Through the first thing i would say is there is this misconception that people say oh, shermans men cut a swath 50 miles wide or 60 miles wide. That is i always tell my students you dont want to think of it like a lawn mower strip. It is not 50 miles wide of lawn mower. It is 50 miles from the edge of one column through four columns to the furthest edge of the other. So in many ways it is very what is the word oim looking for. Not sporadic or episodic. But sometimes a house is targeting and other houses a mile away are not targeted. That being said, where shermans men and him and African American African Americans is a really interesting question. I love pauls that shermans army was probably one to great armies of liberation. They are not probably very willing liberators. Sherman was not certainly not a fan of racial equality or after the war according civil rights to African Americans. He did not he was perfectly content as they went on the to plantations to have his men liberate the
Question. Of course, natchez does the same thing. But i have another question. In 1863, confederate troops went out of their way, in fact, arrived late at gettysburg, because theyre busy burning down Thaddeus Stephens house. Chasing free blacks all over pennsylvania and rounding them up. Is there anything equivalent in shermans march that says does his army target politicians house, do they march out of their way just to seek revenge against particular politicians and are they rounding up any white confederates and enslaving them . No, i wouldnt say they go out of their way, but sherman takes a particular delight, and he has a long passage about it in his memoirs about camping for a night in georgia, and freeing cobbs slaves. And the next one that comes in for a lot of destruction, the South Carolina poet simms. They destroy his house. I read a diary that soldiers were dismayed, because its one thing if they sort of trash the house, but they burn a lot of the books in simms library, an
To maintain tight control and lipity explains defined foraging parties and centralized distribution systems, chaos could ensue, and the army could really descend into a sort of armed mob engaging in pillage and so forth. So whats interesting is that you would have expected lipity to use shermans march as his examples as hes making this complicated case. He doesnt. He actually goes back to napoleons russian campaign. In fact, though, he doesnt ignore the march when hes talking about how an army can descend into chaos. Thats where he uses napoleon. He actually defends shermans march and he claims at first that when seizing Household Goods the men carefully discriminated between and this is actually the language from shermans orders, discriminated between the rich who were generally hostile to us meaning the union, and the poor and industrious who were usually friendly or at least neutral, and he describes sherman as having this very organized system with rules and receipts, and he explai
Mike and some of the staff are oh, my goodness, we even recruited craig into distributing handouts. I should get a picture of this. I have a historian friend who once had trace adkins as a sound man at an event. I have a Naval Academy professor as a map handerouter. Thats kind of like bob creek as an easel in the western theater. Bob brian, i do thank you for the introduction. As brian noted, my day job is staff historian at chickamauga military park. Even though im here today, just as a selfinterested historian and citizen, and learner, because ive enjoyed making a few notes about things already yet again from richard and now craig. And look forward to hearing steves talk in a few minutes. And im not here today as a National Military park employee, but because i think the place that i work is an important Historic Site in the shaping of our nation, i couldnt miss an opportunity of hawking my day job. Chickamauga and chattanooga military park. I know a lot of you have discovered out in
Carol Brannon passed away. This is the full obituary where you can share condolences and memories. Published in the Greenville Herald Banner on 2023-11-22.