I picked up the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution while travelling to Auburn yesterday and on the front page was a picture of General Sherman, advertising an article about a new history exhibit in town. The exibit is of some of Sherman’s orders during his bombing and destruction of Atlanta, something that his chief military engineer, Captain Poe, told him was completely unnecessary from a military perspective (The Confederates were long gone).
One letter that was of special relevance to today’s war being waged by the political sons and daughters of Lincoln and Sherman over in Iraq was one in which Sherman explained why he decided to destroy 90 percent of the buildings in Atlanta, and then evict the remaining 2,000 or so residents (all women, children, and elderly men) in November, with winter coming on, and no food to be found. Sherman explained that it was costly in terms of manpower to occupy a city. It was cheaper, he said, to just bomb the place back to the stone age and then move on. And so he did.
This of course is exactly what the U.S. military did in Fallujah, Iraq, not too long ago. I guess they must still teach history at West Point.
10:15 am on July 31, 2006
