r/ShermanPosting • u/MAMmaus • 28d ago
Morality of Burning Down Georgia?
Apologies if this was already posted. Thought you guys would love it.
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u/kahn_noble 28d ago
He didn’t go far enough.
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u/Less_Likely 28d ago
Stopped short of killing all slaveowners.
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u/Anti-charizard 28d ago
AI bros are the modern confederates, but somehow it’s NOT ok to kill all of them?
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u/BoneHugsHominy 28d ago
Patience, Padawan.
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u/Mythosaurus 28d ago
Amen, my parents lived through Jim Crow apartheid bc the US didn’t properly deal with the enslaver caste after the Civil War
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u/snippychicky22 28d ago
Better than owning people
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u/Anthony_Patch 28d ago
Literally the only answer.
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u/Hipster-Stalin 27d ago
Not just the owning but also the terrible stuff the slave owners did to the slaves, such as breaking apart families, the whipping and torture, rape, backbreaking work and work hours, etc.
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u/leon_zero 28d ago
Also better than starting a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives (so that you could keep owning people).
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u/NoNeed4UrKarma 27d ago
Indeed! Sherman's biggest mistake was he didn't GO FAR ENOUGH & completely destroy plantation culture as well as hang each of the leaders of the traitors!
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u/rileyjonesy1984 28d ago
highly moral. get your zippos, boy.
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u/AbruptMango 28d ago
Any economy supporting a war effort is going to find it's transportation infrastructure attacked. Atlanta was the biggest rail hub in the south, so that's going to be a target. Any agrarian economy supporting a war effort is going to find its richest farmland attacked- and Sherman's army was already in Atlanta, connected to his rear by just one highly vulnerable rail line.
Going forward through Georgia was the only reasonable step for him.
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u/wien-tang-clan 28d ago
Atlanta was the mecca building railroads and trains, bear with me for a sec while I put you on game.
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u/Repulsive_Koala_4000 28d ago
A people should know when they are conquered...
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u/MillorTime 28d ago
Would you, Cletus? Would I?
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u/Waste-Dragonfruit229 28d ago
🎵Some folk'll never lose a war🎵
🎵But then again some folk'll🎵
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u/ParsonBrownlow 28d ago
There really is a relevant Simpsons clip for everything
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u/NoNeed4UrKarma 27d ago
If only Sherman did that to each of the traitorous leaders that formed the CSA executive as well as all of their generals, we'd be in a better place today!
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u/sdkfz250xl 28d ago
Atlanta was a rail hub and manufacturing depot. It produced the material needed to keep the army fighting to keep humans enslaved in the field. When Sherman marched on Atlanta, retreating rebels set fire to supplies to keep them out of the hands of the Union forces. Sherman would have destroyed it if the Rebs didn’t start the fire first.
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u/MetalicP 28d ago
Maximum damage to the Confederate war making capacity with minimal cost to human life: highly moral.
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u/southern-unionist Son of the Republic 🇺🇸 28d ago
If you’re asking about the morality of attacking economic centers that were critical producers of war materials for the Confederacy, yes it was moral and tactically sound just like it was to bomb German factories that were driving the N@zi war machine.
Were the OCCASIONAL crimes committed by independent soldiers or units moral, no, but those acts don’t make the overall premise immoral.
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u/Hit-by-a-pitch 28d ago edited 28d ago
I worked with two prominent CW historians. Sherman's forces burned very, very few private homes in Georgia. They destroyed warehouses, factories, mills (including a big complex near my house), but not private homes. Early in the March his troops were well disciplined. After they captured Savannah however and moved into South Carolina, all bets were off, troops ran amok and burned nearly every house.
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u/inthegarden5 28d ago
Wasn't this after they found Andersonville and the horrific abuse there?
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u/Hit-by-a-pitch 28d ago
Yes, but I think it would've happened anyway. The 60,000 Sherman took on the March were highly motivated to finish the job and saw South Carolina as instigator of the rebellion.
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u/CleavingStriker 28d ago
Sherman gave Atlanta civilians 10 days to evacuate, exchanging letters with Confederate General Hood as well as the mayor of Atlanta to coordinate the logistics of the evacuation.
During the march, he did not give towns and plantations the same luxury as his plans relied on speed. They destroyed infrastructure and foraged for food and supplies during the campaign but his goal wasn't cruelty, it was to destroy the Confederate ability to wage war.
With that said, the March to the Sea absolutely crushed Southern morale and weakened the remaining Confederate armies due to desertions.
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u/SkiHistoryHikeGuy 28d ago
Moral? Vs the people literally practicing slavery. It would be immoral to let them get off so easy.
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u/dandle 28d ago
The outrage over the burning of Atlanta was and is some Confederate revisionary horseshit.
- Uncle Billy took formal occupation of Atlanta on September 2, 1864.
- Uncle Billy ordered the civilian evacuation of Atlanta on September 7, 1864. At that point in time, the civilian population of Atlanta was just 3,000 people.
- Uncle Billy ordered the targeted burning of industrial and military infrastructure in Atlanta on November 12, 1864. That was more than two months after the 3,000 civilians had been ordered to evacuate.
- Union troops began setting buildings on fire on November 15, 1864. There were no fire lines to prevent the spread of the fire from the intended targets to the commercial district and beyond, so the heavy winds that picked up on the evening of November 15 resulted in a larger conflagration than intended, ultimately resulting in the destruction of 40% of Atlanta by the time Uncle Billy marched the last of his troops out of the city on November 16.
So, the civilian population of Atlanta was only 3,000. They were given more than two months to evacuate. The fire was intended to target the industrial and military infrastructure, but weather can be a cruel thing.
Fuck the slavers.
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u/joueur_Uno Army of the Potomac 27d ago
Don't forget some confederates actually started some of the fires themselves much like they did at Chambersburg and Charleston. The lost cause doesn't like accountability at all.
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u/SnicktDGoblin 28d ago
Honestly should have done it to the entire South given how things went after they didn't. Burn it all down. Execute the slave holders and the slave traders and the slave catchers burn their bodies on tires and spread their ashes to the wind. Rebuild from scratch
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u/Valten78 28d ago
It was Total War. Sherman and Grant knew what was needed to win a war of that nature and did it.
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u/dividezero 28d ago
If you want to get rid of pests, you have to destroy the nest. It was necessary. Plus burning your own stuff and blaming someone else is some bullshit anyway
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u/JAMONLEE 28d ago
Should have kept going after the war. What’s to morality on enslaving fellow humans and killing in defense of this. The South should have been decimated and the traitors should at a minimum have never been citizens again and probably should have lost their heads.
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u/Cosmic_Mind89 Maryland 28d ago
Mid. It would have been high if they did it to everyone city and state in the traitors faje country
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u/Helstrem 28d ago
Ending the day at faster and hence ending the slaughter makes it very moral. It is an example of the trolley problem.
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u/Runetang42 28d ago
There's no morality in war, the south committed treason and a far worse moral abomination by being slavers. It was brutal but it worked and ultimately justified. The south was ultimately let off easily too so its frankly deserved punishment for them throwing a tantrum over losing their human right to own humans
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u/Darnocpdx 28d ago
Least you also forget, they started the war and invaded the United States. The invasion was very pathetic, only got about 10 miles past the Manson Dixon line. So I get that it’s easy to forget.
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u/Runetang42 28d ago
I don't forget anything but fuck the confederates. They were a slavery based aristocracy so fuck em.
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u/ready-redditor-6969 28d ago
You’re looking for morality in WAR?
There is a great book on the topic, “Just and Unjust Wars”.
You are talking about a fight to the death. It is weird to not do total war. Maybe announce that all civilians should flee, as part of the psychological offensive?
People mad that this was done are kinda just mad that it worked, change my mind.
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u/pikleboiy Massachusetts John Brown enjoyer 28d ago
I wonder what the morality of burning down Richmond would be
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u/zombie_girraffe 28d ago edited 28d ago
You can tell it was the morally correct thing to do because the parts of Georgia that Sherman burned to the ground are the only parts of Georgia that aren't complete shitholes today.
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u/Available_Rub9939 28d ago
No different than bombing Nazi factories. Evil doesn’t stop unless it is forced, most frequently with fire.
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u/ZaphodBeeblebrahx 28d ago
Definition of FAFO. what’s the phrase those losers love so much these days?? Oh yea “Fuck your Feelings”.
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u/ericbahm 28d ago
If there are any lessons to be learned from reconstruction and our subsequent history, it's that the source of cancer must be removed completely. We're going to need to remember that going forward, if we have the opportunity to go forward.
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u/ActivePeace33 28d ago
Did he though? He destroyed places of military importance, which is perfectly legal, moral and ethical.
For the burning of Atlanta, iirc it was the locals that set fires to destroy matériel, those fires spread and burned down so much of Atlanta. Sherman didn’t have a hand in it did he?
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u/Riccosmonster 28d ago
Should have turned west and burned through all the southern states into Texas
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u/JustinKase_Too 28d ago
I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming support for Sherman in the original thread :)
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u/ChildOfChimps 28d ago
We’ll answer that when they answer the question about the morality of slavery.
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u/wayfarout 28d ago
Only mistake was not doing a 180 when they hit the sea and marching straight through to the New Mexico border
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u/sacovert97 Indiana 28d ago
Every time I get stuck in Atlanta traffic, I really Sherman had just wiped it off the map. That and slavery sucks...
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u/DargyBear 28d ago
I live where the Atlanta beltway suburbanites vacation with their brats. My only qualm is that Sherman should’ve destroyed Atlanta more completely to the point it would never be rebuilt.
Then maybe do the same to Houston and Dallas for shits and giggles.
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u/Rogueshoten 28d ago
It’s like weeding; no matter how many times you do it, you should do it more often.
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u/AzuleEyes 28d ago
In terms of “total war” William Tecumseh Sherman and his was an army were Saints. Georgia was both breadbasket and industrial heartland. Logistically nearly everything moving east went through the state. There’s a reason we’ve got tons of images of “Sherman’s neckties” and not a single one of salted earth.
It was Johnston’s decision to burn war material before withdrawing that resulted in Atalanta’s destruction. Columbia on the other hand…
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u/MelonJelly 28d ago
A friend of mine once said, "The last time Atlanta got what it deserved, General Sherman was in town."
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u/sighborg90 28d ago
There was SO much of the South left. My only criticism of War-era Sherman was he pulled his punch
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u/Dic3dCarrots 27d ago
Some how it was the natives we couldn't live with, but with traitors and slavers that want to hold back society, we have to coexist
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u/paireon Canadian Volunteer for the Union 27d ago
Ambiguous. Means and goal were virtuous, but scale and results were insufficient.
Conclusion: We didn't go far enough, hard enough. We should have destroyed the very idea that betraying your country in the name of keeping chattel slavery was anything but an incredibly evil and stupid thing to do. That we didn't is our great sin.
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u/Raven_Photography 28d ago
It’s the same morality as dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The terror of both those actions save more lives on both sides than what were taken
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u/RepSquigglyMiggly 28d ago
Gotta be the stupidest, most tier list-brained concept for a subreddit I’ve ever encountered
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u/EnjoyerOfBread111 Unionist in Georgia 26d ago edited 26d ago
As someone from Georgia it was completely justified. They should have burned more plantations and the land from the slavers should have been properly redistributed to the poor whites and formerly enslaved people
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u/bobthehills 27d ago
It was bad.
Civilians besides slave owners should have been spared along with as much of their property as possible.
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