Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Michael Fellman - Citizen Sherman (2)

Sherman is such an interesting 19th Century man.

The central paradox of General Sherman is that no one did more he did to win the war in one single campaign than when he torched Atlanta in 1864 and took Savannah in December of '64 to clinch Lincoln's reelection in November.  Yet after the war was won, he wanted to return control of the former slave states to the very men who left the Union and therefore brought on the war to start with because he hated blacks and did believe in giving them the vote or any other political rights.  He feared race-mixing.  Obviously he did not understand irony.

Sherman's beliefs are in full view for everybody who looks.


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