Uncle Billy

 Since 1979, I have virtually stopped reading fiction, except for those few articles I may read in today's newspapers.  Just kidding...kind of.  I prefer reading books about American history and biographies of people who made an impact on American history.  

The only fiction I have read would be books that are sometimes called "faction", because they are novels about historic events, people and places.  Examples would be Burning Ground, by D.A. Caldwell, about the exploration of what is now Yellowstone National Park.  Caldwell also wrote Fatal Ground, about what is called Custer's Last Stand.  I have also read many of the novels of James Michener, which cover a wide range of history.

The reason for my interest in American history began in 1979, when I was living in Atlanta Georgia.  I had gone to attend a school to acquire my flight engineer rating and was hired as an instructor afterwards.  I met many Southerners while I was there.  One of them is still one of my best friends, about whom I wrote in earlier posts.  However, there were some who were still carrying a grudge against people from the North.  They put them in two categories, Damn Yankees were those who came to visit and left and Goddam Yankees came and stayed.  At that point, I seemed to fall into the latter group.

At that point, the Civil War had been over for 114 years.  Growing up, I had learned about the war as early as grade school and in much more detail during my junior year in high school.  However, I had moved on and was very surprised to learn how people in the South held a grudge more than a century later.

I wanted to try to gain an understanding of the war to have something to say to them, when they told my how terribly the people of the North had mistreated them.  I wanted to learn about their war time experience and their reasons for fighting the war.   Some explained that the focus of their anger and hatred and the excuse for their behavior to me was General William T. Sherman.  My thoughts were that no one from my family had come to the United States until the later 19th Century, so WTF?

Sherman had brought the war to Georgia, taking the city of Atlanta and then marching across the state to Savanah.  To execute that march, he had severed his supply lines and his army lived off the land, taking what was needed from the farms along the way.  What he didn't need was destroyed.

As I read, I got a better understanding of Sherman's thinking.  When the war began, he was the head of a military academy in Louisiana, that became Louisiana State University (LSU).  Sherman was from Ohio and had graduated from West Point.  David French Boyd, a close friend, recalled Sherman declaring at that time:

"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it ... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."

Southerners were not convinced.

I am now convinced that I know far more, than my antagonists of 1979, about the causes, execution and aftermath of the Civil War.  The following video provides the best and easiest to grasp explanation of what drove Sherman to do what he did in Georgia.