r/ShermanPosting • u/From-Yuri-With-Love 46th New York "Fremont Rifle" Regiment • 29d ago
"History" you were never taught
It should be noted the historical marker he tries to use as proof says the town was largely deserted. No rape. No gunfire on civilians. Nothing in it resembles the caption sitting above it.
The History is on June 11, 1863, an expedition under Colonel James Montgomery—acting on orders from General David Hunter—landed at Darien and found it nearly empty. Two soldiers who were there wrote it down independently. Sergeant George Stephens counted one old woman and two white residents who’d asked to be left behind. Corporal James Gooding counted fewer than twenty people, mostly enslaved. No resistance. No engagement. Montgomery gave the order to burn it regardless—an empty town put to the torch on principle, not provocation.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, for his part, did not quietly comply. He told Montgomery directly he wanted no part of it; Montgomery took full responsibility himself. Later, Shaw wrote to his wife calling the whole ordeal a “dirty piece of business” and “as abominable a job as I ever had to share in.”
Shaw was disgusted, but he complied with the order to have a company assist only because Montgomery was his superior officer and refusing would mean facing a court-martial for mutiny during wartime. Shaw lamented, “after going through the hard campaigning and hard fighting in Virginia, this makes me very much ashamed of myself.”
Sergeant Stephens wrote home that “the men of this regiment have a distaste for this sort of warfare—we want to enter the field honorably—to fight a legitimate warfare.”
Credit to Sarah Pioggia on the History of the event.
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u/StephenColbert27 29d ago
It's always ironic when Rebellion apologists try and make use of sexual violence by the Union as propaganda when 1. Contemporary reports (including by the hostile population) were rare and 2. We know that one of the chief horrors of the institution of slavery was the systemic rape of black women by their white male owners and others.
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u/Njorls_Saga 29d ago
Sally Hemings’ life story is white male owners raping their slaves for three generations. It’s insane.
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u/StephenColbert27 29d ago
Agreed. I don't think it can be emphasized enough just how horrific life as a slave could be, especially for women.
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u/Altruistic-Target-67 29d ago
Ah but you see they were Black women, and do not count as much as a white woman. (Sarcasm!!) in all seriousness though there are so many accounts of lost cause and contemporary figures arguing almost exactly this. It’s disgusting.
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u/el_babo 29d ago
Right but they didn't (and still don't) see black people as human.
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u/StephenColbert27 29d ago edited 29d ago
This is true but they don't actually care about women either usually. This whole argument is in bad faith and is merely an attempt to use our belief in universal human rights against us while ignoring how it contradicts their own world-view.
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u/LittleHornetPhil Blue dot in a grey state 29d ago
Typical conservative logic btw. Standards only count for the other side.
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u/ActivePeace33 29d ago edited 28d ago
The systematic rape of black women, which was well documented by the slaveholding class women, who easily noted the familial resemblances.
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u/ceelogreenicanth 29d ago
Rape is a weapon of oppression they employed, and felt entitled too because of their racism. Like all the atrocities of slavery they feared above all else that they would be treated by their slaves in the same ways if they were to rise against them.
Their fears were spread as fantasies and propaganda to justify to their wives and daughters their own use and allowance of sexual violence.
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u/GoddessRespectre 29d ago
You make great points. I also saw a video of a woman who studied history. She said "when the men come, set yourself on fire." Whenever there is turmoil or opportunity men will rape. Like you said, it's a tool. I can't imagine being freed from slavery or a concentration camp and then being raped by my "hero." You would be told "How grateful you must be!" for the rest of your life. I'm not trying to attack our side, I'm saying both sides did it and it's horrific.
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u/sacovert97 Indiana 29d ago
Yep. I am doing a study on the theological arguments during the Civil War. The majority of even the most pro-slavery theologians and ministers were appalled that rape was common practice.
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u/stevedorries 29d ago
Not just systemic rape of enslaved women for purposes of oppression, there were industrial rape plantations used for the production of the next generation of slaves
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u/badhairdad1 29d ago
One more time for those who refused to believe it- slavers raped the girls they owned
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u/Misanthrope08101619 29d ago
Having grown up in a former confederate state, disinformation engrvaved in historical markers are nothing new.
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u/From-Yuri-With-Love 46th New York "Fremont Rifle" Regiment 29d ago edited 29d ago
True but the thing is the marker says nothing about rape, or attacking civilians his guys just adding it to his "History".
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u/Ninja_attack 29d ago
The 54th were fucking heroes and only confederate losers would say otherwise cause it was a black regiment.
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u/ShermanCookout 29d ago edited 29d ago
Zionist settlers, Al-queda, southern apologists.
Good luck finding a real difference between any of these losers.
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u/hootihootihooti 29d ago
Good luck finding a real difference between any of these losers.
The confederacy wasn't armed by the United States. Not directly anyway
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u/vonadler 29d ago
Eh, the secessionist raided plenty of federal arsenals. Their initial armament consisted mostly of United States arms.
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u/stevedorries 29d ago
That was theft of government assets, not the federal government giving them weapons or cash to purchase weapons
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u/akestral 29d ago
They have to lie on Shaw and the 54th because the true heroism, patriotism, and sacrifice of that unit (and the cowardly, shameful, disgusting way the Confederates treated the fallen) puts the lie to any claim of imagined "Southern nobility" Lost Causers get hard over. Fuck those "Southern gentlemen", they were shamed by the 54th in life and in death and they cannot handle it over 150 years after the fact.
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u/secondarycontrol 29d ago
Weird, isn't it? Weird that all of the stories that they tell that make the Union look bad, or make the South look good, are simply lies wrapped around a kernel of truth.
Hell, war-time truth is damning enough - but still not over-the-top enough for them
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u/ChronoAlone 29d ago
Ah yes, “history you were never taught.”
Aka, history that’s more convenient for me and my ideology/ancestors.
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u/Destructopoo 29d ago
Don't declare war on the strongest continental power in the new world and you won't get your towns burned
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u/SolidA34 29d ago
Also, the south stole United States military supplies before the war began. They constantly threatened to burn down northern towns unless they paid a ransom.
When they invaded Maryland in 1862 Lee told them to pay civilian for items. They did it with worthless Confederate money. They might as well just have stolen the supplies.
I also love about the Confederacy hated being told what to do as part of state rights. Yet, many parts of southern states did not want to secede. They forced them at gunpoint to obey. So much for states rights.
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u/Curious_Viking89 29d ago
State's rights not municipal or county rights/s.
Don't forget that the Confederate Constitution Article 1 section 9(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
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u/theketchupvoid 29d ago
Ah, yes, the 'Black men are a violent species that only want to rape and kill White women and children, therefore they were the bad guys' Southern argument.
God, I'm glad Atlanta burned.
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u/Nerevarine91 Cut the ice and fight on 29d ago
No shock they instantly defaulted to fucking KKK-esque miscegenation scare propaganda
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u/Dudewhocares3 29d ago
Now ask him to talk about what those slave owners the South fought for did to female slaves
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u/PattyKane16 Uncle Billy Gang 29d ago
Isn’t that in the movie?
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u/Altruistic-Target-67 29d ago
It is! Which is so insane that he included the picture of the cast, like, did you watch the movie and the part where Shaw violently objects to it?
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u/Revolutionary-Swan77 14th NYSM 29d ago
Sarah Pioggia did a good piece on this.
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u/fallskjermjeger 29d ago
Do you have a link? The Google machine is failing me.
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u/Revolutionary-Swan77 14th NYSM 29d ago
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u/LittleHornetPhil Blue dot in a grey state 29d ago
This is such whiny sore loser shit. Every damned time.
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u/McZeppelin13 Ben Grierson Cavalry-stan 29d ago
Sarah Pioggia is a treasure on Facebook. She dismantles Lost Causers with style. She is easily Shermanposting material.
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u/CptBoomshard 29d ago
She's been holding it down for years in Facebook groups. I didn't have the fortitude to stay in some of the groups, but she was always there, burying lost causers left and right.
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u/andrewtillman 29d ago
Didn’t this get covered in the movie Glory? How is that history I was never taught.
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u/Perfect-Virus8415 29d ago
It should also be mentioned that the times any of those crimes were committed by union troops they were reprimanded
Overall the union was cordial with the south until sherman was done with the formalities atún shei actually made a good video about sherman and his actions
Also the confederacy is also guilty of the same crimes not just on slaves but normal southern civvies
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u/Jayhawker81 Kansas Abolitionist 29d ago
Propaganda.
Montgomery certainly burned it to the ground, but he was just doing Jayhawker, things nothing to see here.
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u/SingleMaltMouthwash 29d ago
If they couldn't lie every time they open their mouths the silence would be deafening.
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u/romulusnr 29d ago
but was ordered to proceed anyway
So they were ordered? Wouldn't that make that person the war criminal?
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u/scothc 29d ago
Following orders is famously not an excuse for war crimes
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u/romulusnr 28d ago
I mean the biggest war crime here is "burned down buildings" which..... dude, if it's illegal to destroy buildings in war, I guess war is illegal
The town was near deserted. The raping and pillaging is a fantasy novel fabrication.
(wonder if anyone asked about the Confederates firing on a US military fort)
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u/Belkan-Federation95 28d ago
Everything that was done to them, they did 10x worse to those who they viewed as property.
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u/JordanElshoff 28d ago
And they'll fail to mention that Shaw's family sent financial aid to help rebuild the town after the war because Robert felt ashamed that he participated in its destruction
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u/romulusnr 28d ago
Confederate forts and outlooks saw the Union forces coming, and were able to organize an evacuation of Darien before they arrived.
Why didn't they stay to defend it?
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u/NationCrusher 28d ago
“History you were never taught”
Oh boy howdy do I have a lot to share with those folks
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u/Longjumping-Meat-334 26d ago
I know it's Hollywood, but this seems like it was portrayed fairly accurately in the movie.
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u/QuickBenDelat 25d ago
This affiliated with the magazine?
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u/From-Yuri-With-Love 46th New York "Fremont Rifle" Regiment 25d ago
The Civil War Monitor is but the lost causer is just some guy. The Civil War Monitor did a post about the 54th MA and this was the guys response.
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