THE WAR IN THE SOUTH

    I have not spent much time either in the rural South or the Midwest.  (I am glad to hear that Indianapolis has a fine Civil war memorial, although as a native Baltimorean I try and stay away
from Indianapolis.) In New England, the memorials are all of common soldiers, at least outside the big cities. In the South, at least in the cities, the memorial are all of generals.  I have always thought that reflected a profound difference in outlook—the South was hierarchical and the North the home of the common man.  Thus, Northern monuments focus on the sacrifice of Northern soldiers, but perhaps that focus merely reflects the fact that the Southern generals—esp Lee and Jackson—were more heroic (in a movie sense).  After all, Grant and Sherman were even better generals, but they lack the panache of the Rebs, and they also do not representa “Lost Cause.’  Perhaps Al and other
commentators might have something to say on this.

A few years ago I was in rural Georgia in a small town where a sign told me that the town was spared from Sherman’s soldiers because the town’s mayor and Sherman had been friends.  My immediate
thought was—“No one’s perfect.”  In other words, this town also should have been burned by Sherman.

The town was lovely, and it would have been a great loss to have burned it.  Things of beauty are, of course, all too rare. On the other hand, the beauty was built on the backs of slaves, and Sherman’s March to the Sea was designed to destroy Southern resistance.  Moreover, the buildings that survived surely
passed into the hands of those who inherited them from slave labor.  Why should those owners have been exempt from the whirlwind that they sowed?

 

Comments

[Wes Rist]

Perhaps because wishing death and destruction on anyone, regardless of the culpability of their actions, deprives us of some of our humanity. I can condemn the wrongful use of human beings as slaves needed to build their little hamlet without actively regretting that they weren't subjected to indiscriminate violence at the hand of the state as well.

That kind of desire for "payback" or violent retribution is what fuels the endless cycle of violence we see so commonly in our modern world. It's what fuels the ongoing conflict in Gaza right now.

[Alfred Brophy]

Maybe there was enough violence in the Civil War.

[Calvin Massey]

Burning the town would not have provided anything of value to the slaves whose labor contributed to its existence. As the now-trite saying has it, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

[Ugg Boot Sale]

Woo...great. thanks you for sharing for us this good article.

[Concerned Citizen]

Professor Reynolds, you may as well also hope for the state to burn Baltimore to the ground. Or are you genuinely so ignorant of her history as it relates to the slave trade? I find that hard to believe, yet... here we are.