William Tecumseh Sherman: Hero, or Villain?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman

From the portrait above, it seems that he didn't comb his hair to get his picture taken, either.

I don't think that he gets a whole lot of mention in Northern history lessons, but, from what I understand, Southern schoolchildren are taught to loathe him, partly because they consider him responsible for some property damage during the war, and partly because of intense resentment over Special Field Order No. 15

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YU7UAZ8r8w[/youtube]



Unfortunately

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhOu-Y1KSNA[/youtube]

Depends on what side you were on.

Well he looks like a villain,I wouldn't invite him to dinner.He might set fire to the place.Lots of arsonists get a sexual charge from burning structures.I bet he was a perv.He even looks like he's playing with himself in the photo.I bet he's got a hole cut in the pocket on the left side of his pants.The other hand is on a box of matches hid in his coat.
I'm sorry the slaves didn't get their land,that would be devastating to think you had it and then you don't.
And I doubt if Sherman really gave them the mules out of the goodness of his heart,it said they were old,wore out mules.But I guess that's better than no mule.

Last edited by Misslizard on 15 Dec 2012, 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Without land reform there is no comprehensive emancipation of the slaves.

Hero.

A Vietnam War veteran told me that some of the soldiers used to get a real kick out of torching houses with flamethrowers



But, Sherman doesn't seem to have massacred civilians--only burned property.

Plus, he seems incredibly humane, to turn abandoned plantations over to the slaves he had freed.

Anyway its not to late to give the blacks their land back.

In my home state of Georgia, they would say he is the devil incarnate. Btw, Arrant, when you create polls, you shouldn't have a "just see the results" option because then it's inaccurate.

I bet he would steal the good silver off the table at dinner.
Really,who would most people rather have for a supper party,Sherman or Lee?
Lee would bring a nice bottle of brandy as a hostess gift,Sherman would drink all the brandy and leave nasty cigar burns on the good parlor furniture.He'd get drunk and loud.I bet he would belch and not cover his mouth,put his boots on the table with horse dookey on them.He looks like he would smell bad.
Would you rather your sister date Lee or Sherman?

Lee is renowned for being a gentleman.
I've never read that about Sherman.

The same people that praise Sherman for his March to the Sea swath of destruction would cry bloody murder if we did that to an enemy now.
Makes you wonder.....

Practical.

Lee obviously. He was a -gentleman-. Robert E. Lee would never go around burning civilians out of house and home. By the way, Lee lost.

ruveyn

he's both a hero and a villain. he is
a complex man. georgia has a long
memory even if the north thinks ww2
unified us all against fascism totally.

Sherman understood what war was. It is not a romantic heroic thing. It is a very dreadful and damaging thing, although sometimes necessary to do. War should be a last resort, not a first resort.

Sherman was persecuted by the Army because he correctly foresaw just what the butcher's bill for the war was likely to be. Later he acted to bring about the very dreadful end that he predicted. Even so, he probably saved lives by shortening the war, which is what he intended to do.

See: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman

Sherman, in effect, told the southrons they they sowed the wind and they would reap the whirlwind. He told the truth.

You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

ruveyn

the above question has its merit.
he died for his people, and had
a remote possibility of keeping
our Union to the eastern seaboard.
the great general's middle name
says volumes. i can admire Tecumseh.

Tecumsah, the aboriginal, was one of the great leaders of history. Because he was an aboriginal he is not fully appreciated.

ruveyn