Were gen. Sherman and Gen Forrest war criminals?

"Out of the heart, the mouth speaks" the Bible says. To discern a criminal mind look into their heart, through their words and actions. Taken from The Union: Diaries, Memoirs and Letters of the Civil War, "Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman", regarding his after war years on page 281, Sherman said, "[Union mustered-out soldiers], vigorous men who had imbibed the somewhat erratic habits of a soldier, flocked to the plains, producing the result we enjoy today, in having in so short a time replaced the wild buffaloes by numerous herds of tame cattle, and by substituting for the useless Indians the intelligent owners of productive farms and cattle ranches."
 
"Out of the heart, the mouth speaks" the Bible says. To discern a criminal mind look into their heart, through their words and actions. Taken from The Union: Diaries, Memoirs and Letters of the Civil War, "Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman", regarding his after war years on page 281, Sherman said, "[Union mustered-out soldiers], vigorous men who had imbibed the somewhat erratic habits of a soldier, flocked to the plains, producing the result we enjoy today, in having in so short a time replaced the wild buffaloes by numerous herds of tame cattle, and by substituting for the useless Indians the intelligent owners of productive farms and cattle ranches."

Sherman wasn't known for his racial tolerance. But I believe we're taking one war at a time here - the Civil War. Didn't fight many Indians while he was fighting Confederates.
 
Sherman wasn't known for his racial tolerance. But I believe we're taking one war at a time here - the Civil War. Didn't fight many Indians while he was fighting Confederates.

...And one would not be able to single out Sherman, specifically, regarding the Indian Wars. At large, a whole different objective carried out under an entirely different set of rules: Everyone tossed the Lieber Code!
 
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I got this link from @bankerpapaw on a thread abot Forrest but I decided to open up the conversation a bit. Professor of Political Science John Tures LaGrange Collge Ga agrues they are. Professor Tures to be fair and balanced in another article in the Huffington post does state the case that Forrest did turn away from the violence of the KKK late in his life.
So what say ye all?
huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/william-t-sherman-and-nathan-bedford-forrest-civil-war-criminals_b_7552816.html
Leftyhunter

I question how much credibility a political scientist has judging military figures. He seems to have a very superficial view of both Sherman and Forrest.
 
Many would argue the conventional warfare portion of the Civil War was not total warfare. First we have to have an agreed definition of total war with historical examples.
Leftyhunter
I believe total war can be defined as war involving the entire populations of the belligerents - WWII being the foremost example.
 
I believe total war can be defined as war involving the entire populations of the belligerents - WWII being the foremost example.
Sounds reasonable. In that case the ACW would not come close although te guerrilla warfare of the Civil War comes close. Both wars had quite a bit of guerrilla warfare.
Leftyhunter
 
If in fact all is fair in love and war, then nothing they did during wartime was illegal.
 
War criminals. What's never, ever mentioned are the Northern and Southern camp commandant's superiors and especially the prison administration support staff. Un-creative, bureaucratically, pencil-pushing, administrative "Eichmann's" who caused untold suffering while pursuing comfortable 9 to 5 jobs. Like all "good, efficient" war criminals in history, they've disappeared in history.

Makes a Sherman or Forrest *****cats. They were fighting a war in the midst of blood and gore.
 
Forrest sure never engaged in anything resembling total war - different command mission. Sherman's always accused of it and I think it has to do with the definition. If you define it as Julius Caesar defined it - no way does Sherman come near! If you define it as warring on civilians - he did it. As Caesar ran into some mighty tough tribesmen up around Belgium, Sherman ran into some mighty tough guerrillas in Georgia. And, the plantations were little manufacturing centers loaded with items the armies could use. How do you make a separation? Planters like Forrest could raise and equip whole brigades - Forrest did so with at least four. If he had stayed a civilian, he would certainly have used his resources to support the South and...Sherman would have burned his plantation down. Forrest would have done the same to Sherman - he considered everybody who did not support the South to be the enemy.
 
! If you define it as warring on civilians - he did it. /QUOTE]
Destroying a plantation is not making war on civilians. It is destroying the enemy's ability to support their armies in the field... a tactic that had been used for centuries.

Killing civilians is making war on them.

Two very different things. The first was common... the second was not.
 

That's the thing - the plantations weren't subsistence farms, they were big enough enterprises to have their own railroad trunks, landings, even ships and supplied all manner of materials from corn to turpentine in sufficient quantities to help an army considerably. The planters had the money, too. The officers of the Confederate army were usually the planters, very few not, so they shouldn't have been surprised if a Union general obliterated their plantation. Even then, Sherman wasn't after the people on the plantation - he was after their ability to aid their cause. If you were a small time farmer and took up arms, he didn't consider you a civilian in that case - which you weren't even if you weren't officially enlisted somewhere - and he went after guerillas and partisans. Nobody can find anything where he did something like Caesar - kill everybody in a populous town to let the rest know resistance was futile!
 
Nobody can find anything where he did something like Caesar - kill everybody in a populous town to let the rest know resistance was futile!

This is because Sherman practiced Hard War, which deals with material goods, whereas Caesar enforced Total War, which left nothing in its path -- including people. This has been discussed many times on these tiresome "Sherman" threads, but folks are gonna believe what they want, facts be dammed.

I admire your persistence, Diane, as this is the second time this exact article has been used for this exact topic. *Sigh*
 
This is because Sherman practiced Hard War, which deals with material goods, whereas Caesar enforced Total War, which left nothing in its path -- including people. This has been discussed many times on these tiresome "Sherman" threads, but folks are gonna believe what they want, facts be dammed.

I admire your persistence, Diane, as this is the second time this exact article has been used for this exact topic. *Sigh*

:rofl: Well, you know the thing about banging your head against a brick wall is it feels so good when you stop!
 
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