JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Early sketch of Roswell Mills, Georgia.
In stories on the war, you can frequently find some positive thread or outcome or a way to come away from a story intact. Please excuse this one. There just is no positive spin. For anyone not familiar with this story, please be careful which account you read? This is an even account, albeit restrained- which is why I chose it. It does link a political org and I cannot do a thing about that- s ever, it's the women who are the point of the thread. No North/South, please.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/deportation-roswell-mill-women
Photo from the Georgia History site.
Gave a huge amount of thought before posting this thread. There's another, cluttered and as unattractive as this topic. It was an awful war. Those who suffered, whether or not they survived the war- and we'll never have numbers, sleep and deserve restful slumber. The thing is, Ladies, all of us, owe a huge amount to our ancestors, all of them. If they could not speak, it's up to us to get it right.
The following writer was just relating a story, that's it. No agenda unless you count being contemptuous about scared, displaced, powerless poor people and agenda. It's part of one of those half page reports officers sent papers.
" Are to be sent to various places in the city to work "
But wait! There really is more. Newspapers are not adequate sources, I know. This writer from 1864 is terribly disparaging about this group of prisoners. I did not snip most of the guy's discourse on how uneducated, unsightly and ignorant he found them.
People simply vanished during the war. Ask Clara Barton whose boundless commitment to being human included her famous searches for lost soldiers, post war. These were soldiers, at least on someone's radar- gone. Our black citizens, newly adrift fought mightily for footholds, a whole, ' nother story. Vanished? Of course. Terrific example of free black citizens, poof- gone, were those swiped out of their shoes and taken south, from Gettysburg. If there's a record any were able to come home I cannot find it.
So when a few hundred disappear from History, while in plain sight, it's baffling. That may be a baffling statement by itself. The thing is, when white noises generated by various Agenda reach a certain pitch, you're tempted to throw your hands in the air. And stop looking. After all, it was 150 years ago, they're not here anymore. Why care?
Well, because hundreds of poor women vanished, sort of.
From " Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War ", at the second session, 38th Congress
'Arrest.... owners and employees, send them under guard to Marietta. ... hang the wretch "
Yes, a South Carolina paper. Yes, we know how unreliable they are- not that Sherman's orders are ambiguous. And optimistic. They were in prison, at least at first.
So there's the crux- deprive the factories of labor. Oh. And treasonous labor, which is why the entire civilian population was also arrested and sent North?
There's that howling female thing again. " Let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them North by cars... " I cut out interspaced bombast- he keeps coming back to getting these people out of there. Not to better food or housing or jobs- just out. The ' where they can live in peace and security '- why not at home, or, if so concerned, send all citizens? Only the factory workers were sent.
The Northern papers got their hands on the story.
Ohio, 1864, picked up in part by other cities. Sherman held firm- and reacted poorly.
Tainted with treason, will get rid of them to Indiana. Some were sent to Kentucky- reports from there vary . I do expect this thread also to become cluttered. We can but try.
This is just what is out there. History is History. Changing it doesn't change it- all it does is lay down one, more tectonic plate on which we're expected to build our future. And those shift.