanish have undertaken a belated accounting, in the United States there has been no such effort to estimate the extrajudicial dead. We know of Fort Pillow and other massacres of black POWs. But this number must pale in comparison to the number of noncombatant slaves killed. Official and personal records are littered with casual references: to slaves, including children, beaten to death on plantations, runaways hanged, male slaves executed, insurrections repressed by mass execution, and to torture, mutilation and murder by Southern "scouts," even after the surrender... For these war dead there has been no accounting.
I suspect that dozens of posts are in the waiting, characterizing this as apologia, partisan, anti-Southern, etc. Some will say that they couldn't care less about happened elsewhere. But I wonder how many folks will provide their own criteria by which to objectively determine if, indeed, the acts of the Union are as "bad" as they make it out to be? "Bad" compared to what?... that is the question.
The evidence seems to be that, comparatively speaking, there is reason to say that the Union, despite engaging in a conflict in which more Union men than Confederates died, and despite the huge death toll, was "restrained" in its treatment of civilians on a relative/objective basis. I would think that this is something students of history would find laudatory... we will see how this works out.
- Alan
Bringing the