Special to the Mirror by Charles A. Landis.
“There is a certain class of people, men women, and children, that must be killed or banished before you can have hope for peace and order”.
The above quotation could as well have been said by Hitler. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Putin, but they were said by General Sherman after the invasion of the Southern states and of his March to the Sea It mattered not whether women. Children, sick, or aged; Black or White, slave or free, the beautiful cities of Atlanta and Columbia, South Carolina or Meridian, Mississippi with destruction such that it was no more. It is called total war…war crimes.. crimes against humanity.
To put war crimes in historical perspective, prior to the American Civil War, countries at war assembled on the battlefield; army against army. Civilized nations did not as a matter of policy wage total war against non-combatants. Lincoln and his high command (Grant and Sherman) changed this and instituted a policy of total war against non-combatants as a matter of a policy of necessity. By General Order, Lee forbid waging war against civilian noncombatants and wanton looting with severe penalties.
At the conclusion of the War, the North imposed 12 years of military occupation ( 5 years longer than the Allies occupied Germany after WWII} and the requirement of loyalty oaths before pardon. There were no trials for war crimes of the Norther aggressors, crimes against humanity, or admission of guilt . All was said to be a matter of necessity because the cause and total War, they said, was to end slavery. As false and hypocritical statement as ever made.
The first and enduring victim of the Northern policies was the truth. about origins and conduct of Lincoln’s War of Aggression. As Washington said, “The truth will ultimately prevail where there is (sic) pains were taken to bring to light. “.For over 150 years great myths have been perpetuated about the reason the North invaded the South and the conduct of Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. War crimes that Putin uses as his playbook in his invasion of Ukraine.
Perhaps, more books have been written about Lincoln than any other person in American history but I am aware of only one, the recently published “The Lincolns in the White House” that addresses the issue of why the Great Emancipator sold the slaves he inherited ($65,000 in current valuation) when he could have emancipated them as related heirs did.
There are parrels between what is happening in Ukraine and what hat was done to the Southern states in the Northern invasion. Ukraine wants sovereignty and independence just as the Southern states did. Putin and Lincoln did not and for much the same reasons.. Lincoln’s invasion of the South was to crush and dominate just as Putin endeavors now in Ukraine.
Pains need now be taken to bring to light certain truths about the origins of the Northern aggression. Beginning with Secession of Southern states was not rebellion, was permitted by the Constitution, and the resolution was by force of waging total war and the most egregious violations o the Constitution in our history. Chief Justice Salomon P Chase opined in July 1867…”If you bring [Confederate] leaders to trial it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution secession is not rebellion”. And so it should be.
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To put war crimes in historical perspective, prior to the American Civil War, countries at war assembled on the battlefield; army against army?
Civilized nations did not as a matter of policy wage total war against non-combatants?
Neither statement is in fact true.
In this country, before it was a country, the French and the English were in a state of war that lasted some seventy or more years, and the favorite targets were in fact women and children, just as they were in Lyndon Baines Johnson’s war against the Vietnamese because they wouldn’t bend the knee to him and become Democrats.
In the HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SOME OF ITS PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS, edited by H. P. Smith in 1885, in Chapter VIII, Continuation of the French and English War, we have as follows on that score:
“The convoy had been ambushed (by the French) and attacked immediately after leaving the protection of the stockade post, and the massacre took place upon the flats between the Half-way Brook and the Blind Rock, or what is more commonly known at the present day as the Miller place.”
“Putnam, with his command, took the trail of the marauders, which soon became strewed with fragments of plunder dropped by the rapidly retreating savages.”
“They were followed to Ganaouske Bay, on the west side of Lake George, where Putnam arrived only in time to find them embarked in their canoes, at a safe distance from musket shot, on the waters of the lake; and their discovery was responded to by insulting and obscene gestures, and yells of derision and defiance.”
“The provincials returned immediately to the scene of the butchery, where they found a company from Fort Edward engaged in preparing a trench for the interment of the dead.”
“Over one hundred of the soldiers composing the escort were slain, many of whom were recognized as officers, from their uniform, consisting in part of red velvet breeches.”
“The corpses of twelve females were mingled with the dead bodies of the soldiery.”
“All the teamsters were supposed to have been killed.”
“While the work of burial was going forward the rangers occupied themselves in searching the trails leading through the dense underbrush and tangled briars which covered the swampy plains.”
“Several dead bodies were by these means added to the already large number of the slain.”
“On the side of one of these trails, the narrator of these events saw a new unhemmed bandana handkerchief fluttering from the twigs’ of an old tree that lay among the weeds near the brook.”
“This he found perforated with a charge of buck shot, part of which remained enveloped in its folds.”
“Following up the trail, he soon found the corpse of a woman which had been exposed to the most barbarous indignities and mutilations, and fastened in an upright position to a sapling which had been bent over for that purpose.”
“All of the bodies had been scalped, and most of them mangled in a horrible manner.”
end quotes
That history was commonplace up here, and I grew up on stories of the tomahawk and scalping knife and women and children getting killed and scalped, as in the History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925, Chapter 61: 1777, August 6, Battle of Oriskany, as follows:
“Scalps for the Canadian market” proved source of revenue to the Indians, who took them to Montreal and redeemed them for cash, receiving payment for those of men, women and children alike.
“The scalps were then tanned with the hair on, and often marked in such a manner that the owners could tell when and where they were severally obtained, and whether they belonged to men or women.”
Col. John Butler (a “civilized” Englishman and Tory who went to Canada during the Revolution) had charge of the traffic in scalps with the Indians, during the Oriskany campaign, and probably later.
Simms in Frontiersmen of New York says “the usual bounty, after a time, was $8 for all except those of officers and committeemen, which commanded from $10 to $20.”
end quotes
And what about the famous Sack of Limoges by the Black Prince, a civilized Englishman?
The town of Limoges had been under English control but in August 1370 it surrendered to the French, opening its gates to the Duke of Berry.
The Siege of Limoges was laid by the English army led by Edward the Black Prince in the second week in September.
On 19 September, the town was taken by storm, followed by much destruction and the deaths of numerous civilians.
That is what “CRY YAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR” is really all about.
And what of the Black Prince’s chevauchée, also known as the grande chevauchée, which was a large-scale mounted raid carried out by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 5 October and 2 December, 1355 as a part of the Hundred Years’ War?
The Anglo-Gascon force of 4,000–6,000 men marched from Bordeaux in English-held Gascony 300 miles (480 km) to Narbonne and back to Gascony, devastating a wide swathe of French territory and sacking many French towns on the way.
While no territory was captured, enormous economic damage was done to France; the modern historian Clifford Rogers concluded that “the importance of the economic attrition aspect of the chevauchée can hardly be exaggerated.”
Lincoln would have been as familiar with this history of warfare as I am, including the fact of all the destruction of private property by the British during the War of 1812, or Jemmy Madison’s War.
The Corwin Amendment alone should have put to rest the absurd argument that the war of northern aggression was about slavery. Which is the reason most have never heard of it, nor Lincoln’s favorable position on it.
For those who never heard of the so-called Corwin Amendment, which would be surprising given it is taught about by the fifth grade, if not earlier, especially in Virginia, where the Virginia Department of Education Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools establish minimum expectations for what students should know and be able to do at the end of each grade, with Kindergarten being Civics & Economics, the 1st Grade U S History from 1865, the 2nd Grade World History I, the 3rd Grade History II, and the 4th Grade Va/US History, in 1861 Ohio Representative Thomas Corwin proposed an amendment to prevent Congress from interfering with slavery in any state.
It would have been the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution.
Congress approved it, but eleven Democrat-controlled southern states seceded from the Union before it could be ratified, and it was those Democrats seceding from OUR nation that caused the so-called War of Northen Aggression against the traitorous, slave-owning Democrats, which in turn resulted in the decimation of the South.
As to why Lincoln appeared to support it, by tacitly supporting Corwin’s amendment, Lincoln hoped to convince the South that he would not move to abolish slavery and, at the minimum, keep the border states of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina from seceding.
If I recall, we had learned that by the seventh grade, maybe earlier, and this is really all old news, but interesting nonetheless, as history usually is, for those who don’t mind learning it, anyway, which we have learned in here is not everyone.
And Pasquale, you are a gentleman and scholar, so thank you for bringing the important bit of historical information up in here.
Thank you good sir; I always enjoy historical banter and have enjoyed Mr. Landis’ articles, and yours as well.
I, as well, Pasquale, I find the subject fascinating and illuminating, considering what has come before, and where we are today in comparison.
As to how “wars” were fought in this country, as opposed to the set-piece battles of Europe, whenever there actually were any, as opposed to sieges and such, before our “war of northern aggression against Democrat treason,” here is a good example of it from our bloody history up here where I am from THE MILITARY AND CIVIL HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF ESSEX, NEW YORK; and a GENERAL SURVEY OF ITS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, ITS MINES AND MINERALS, AND INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS, EMBRACING AN ACCOUNT OF THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS; AND ALSO THE MILITARY ANNALS OF THE FORTRESSES OF CROWN POINT AND TICONDEROGA By WINSLOW C. WATSON in 1869, in Chapter IV, Dieskau, 1755, 1767, to wit:
It was decided by the council that Colonel Ephraim Williams (whom Williams College in Massachusetts is named for), with a thousand provincials, supported by Hendrik and two hundred Mohawk warriors, should promptly march to relieve the fort (Fort Edward, N.Y. south of Lake George).
Williams, who a few days before, by a will executed at Albany, created the foundation of an institution, which a memorial of his love of science still preserves his name, was inspired by the earnest and heroic spirit of his province, was a gallant soldier, but untutored, except in trifling Indian warfare, by any military experience.
He advanced precipitately, but with little soldierly circumspection.
Hendrik, on horseback, led the van.
Meanwhile, the skill of the French commander (Dieskau) had prepared for them a terrible reception.
He placed his forces on the road he occupied, in a defile about three miles from Johnson’s camp, arranging them in the form of a parallelogram, with front open, or as a cul de sac.
(The Viet Cong in Viet Nam were also quite expert in setting up those same kinds of ambushes, first against the French, and then us, and my good friend died in one of those.)
The Canadians were posted on the right, the Indians upon the left, and the regulars at the extremity, with strict orders to the two former, “not to move or to discharge a single gun, until the French had fired.”
The rock, the bushes and forest disguised the presence of an army, and Williams entered into this “valley of death” in the midst of an invisible foe.
At this moment, when, to the practiced eye of Dieskau, the destruction of the whole detachment appeared inevitable, a part of the Iroquois arose from their biding place, and, perceiving their Mohawk brethren in the English army, fired into the air, and thus revealed the ambush.
These were Senecas, the western tribe of the confederacy, but domiciliated in Canada, whose fidelity, Dieskau, in his correspondence with Vaudreuil, had uniformly distrusted.
This treachery, probably without premeditation, was stimulated by that strong fraternal affection, which united the different tribes of the confederacy in bonds firmer than their political union, and was a remarkable feature in the character of the Iroquois.
Each canton might independently accept a subsidy from England or France, and would serve with fidelity and fight with courage against the adverse nation or in hostility to alien Indian tribes, but previous to the revolution were never — possibly some rare and brief exceptions may have occurred — brought into conflict with any other branch of the confederacy.
The friendly or treacherous warning came too late, to save the provincials and Mohawks from the fatal error of their leader.
A crushing fire was poured upon them in front and from the right.
Williams, who gallantly took position upon a rock — the same rock that is now the base of his own monument — at the first alarm, better to observe and direct the battle, early fell.
Hendrik, nearly at the same moment, was also killed.
The provincials and Indians retreated in confusion, “doubled up,” Dieskau wrote, “like a pack of cards, and fled pell-mell to their intrenchments.”
They were soon rallied by Lt. Colonel Whiting, fought with great valor, and under cover of a party of three hundred men commanded by Colonel Cole, which had been opportunely detached by Johnson to their support, effected a retreat in good order to the camp.
Dieskau, bursting through the red tape instructions of Vaudreuil, and following the inspiration of the motto inscribed upon his crest: “Boldness wins,” did not pause to reconnoitre, but leading the French and Canadians, rapidly pursued, hoping in the panic and confusion to enter with the fugitives, an unfortified camp; but again the Indians disappointed and deceived him.
When they saw the semblance of an intrenchment, and “heard the roar of cannon, stopped short.”
He still advanced, but soon perceived the Canadians also “scattering right and left.”
Johnson, when he heard the noise of the battle, and knew by its approach that his troops were retreating, with admirable promptitude and energy, sent forth the reenforcement of Cole, and prepared for the impending conflict.
The skilled woodsmen of New England rapidly felled trees, which, with the wagons and baggage formed a hasty and partial breastwork, while two or three cannons were hurried from the shore of the lake, where they had been placed ready for embarkation.
The defection of the irregular troops compelled Dieskau to make a brief halt in front of the works, which was a precious boon to the intrenching provincials.
Then ensued, protracted through the horrors of more than four hours, the most severe and bloodiest fight the wilds of the new world had ever witnessed.
Dieskau first assaulted with his regulars the centre, but, “thrown into disorder by the warm and constant fire of the artillery and colonial troops,” was repulsed.
Then he assailed the left flank, and, in a last and desperate effort, hurled his wasted and bleeding veterans upon the extreme right, with the impetuosity and heroic daring that belonged to the troops of France.
But this attack was also crushed by the overwhelming fire from the intrenchments.
In their excited ardor, many of the provincials and Indians leaping over the frail breastworks, opposed the butts of their reversed guns to the glittering bayonets of the French, and completed with a great slaughter, their defeat.
The Canadians and Indians inflicted considerable loss upon the Americans from an adjacent morass, but were dispersed by a few shots thrown into their midst.
And this was the extent of their services.
However inherently brave, as was attested by many a bloody field, the habitans of Canada were reluctant and murmuring levies, forced into a war of conquest by a ruthless conscription, that swept, on the threshold of harvest, every able-bodied man from the district of Montreal, leaving their crops to be gathered by coerced labor, from other sections of the province.
Dieskau appears not to have been adapted by temperament or manners, to conciliate the attachment or to command the confidence of his savage allies.
Instead of indulging in familiar intercourse and yielding to their habits and peculiarities, he maintained with them — and equally with his subordinates and the Canadians — the stately German style of seclusion and exclusiveness.
This course destroyed the influence and devotion, which could only be exerted over their rude and capricious nature, by controlling their impulses and affections.
They could not comprehend the motive of Dieskau in his rapid attack on the entrenched camp, and asked delay, “that they might rest and care for their wounded.”
When he persisted, they exclaimed in amazement: “Father you have lost your reason, listen to us.”
As to waging war against women and children, in the Peninsular War in Portugal between December 1810 – May 1814, as many as 50,000 Portuguese peasants starved to death in 1810 as a result of Wellington’s scorched earth policy.
And Wellington did not give a tinker’s damn about them, just as Democrat LBJ and the American did not give a damn about all the Vietnamese women and children Democrat LBJ was killing in Viet Nam, because like Wellington in Portugal, he could.
So by the time Lincoln came around and had Sherman do a grande chevauchée through the south, he was simply doing what has always been done in wars, and if the Democrats had not of started that war in the first place, which the South suffered for, the South would not have had to suffer, so that is not on Lincoln, that is on the Democrats whose war that was.
Unfortunately, Mr. Plante has misunderstood and misrepresented my meaning of “total war”. I quoted Sherman saying “There is a certain class of people, men, women, and children, that must be, killed or banished before you can have hope for peace and order.”. This was Lincoln’s policy of “necessity” It meant killing or removing that class of people who lived in the South. It meant complete destruction of everything needed to sustain life: shelter (of both blacks and whites). Crops, livestock … everything needed to live. These things they did.
It is noted, in 1863, Lincoln signed the Lieber Code on Conduct of War. Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln then proceeded to violate everything forbidden in the Mississippi campaign and March to the Sea. The Liber Code was considered the blueprint to War Crimes Trials. If Jefferson Dais had ben brought to trial it would be proven that it was Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman who were guilty of War Crimes.
Maybe the Democrats will keep all of that in mind before they start another civil war in this country, and in all truth, that sentiment expressed by Sherman that “There is a certain class of people, men, women, and children, that must be, killed or banished before you can have hope for peace and order,” is hardly new or original.
As to Lincoln and Sherman violating the Lieber Code on Conduct of War, which states in Article 16 that “Military necessity does not admit of cruelty” —that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions, of course they did, and so did Democrat LBJ violate it in VEET NAM, intentionally.
So what should be done about it?
Resume the war to see if this time around, the Democrat in the south can win and resume having the black folks as their slaves?
Having been in a shooting war where civilians were indeed fair game and the destruction of their homes, and food supplies was part of the VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN of the US in its war against women and children in Viet Nam, and I am talking about what I saw with my own eyes, not what I heard somebody say.
If Lincoln is a war criminal, then so too should be LBJ and Hussein Obama and Joe Biden.
And what I meant to say was that having been in a shooting war where civilians were indeed fair game and the intentional destruction of their homes, and food supplies was part of the VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN of the US in its war against women and children in Viet Nam, and I am talking about what I saw with my own eyes, not what I heard somebody say, I am very well aware of the SUB-HUMAN, CAVE-MAN-like existence of the combat infantryman in a “combat environment” day after day after day after day where the people have been dehumanized as a matter of policy, THERE ARE NO RULES, period!
Sherman by that time no longer had control over what the army was doing to the south.
Consider that after Pickett’s charge was repulsed, the Union troops started chanting “Fredericksburg” over and over again to remind what was left of the Confederates that Marye’s Heights had not been forgotten, and had just been avenged, and at some point, and most definitely that point had been reached in Viet Nam by 1968, the attitude becomes the faster we kill them all, the quicker we can go back home, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.
Hence, what happened to the South.
As to how the people of the North saw matters when the Democrats decided to try and destroy our nation by seceding so they could keep the Black folks as their slaves, this following excerpt gives one at least some inkling of the sentiments of those who later destroyed the South, thanks to the war provoked by the Democrats that brought that fate on:
“History of Warren County” edited by H. P. Smith, 1885
THE news of the outburst of “the great Rebellion,” in April, 1861, was borne through the rugged wilds and hills of Warren county with a celerity like that of the “fiery cross,” which in past generations gathered the clans of Scotland to the call of their chieftains.
On the morning of Thursday, the 18th of April, handbills were posted throughout the village of Glens Falls, containing a call, signed by over forty of the leading citizens of the place, for “a meeting to sustain the government.”
At this meeting, which was held the same evening, and which was largely attended, several spirited addresses were made.
The national flag was brought in and displayed amidst the wildest enthusiasm, and a series of patriotic resolutions adopted, from which the following extract is taken as a sample of their purport and spirit:
“Resolved, That the village of Glens Falls will not be behind any of her sister villages in contributing the men and the means necessary to defend the government, and to maintain the permanency of our beloved institutions; and that, as our fathers who established the Union pledged ‘their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors,’ to gain our independence, so will we pledge all we possess to cherish and protect the work of the illustrious men of the past, and to transmit unimpaired to our descendants the noble institutions given to us.”
“Resolved, That to the end we are for maintaining this Union undivided, and, whatever may be the consequences, sacrifice of property or life itself — everything but loss of honor — we will stand by the stars and stripes until the last faint echo in the expiring gale wafts our dying prayer heavenward, in behalf of our country, its institutions, and humanity.”
So, we can clearly see from the perspective of the North, the war against the GREAT REBELLION of the Democrats was not about slavery.
It was about saving OUR Union from the Democrats who would destroy it, and that ended up boomeranging back on the Democrats, because it was their country that ended up being destroyed.
And if had happened where the Romans were charge, there would have been Democrats hanging off trees like Christmas ornaments all over the South, and their earth would have been salted as well as scorched, all of which is on the Democrats, who were let off easy by Lincoln in that regard.