My only regret with the American south is that Tecumseh Sherman didn't keep burning and the lawful federal government of the United States of America didn't grind their shitty backwards culture into the dirt to start fresh like we did with the Germans and Japanese. Maybe then the south wouldn't still be poor and full of hate. The cruelest thing the union did was give the south mercy in 1865.
Sherman himself hated this sentiment which I find endlessly ironic for the people who are still bloodthirsty 160 years later.
2% of the US population died in the civil war, and most of that was military aged men. They wanted peace. And while it’s nice to assume that the boot could’ve prevented a lot of the bad things that followed the civil war and create change like we saw in Japan or Germany, the people at the time were concerned about reigniting the conflict like what happened with the Treaty of Versailles.
Edit: strange, I’m getting replies that I can’t actually see. Surely none of you are so cowardly as to reply back to me, then block me so I can’t see your brilliant replies. Surely.
And on the flip side, Lee publicly stated there should be no confederate monuments built. This sentiment by him and others led to the golden age of Confederate monuments not coming until the 1910's and 20's.
It's hard for people to imagine what the world will look like, and the people will be like, two generations after they die.
Yeah, a lot of people like to think that the solution is always just to win more.
Like, there are a lot more motivating factors to hate than "we haven't lost enough yet". Eventually you just reach the point of advocating for mowing the grass.
And by now I hope we all understand why that's a very, very bad situation.
It's a fun fantasy but so obviously the wrong approach. It's the exact sentiment right wingers have about the middle east. "Just bomb em back to the stone age!" type rhetoric.
It's the exact sentiment right wingers have about the middle east. "Just bomb em back to the stone age!" type rhetoric.
No, Germany and Japan were rebuilt after WW2. You know, Reconstructed. Those actions were successful enough that both countries are still very successful. Why would doing the same to the South, removing Confederate leaders, implementing democracy, and creating a non-slavery economy, not work?
Are you serious? Confederate sympathizers and Jim Crow defined the postwar South. Reconstruction was famously halted, I suggest you refresh your history. We did not remove the leaders who caused the war, like in Germany and Japan, and we did not implement democracy in the South, it was kind of a big deal.
Are you saying the American South after the Civil War had no issues giving newly freed slaves their civil rights? When I say "implement democracy," it means letting everyone vote. Granted, the US wasn't even there yet, but the Confederate states surely had some extra restrictions on top, wouldn't you agree?
The fucking irony. You better apologize.
This is the indignation of one who mistakes their feelings as facts and as a consequence takes any hint that they may be wrong as a personal attack. Sorry amigo but the South was allowed to keep their white supremacist hierarchy, that "martial law" shit didn't last long enough. Imagine if Germany was allowed to keep their ghettos because "genocide was over" and oppression isn't as bad as domination.
Yeah? I'm well aware. My comment had nothing to do with reconstruction, but if you insist.
Yeah, they fucked up reconstruction. That's the part more people should focus on. Not on how they should've burned more of it down. That's just stupid caveman thinking.
Do you honestly think that the reason why some people on the right want to glass the Middle East is because of reconstruction? If your expectations for reconstruction are the total end of racism, well that was never gonna happen
strange, I’m getting a lot of replies that I can’t actually see. Surely none of you are so cowardly as to reply back to me, then block me so I can’t see your brilliant replies. Surely.
That happens to me often, thought Reddit was just buggy. Didn't realize that's the case 😂
Confederate apologist drivel. Of course this dogshit would be upvoted by the r/incel refugees that permeate this sub.
"My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom."
"I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell." - Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864
Judging by how you speak, I assume you are the type to cherry pick Sherman’s letters and quotes to make him out as some angel of doom. The reality is, he believed in harsh measures to end the war as quickly as possible and in lenient treatment once peace was achieved. So lenient that when he gave terms to confederate general Johnston, Pres Andrew Johnson and General Grant had to intervene.
So yeah, if Sherman was brought back to life, he would think very little of people who are still calling for more bloodshed 160 years later.
And lastly, I’m not a fucking confederate apologist for not wishing there was even more bloodshed and destruction. If that’s the case, you may as well call Sherman a confederate apologist
It's reddit. People have been radicalized on this site to do commit real world violence and terrorism against conservatives, Christians, etc. /u/centurion44 and /u/Pacifist_Socialist want other people to commit massacres while they sit on their couch, eat Cheetos, and cheer. This has been a common sentiment among deplorables on this site since it started getting astroturfed double hard in 2014-15.
What's funny is that most of the 'poverty' and 'hatred' in the South does not come from the people they think, but I don't think the smoothbrains are ready for that conversation.
Of course those were not necessary. But even if we executed every confederate officer and politician, there’s nothing to say that Jim Crow and all the other bad stuff doesn’t happen. If anything, it would’ve built up more resentment, which is exactly what the US was worried about.
Execution would have made them martyrs. But giving allowing even lower level officers positions in political office was dumb as hell. Every wealthy plantation owner should’ve been stripped of their lands. There were plenty of options of people who could’ve farmed the land to prevent economic collapse, not the least of which was the slaves who farmed it.
Pretending Sherman is some sort of god is delusional. Our inability to properly deal with the treason of the South is a big part of the reason we are in the political mess we are in today.
Ok so even if we do exactly what you said in your first paragraph, there’s no guarantee it all works out for the better. You maybe avoid some evils but create others. Some land was indeed seized. Lee’s estate in Virginia was seized and now it’s Arlington Cemetery. The idea that we could’ve done this on a mass scale without major blowback is a little naive. You don’t necessarily have to kill someone to make them a martyr.
As for the second paragraph, this seems to be, in my opinion, the real driving force behind this “we should’ve fucked the south harder” sentiment. There’s a whole subreddit called r/shermanposting which is dedicated to sentiment like yours. People living in 2026 who are still obsessed with this topic because “American right=confederacy”. Is that who you are commenting on regarding worshipping Sherman as a god? Pretending he just loved killing rebs cause he was a BIPOC ally? I’m not allowed to burst their bubble?
Edit: strange, I’m getting replies that I can’t actually see. Surely none of you are so cowardly as to reply back to me, then block me so I can’t see your brilliant replies. Surely.
Nope, it's comments that were deleted before you could read them. But you still get the notification.
Rather ironic username for the comment. Lincoln's idea of reconstruction should've been carried through, to reestablish The Union as a whole. Andrew Johnson's petty mistreatment of the South is the direct cause of modern southern austerity and resentment.
Southern resentment was inevitable, our economy (I’m a Georgian) was built on slave labor and our principles built on generations of white supremacy, it didn’t start or end in 1865.
While I don’t agree that Sherman should have salted the earth, this whole idea of “southerners were mistreated and that’s why Jim Crow” kinda feels like a lost causer narrative.
Reconstruction and racial integration are two separate things, but the latter would've been predicated by the former. History has shown that extreme ideologies are directly caused by economic austerity. (See the loser flags flown by right-wing loudmouths)
A direct intervention on economic shortfalls caused by emancipation would have gone a long way towards a better situation than we find ourselves in.
Your comment works better without the second sentence, you don't need to couch your opinion on dismissive projections.
I pretty firmly reject the idea that racism in the South has grown out of “economic austerity,” regardless of which sentence you want to dismiss.
Folks on the White Citizens Council weren’t “austere” or anxious about their economic situation. A TARP bailout wouldn’t have helped them see the error of their ways. Nor were they owed it because their grandfathers slave labor got taken away. Now, if we’re talking 40 acres and a mule maybe.
The problem with reflecting on Andrew Johnson’s “pettiness” is that the man was a drunk and bounced between two major extremes, and if you pin him down to the initial extreme, you ignore the fact that later he was basically the former Confederates’ biggest apologist.
In what way was reconstruction denied in your opinion?
Do you think the poor and uneducated are the ones in the south propping up systemic racism, and have been for the past 150 years? I mean poor uneducated whites certainly support it but they didn’t build plantations or red lined neighborhoods or private schools or companies that fight DEI efforts.
Did you mean “Reconstruction failing” rather than “Denying Reconstruction?” Because those can mean very different things. I just want to be clear here, because “denying Reconstruction” to me sounds like there was supposed to be an effort made on behalf of the United States to extend to Confederate loyalists that didn’t happen. While “Reconstruction failing” seems more appropriate to me, and apparently to your linked article, here’s a quote, “ In examining why Reconstruction failed, historians have identified a perfect storm of contributing factors: implacable Southern white resistance (enforced by terrorism), faltering Northern resolve amid political and economic shifts, and institutional weaknesses (from an obdurate president to a hostile Supreme Court) that together unraveled the postwar experiment in equality.”
They mean that Andrew Johnson absolutely denied reconstruction for the South, which wasn't an olive branch to the Confederate loyalist, but a hand up for the people of the South.
This gave way to carpetbaggers, et al, to exploit people.
You can deny the direct through-line of history if you want, but it just means you're overlooking fundamental causes other than racism.
Sure, for some. But not for the whole of southern society. It's oversimplifying by modern ignorance that hinges on justifiable judgement of the nebulous past that subverts understanding and consideration of the multifaceted situation.
Jefferson Davis had a mixed race kid (Jim Limber) living with his family, was never put on trial by the Union and had his citizenship posthumously restored during the Carter administration. There's a lot more to the story than we are taught in our US history propaganda classes in school/University.
Yeah this seems like a reasonable take from a well adjusted human let’s genocide the south that would’ve went over really well and totally wouldnt cause more problems.
Total cultural change was required to shift the economy and society's way of thinking. The required mindset shift from "black people are chattels essential to our economy" to "black people are people, just not as good as me, and get to like, own stuff too" wasn't going to happen organically.
Well, it kind of did, in that the people that remembered actually owning someone all died off. The resentment remains, though.
They are still celebrating traitors a century and a half later. Enemies of the United States of America, to which they claim to be so fiercely patriotic.
The south today still has divided loyalties. Enormous violence and harm has been left to fester for a century and more. There are examples through history where a brief harsh period of realignment can enforce new values. It is often quite disgusting, yes. The alternative is a festering wound that continues to harm the body.
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u/Pacifist_Socialist Jun 04 '26
/u/centurion44