Interrogating the Project of Military History

FYI Terry Diggs, Atlanta, Georgia

Bill Ward
Maj. E.A. Ross Camp 1423, Charlotte, NC
wardwriters@bellsouth.net

A SOUVENIR OF SHERMAN’S BUMMERS

The following letter, says the Columbus, (GA) ‘Sun and Times,’ was found in the streets of Columbia [SC] immediately after the army of General Sherman had left. The original is preserved, and can be shown and substantiated, if anybody desires:

Camp near Camden, S.C., Feb. 26, 1865.

My Dear Wife- I have no time for particulars. We have had a glorious time in this state. Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks &c., are as common in camp as blackberries. The terms of the plunder are as follows: Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place ‘ one-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief and staff; one-fifth to the corps commanders and staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fifths to the company.

Officers are not allowed to join these expeditions without disguising themselves as privates. One of our corps commanders borrowed a suit of rough clothes from one of my men, and was successful in this place. He got a large quantity of silver (among other things an old-time milk pitcher) and a very fine gold watch from a Mrs. DeSaussure, at this place. DeSaussure was one of the F.F.V.s of South Carolina, and was made to fork over liberally. Officers over the rank of captain are not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribution. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect themselves, subordinate officers and privates keep back everything that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, earrings, breast pins, &c., of which, if I ever get home, I have about a quart of jewelry for you and all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond rings and pins among them. General Sherman has silver and gold enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five. But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general officers and many besides had valuables of every description, down to the embroidered ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs. I have my share of them too. We took gold and silver enough from the d----d rebels to have redeemed their infernal currency twice over. This, (the currency,) whenever we came across it, we burned, as we consider it utterly worthless.

I wish all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the ‘Old Bay State.’ It would deck her out in glorious style; but alas! It will scattered all over the North and Middle States. The d----d niggers , as a general rule, prefer to stay at home, particularly after they found out that we only wanted the able-bodied men (and, to tell you the truth, the youngest and best looking women.) Sometimes we took off whole families and plantations of niggers, by way of repaying secessionists. But the useless part of them we soon manage to loose; sometimes in crossing rivers, sometimes in other ways.

I shall write to you again from Wilmington, Goldsboro’, or some other place in North Carolina. The order to march has arrived, and I must close hurriedly. Love to grandmother and aunt Charlotte. Take care of yourself and children. Don’t show this letter out of the family.

Your affectionate husband,

Thomas J. Myers, Lieut., &c.

P. S. I will send this by the first flag of truce to be mailed, unless I have an opportunity of sending it to Hilton Head. Tell Sallie I am saving a pearl bracelet and earrings for her; but Lambert got the necklace and breast pin of the same set. I am trying to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina secession Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia.

NOTE: The letter was addressed to Mrs. Thomas J. Myers, Boston, Massachusetts.

REFERENCE: ‘Crimes of the Civil War: And Curse of the Funding System.’ Judge Henry Clay Dean. Baltimore; Printed for the publisher by Innes & Company. 1868.

Reprinted by Crown Rights Book Company. Wiggins, Mississippi. 1998.

Bill Ward

Maj. E.A. Ross Camp 1423, Charlotte, NC
wardwriters@bellsouth.net

The account below is not Georgia, but for heaven's sake CONNECT THE DOTS!

Atrocities committed under Sherman

From: regenstein@mindspring.com
Dear Compatriots:

Last Sunday's article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (9 May), denying the veracity of countless reports about atrocities committed by Sherman's troops on their "March to the Sea," has prompted requests for documentation of such reports.

Here is documentation of at least one murder and probable rape by Sherman's soldiers, provided by eyewitnesses, including my maternal great great grandmother Octavia Harby Moses, whose truthfulness was renowned, and other residents of Sumter, South Carolina, and such authoritative books as "Recollections of Potter's Raid," by Allen Thigpen.

In early April, 1865, my great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Moses, age 16, rode out to defend his hometown of Sumter as part of a hastily formed local militia. Approaching rapidly was a unit of Sherman's army, which had just burned Columbia and most everything else in its path, and Sumter expected similar treatment.

Along with a few other teenagers, old men, invalids and wounded from the hospital, Sumter's ragtag defenders amazingly were able to hold off these battle hardened veterans, Potter's Raiders, for some two hours, at the cost of several lives, at a place called Dingle's Mill.

The resistance was as hopeless as it was valiant, and "On Sunday, April 9, 1865, Potter's Raiders occupied Sumter," Octavia Moses wrote in her memoirs:

They entered many houses and took what they wanted...They looted the stores and burned the jail and Court house. After my husband was nearly killed by negro soldiers who demanded liquor’, we asked for protection and took some officers in our house in order to insure it. We were afraid to undress our children at night, as we did not know when the torch might be applied; we had them dressed in several suits of clothing and had provisions and weapons hidden away...

On Tuesday, April 11, Potter's raiders departed, but not before burning many buildings and 196 bales of our cotton’ As soon as the Northerners had left, all the people of the town went around to each other to find out who were suffering and how to relieve their needs. We found poor old Mr. Bee (a refugee from Charleston) had been murdered by drunken soldiers. Mr. Harmon DeLeon, of Charleston, and my husband saw to his burial. My husband also went out to the battle field where, assisted by Augustus Solomons, they together cared for the dead.

Joe Wilder and others tell of the Yankees’ zealous plundering in search of alcohol, and he says that ‘The black troops murdered old Mr. Bee while they were here on account of some wine, and if it had not been for a guard coming in, white troops would have killed Jackson Moses [Octavia's husband], thinking he had liquor concealed.’

The murder of Robert Bee is considered one of the real tragedies of the occupation. According to Anne King Gregorie’s ‘History of Sumter County,’ he ‘was found hanging from the rafters of his attic, tortured and murdered by drunken soldiers, who were said to have raped his daughter’ named Julia. In her ‘Account’ of the incident, Julia tells how on ‘Sunday afternoon, the troops came in the village destroying everything on the way’:

‘The homes were ransacked every vestige of food was taken. In the home was my father, sister, and four little children’the home was filled with Yankee hordes. My father was forced to leave the room and not until several days afterwards did we know where he had been taken ... Our faithful servant who was looked upon as one of our household, dear faithful Hannah, found in looking in the upper rooms, exclaimed as she entered the room ‘My God, here is my dear Master’ murdered by the Yankees. Everything had been ransacked’

This is just one story, based on reliable first hand accounts, of uncounted thousands, of the brutality of the Union forces, which modern day revisionists apparently intend to wipe from the slate of history, much as Sherman wiped clean the civilization of the South.

Hi,

Many thanks for your interest in this very important subject. I, perhaps like the other historians to whom this email was addressed, have seen the original of this letter, which is indeed preserved in the Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Come to think of it, I may have seen simply a typescript of the original, but I've no doubt the original is the SHC.

I take it that you think we're either complete idiots or else hopelessly anti-Southron. On the contrary, I suspect that Steve, Anne and myself would be only too happy to portray Sherman's march through Georgia as all-destructive if we could find the evidence base to substantiate it. The problem is finding the evidence.

The letter you cite, for example: "Found in the streets of Columbia"? Would it not be more persuasive if it had been found in the Ohio Historical Society or the Houghton Library at Harvard, etc., and if the Union soldier's identity could be confirmed? If you can find a Lt. Thomas J. Myers who served in Sherman's army, whose home folk lived in Massachusetts, and whose handwriting can be matched to the letter, you've got the beginnings of something. But as matters stand, isn't one plausible interpretation that the letter is a forgery? Rather like a letter one might find in the trash bin of Abu Graib prison, purportedly by a US officer testifying that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and everybody down the US chain of command knew about and insisted upon the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners?

Of course, let's say one Lt. Myers actually wrote the letter in question. Does that necessarily mean he knew what he was talking about? The most telling problem with the letter is this:

"Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place - one-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief and staff; one-fifth to the corps commanders and staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fifths to the
company."

If this were true, there'd be a paper trail a mile long. Can you imagine carrying out this directive without a massive bureaucracy--something like an admiralty prize court--to keep track of the plunder, its value, and who should get what? What about liquidity--the ability to convert unwieldy silverware, dresses, paintings, etc. into money. A system like the one described would have to have such a mechanism. Otherwise you'd have the "commander-in-chief and staff" getting their choice of a lot of unwieldy stuff. The writer goes on to talk about what amounts to a huge interregional transfer of gold, which surely would have generated a lot of talk (if only among the gold bugs of Wall Street). Then of course we have the problem of moving the gold from place to place. Gold is fairly heavy stuff, and would have generated a significant logistical issue which, again, should have left finger prints.

But anyway, as far as I can see you don't need the letter to document this kind of looting and plundering. You need only my book, _The Hard Hand of War_, available in paperback for $17.95. I document much worse stuff than anything this guy mentions--for South Carolina. And South Carolina is *not* Georgia and we cannot just assume the behavior of Union troops in the two states was identical--particularly when their own letters and memoirs repeatedly claim that it wasn't, that South Carolina got the fiercest treatment.

My reading of the evidence, like that of most historians, is that South Carolina got the sort of treatment we usually associate with Georgia: arson of private dwellings, the complete or partial destruction of at least some villages and towns, trespassing into occupied houses (in most places and at most times, Civil War soldiers tended to stay out of private residences--at least of white persons--unless unoccupied). So nobody's arguing with you on those points. What we all do argue is that SC got it far worse than Georgia and NC. We think this difference in treatment--this different pattern--has significance. (My own interpretation of this significance is in _The Hard Hand of War_.) I get the impression you're really upset because we think you didn't get it as bad as SC. Sorry: I'd like to help. The problem is with the evidence base.

If it makes you feel any better, Thomas J. DiLorenzo quotes my book regularly to buttress his argument that the Lincoln administration waged a cruel and unnecessary war upon the South. Personally I think he quotes me out of context, but there's a reason the book is called _The Hard Hand of War_, not _The Slap on the Wrist_.

Your other account concerning the rape and murder in the Bee family is something I would like to know more about. My problem in using the account as it stands is twofold: critics would point out, correctly, that Sherman's army had no "negro soldiers"--Sherman was in fact famous for his refusal to allow African American units in his field armies; and second (but less important), the account is from a postwar memoir and one could argue that it has an air of family lore to it (which again, the problematic identification of the offending soldiers as black doesn't help). It doesn't mean the account is incorrect; it just means one would have to find supporting evidence, preferably as close to the time of the incident as possible.

In any event, I don't think anyone denies that no rapes occurred. Most everyone I know is aware that some African American women were raped or sexually abused--Union accounts contemporary with the event say this occurred--and I personally think that a few white women were probably raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. Granted, no women, white or black, should have been raped or otherwise harmed. But given that some such crimes occurred, why only a few? Doesn't it actually speak rather well of 60,000 men that they could march through three states, with the civilian population more or less at their mercy, and leave behind such scanty evidence of sexual assault? When I compare what occurred in Georgia and the Carolinas to what occurred in 1945 as Soviet troops rolled into Germany, or for that matter what occurred in the massacres of Indians by US troops at Bear River (January 1863) and Sand Creek (November 1864), the question before me as a historian is: how do I account
for the comparative restraint?

Given how exercised Confederate Americans get about the record of Sherman's march, I would very much like to this get translated into a careful documenting of the evidence base (as opposed to a suspect letter that has been available to historians since 1868). I am sure there must be more information out there that we have not yet uncovered, and while personally I doubt it would alter the general picture we historians have given of Sherman's march through Georgia, it would certainly add texture and *might*, just might, oblige us to rethink our views. Useful work has already been done in terms of documenting the participation of African American men in the Confederate army, and while I disagree with the interpretations that accompany the documentation, the facts themselves are very useful.

Best,

Mark

My colleague and friend, Steven E. Woodworth, also wrote in response to the email: