The following commentary is special to the Mirror by Charles Landis
Terrorism: “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians in the pursuit of political gain”. In this time when the febrile telos of the woke and cancel culture is the destruction of everything Confederate, it is altogether fitting, Indeed imperative, to address certain of the false narrative about Abraham Lincoln and his high command (Grant, Sherman, et al) in their conduct of the War of Aggression against the Confederacy. With particularity, their war crimes and crimes against humanity in name of “total war” and “necessity”.
The case is made by:
Both Lee and Grant were graduates of West Point where they learned a code of honor which included an instruction that waging war on civilian non-combatants (women, children, elderly, and sick } was prohibited and actionable crimes. So also was wanton plundering of property, including crops and livestock beyond necessary to sustain immediately.
Lee issued General Order No. 73 for the Confederacy which forbids waging war on non-combatants with severe and summary penalties for violation, including imprisonment and execution.
Grant issued General Order No. 100 purporting to address the non-combatant issue but cynically and diabolically added: “except if necessity.” This was all that Sherman and other commanders needed to conduct terrorism as “a necessity” in the conduct of “total war”. Lincoln endorsed this as his purpose was complete subjugation of seceding Southern states. Union forces began their invasion and terrorism at the Battle of Manassas (First Bull Run) in July, 1861 and continued to do so until the end of the war.
Here are a few of the terrorist activities…atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity Instituted by Lincoln as a policy of ‘necessity” and commander in chief, enabled by Grant, Sherman, and others in high command:
All of Shenandoah Valley. Virginia was burned to the ground, every home farm building., mill, storehouse. and business All crops and livestock except as Union soldiers consumed or carried with. All personal property of any value. Neither food nor shelter was left to sustain the non-combatants. The Valley was populated by many Mennonites who were conscientious objectors. Confederate soldiers who resisted the burning were considered war criminals and hanged.
In Meridian, Mississippi, thousands of Union soldiers completely destroyed the entire town to the point where the town no longer existed.
Atlanta., Georgia… gone with the wind. As with all of Sherman’s march to the sea his object was to reduce Georgia to an uninhabitable wasteland. Sherman wrote to Grant … “There is a class of people, Southerners. Including women and children, who must be killed before there can be peace.” In another letter, Sherman said there was a need to “depopulate.” Lincoln was fully informed of these letters and thought they should be “published.”
At Columbia, South Carolina, the mayor went out to meet Sherman as he approached the city, the most beautiful in the South and explained there were only non-combatants in Columbia. Sherman said he had no intention of harming the city and as he marched into the city residents greeted with friendly overtures. That evening as the sunset, flares were set off to signal 60,000 soldiers to begin the complete destruction of Columbia. Graves were dug up looking for treasure and remains scattered about the broken headstones. 248 wagon loads of looted personal property were carted away.
The terrorism was indiscriminate as to Black, White, slave, or free. At the University of South Carolina, there are thousands of diaries bearing witness to the many rapes and abuses of women.
Note. While Jefferson, Davis. President of CSA appointed a Jew. Judah Benjamin Secretary of War, Grant ordered all Jews to be expelled from southern states, Lincoln suggested this be changed to “Jew peddlers”. Gant also kept a slave for a year after the war ended and the Emancipation Proclamation. Congress ordered Grant to be free.
The list of crimes by Sherman and others under command is long and unending. But it is necessary to include one of most barbaric….the use of Confederate prisoners and non-combatants. Including women and children, to clear fields of landmines.
One of Sherman”s biographers records how Lincoln laughed when told of the terrorism.
Some apologists for terrorism of the North argue there were no laws for war crimes or wars against humanity. To this I answer this is the same defense offered at Nuremberg in the Nazi war crime trials.
In the closing days of the War,, Lincoln met secretly with Confederate leaders aboard a ship anchored near Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia. CSA Vice President Alexander Stevens asked Lincoln what he planned to do with the more than 3,000,000 slaves? Lincoln replied they will have to ”root, hog, or die”, meaning simply survival of the fittest. An estimated 200,000 slaves did perish from starvation and disease They would not be permitted to migrate to the North. Lincoln’s home state of Illinois had a constitutional provision that Blacks were prohibited to live or become a citizen. Such that already did live there would be arrested if more than 3 gathered in a place.
The next time a woke desecrates or “cancels” a Confederate memorial or statute, they should remember Lincoln. Grant, Sherman… et al. and the soldiers who resisted their invasion and terrorism and FOR WHOM THE MEMORIALs ARE BUILT.
About the Author
Funk Abe Lincoln and the horse he rode on…
He’s dead.
Excellent article. Similar, supporting articles and books expounding this author’s viewpoint have been springing up at an increased yearly rate during the past 20 years. Lincoln refused to recognize that “These United States” were not created by the people, but by the first 13 States, who could legally withdraw at will from the union they created. What emerged after 1865 was an entirely different country, shorn of 700,000+ persons , embedded with corruption and characterized by years of hate and local dissension. This new state formed the foundation of the national bloated, insolvent behemoth that we inhabit today.
Not to quibble overmuch here, but the Articles of Confederation said in plain language “PERPETUAL UNION”:
Transcript of Articles of Confederation (1777)
To all to whom these Presents shall come, we, the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of Newhampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhodeisland and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in the Words following, viz. “Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of Newhampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhodeisland and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.”
Article I. The Stile of this confederacy shall be, “The United States of America.”
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Article III. The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.
You ARE quibbling overmuch. The US Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation and contains no such mention of “perpetual union”. The Founders clearly understood that the States created the United States and that any of them had the right to withdraw from the federal government they had created. Even Salmon P. Chase’s Supreme Court (Chase was a Lincoln-appointed Chief Justice) understood that Jefferson Davis could not be guilty of treason, because the States of his Confederacy were entitled to remove themselves from the federal union.
And then, when the new Constitution was in the process of being ratified, any state which did not ratify it was out of the Union, which was supposed to be perpetual, but quite obviously, was not.
The Corwin Amendment should put an end to all talk of the war of northern aggression as a mission to end slavery.
The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
It wasn’t a civil war. The CSA were attempting to break away, not to seize control.
A Federal Republican: A Review of the Constitution
November 28, 1787
FRIENDS and FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN; When any nation is about to make a change in its political character, it highly behoves it to summon the experience of ages that have past, to collect the wisdom of the present day, and ascertain clearly those just principles of equal government, that are adapted to secure inviolably the lives, the liberties, and the property of the people.
In such a situation are these United States at the present moment.
They are now called to announce the Alpha or the Omega of their political existence, to lay a deep foundation for their national character, and to leave a legacy of happiness or misery to their children’s children.
The Constitution recommended to the consideration of the United States, is a subject of general discussion; and, while it involves in its fate the interest of so extensive a country, every sentiment that can be offered upon it, deserves its proportion of the public attention.
It is worth our while, before we make any observations on the Constitution, as it stands recommended, to recur to the motives which gave rise to the calling of a Convention.
We were taught by sad experience, the defect of the present articles of confederation, and wisely determined to alter and amend them.
At the framing of the present confederation, the bond of union among the States, which arose from a community of danger, in some measure superseded the necessity of wisdom.
A common interest excited us to unite our exertions for the public good.
At such a time a system of government conceived in perfect wisdom, and adopted with deliberation, was not expected; and as soon as those common principles which supplied its defects, ceased to operate, the inconveniences which arose from them, were very sensibly felt.
Since that time the seeds of civil dissention have been gradually ripening, and political confusion hath pervaded the States.
Commerce bath been declining, our credit suffering, and our respectability, as a nation, hath almost vanished.
In such circumstances it was thought proper to collect the patriotic wisdom of the States for the purpose of amending the articles of confederation, which were found to be inadequate to the security of national prosperity and happiness; and of making such additions to supreme power, as our situation testified, were wanted.
Necessity, therefore, gave birth to the Convention, and the glaring defects of the late system of confederation, were the objects of its amendment.
But was it a total subversion of the confederation, that was intended by Congress or expected by the people?
Did we experience any disadvantage from every part of the present confederation?
And why alter that which experience itself hath taught us to be good?
Was it not expected that some necessary additions to the powers of Congress, together with a few alterations of a smaller nature would constitute the whole of their business?
To frame a Constitution entirely new therefore was out of their province.
This is not offered as an argument against the Constitution itself, but it would certainly have been wisdom to have reserved that which was known to be good, and to have amended that only which was found defective from experience.
But notwithstanding that, if the proposed constitution can be made [to] appear to be excellent in itself, and properly adapted to secure inviolably the rights and privileges of the people; it is the part of every honest man to wish its establishment.
But that upon examination it will be found to be otherwise, I am fully persuaded.
There is one circumstance in the sitting of the late Convention, which bears upon its face the colour of suspicion.
They have power to control the manner of their convening, and they did it indeed in a very suspicious way.
They excluded themselves as it were from the view of the public, and an injunction of secrecy was imposed on the members.
This might have been done to blunt the natural jealousy of the people; but it was depriving them of a guard to their liberties, which they should ever possess.
Whatever were their intentions in shutting out their proceedings from the public ear, it carried in it a suspicious appearance.
In forming a confederation of independent republican states, it hath always been esteemed a fundamental law, that each state should have an equal representation.
In forming the present confederation of the United States, this point was warmly urged by several learned gentlemen, and carried in Congress.
Here is a change of which the citizens of the United States, who are less governed by principles of private interest, than those of true and impartial justice should beware.
The articles of the present confederation in this particular, are much more near akin to justice.
They are not so highly coloured with lawful oppression.
It is said, however, that the small states will eagerly adopt the constitution proposed by the Convention.
This I am inclined to doubt, but taking it for granted we can easily account for it.
Their present situation is so bad, and their importance so inconsiderable, that of two evils they would willingly chuse that which is apparently the least.
But let them have time to discuss and consider the matter, and recollect the probable perpetuity of it, and they will not so hastily embrace it.
There are many reasons why small states would rather adopt this constitution, than run the risque of having none at all.
In the former case, their importance would at least be nominal, in the latter it would dwindle away to nothing.
My commentary was about the Terrorism of Lincoln, I will address the issues related to secession in a following essay.
You’re correct. I diverted the topic to the constitutionality of State secession at the beginning of this extensive dialogue. Most honestly, your account of the damage done to the land, building, and populations of the seceded States related a willful destruction so extensive, so horrible, that I did not have the stomach for parts of it. My apologies.
It was what the military folks call “TOTAL WAR.”
The modern concept of total war can be traced to the writings of the 19th-century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who denied that wars could be fought by laws.
In his major work Vom Kriege (On War), he rejected the limited objectives of 18th-century warfare, in which winning local military victories was regarded as the key to advantageous diplomatic bargaining, and described wars as tending constantly to escalate in violence toward a theoretical absolute.
Clausewitz also stressed the importance of crushing the adversary’s forces in battle.
Brilliant military minds like Bobby Lee would have been very well aware of that concept.
You put those stars on your shoulders and the glitter on your uniform jacket and raise up the sword to lead your troops into battle, you should know what it is you are about to undertake and what the stakes really were.
Bobby Lee fought for Virginia and what he believed in, and after the war, Lee remained adamant that the war had been fought by the Confederates not for slavery but “for the Constitution and the Union established by our forefathers,” which is basic tenth grade high school history.
As to Grant, whose war it really was much more than Lincoln’s, his success and the Union victory in the war was that Grant early in the war recognized the need to focus, and thereafter stayed focused, on defeating, capturing, or destroying opposing armies.
And ask yourselves this basic question, history buffs – how long has the scorched earth policy been around?
Wasn’t that what the Brits were practicing in France and vice versa when the Black Prince was over there rampaging around?
Why do people think wars fueled by hatreds as deep as those in the Civil War would be a game of pat-a-cake with no violence, because well, you know, we’re all Americans and we’re all in this together, which is horse****.
Unlike McClellan, Hooker, and Meade, who ignored Lincoln’s admonitions to pursue and destroy enemy armies, and Halleck, who was satisfied with his hollow capture of Corinth, Grant believed in and practiced that approach, which was so critical to Union victory, which resulted in total war and the literal burning to the ground of the South which is exactly what happens in total war, which is a good reason not to have a war i the first place, and if the DEMOCRATS had known that back when, they would have saved the South a lot of bloodshed and destruction.
As to total war, when Revolutionary France declared war on the Austrian empire in the spring of 1792, its leaders promised a short, sweet and victorious campaign.
Instead, 1792 marked the beginning of a long, grinding, hideously bloody series of wars that would drag on in every state in Europe and last, with scant interruption, until the final defeat of France’s Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815.
That reminds me of Jemmy Madison’s War, or as it is also known, the War of 1812, and the Bladensburg Races.
Getting back to the military history Bobby Lee would have been aware of even if people today are ignorant of it, as they are ignorant of so much that happened more than a half a TWEET ago, these wars marked something fundamentally new in Western history, and collectively deserve the title of the first ‘total war, which drama played itself out all over again in the United States of America during the Civil War.
Long before 1792, the major European powers had fought with each other at regular intervals, but those conflicts were remarkably limited in scope.
The armies tended to avoid large-scale battle.
Noncombatants could hope for relatively merciful treatment.
Enemy officers dealt with each other as honorable adversaries.
The major powers and their armed forces were still dominated by hereditary aristocracies, and war retained the feel of an aristocratic ritual.
It was not play-acting by any means, but earlier wars proceeded according to a fairly strict code of aristocratic honor.
The French Revolution marked a sudden and dramatic break with this tradition.
Revolutionary France overthrew the country’s aristocracy along with its king and queen, and brought in new men (including the young and talented Bonaparte) to lead its armed forces.
By 1793, its leaders were calling for total military mobilization of the population.
Not only would young men go into the army, but women, old men and even children would turn their energies to the war effort, producing weapons, uniforms and supplies.
France declared that its opponents were not honorable adversaries but enemies of the human race who amounted to nothing more than criminals.
The result was a steady escalation of horror that did not stop even after the high point of revolutionary radicalism had passed in France itself, and after Napoleon took power there in 1799.
The figures speak for themselves: More than one-fifth of all the major battles fought in Europe between 1490 and 1815 took place in the 25 years after 1790.
Before 1790 only a handful of battles had involved more than 100,000 combatants; in the 1809 Battle of Wagram, largest in the gunpowder age to date, involved 300,000.
Just four years later the Battle of Leipzig drew 500,000, with fully 150,000 of them killed or wounded.
During the wars, France alone counted close to a million war deaths.
In the process, France carved out for itself the greatest empire seen in Europe since the days of the Caesars, but lost it again in a stunningly short time.
Among the most hideous novelties of the period was the spread of vicious insurgent campaigns against French occupying forces that the French themselves tried to murderously suppress.
The first such campaigns took place in France itself, involving struggles by traditional Catholics and Royalists against the Revolutionary government.
But as French rule spread like an inkblot over the map of Europe, more such episodes followed: in Belgium, in Italy, in the Tyrolian Alps of Austria.
The worst of all occurred in Spain, where the War of Independence of 1808–14 set a new standard of horror in European warfare, and bequeathed a new word to European languages: guerrilla, from the Spanish for little war.
It was in Spain that the French army’s brutal campaign to suppress those guerrilla wars revealed fully the ugly face of the new total war.
And yes, history is very, very ugly, as is war, which is something this Viet Nam veteran knows quite well.
The harvest of war is a field full of thorns!
When Revolutionary France declared war on the Austrian empire in the spring of 1792, its leaders promised a short, sweet and victorious campaign. Instead, 1792 marked the beginning of a long, grinding, hideously bloody series of wars that would drag on in every state in Europe and last, with scant interruption, until the final defeat of France’s Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815.
These wars marked something fundamentally new in Western history, and collectively deserve the title of the first ‘total war. Long before 1792, the major European powers had fought with each other at regular intervals, but those conflicts were remarkably limited in scope. The armies tended to avoid large-scale battle. Noncombatants could hope for relatively merciful treatment. Enemy officers dealt with each other as honorable adversaries. The major powers and their armed forces were still dominated by hereditary aristocracies, and war retained the feel of an aristocratic ritual. It was not play-acting by any means, but earlier wars proceeded according to a fairly strict code of aristocratic honor.
The French Revolution marked a sudden and dramatic break with this tradition. Revolutionary France overthrew the country’s aristocracy along with its king and queen, and brought in new men (including the young and talented Bonaparte) to lead its armed forces. By 1793, its leaders were calling for total military mobilization of the population. Not only would young men go into the army, but women, old men and even children would turn their energies to the war effort, producing weapons, uniforms and supplies. France declared that its opponents were not honorable adversaries but enemies of the human race who amounted to nothing more than criminals.
The result was a steady escalation of horror that did not stop even after the high point of revolutionary radicalism had passed in France itself, and after Napoleon took power there in 1799. The figures speak for themselves: More than one-fifth of all the major battles fought in Europe between 1490 and 1815 took place in the 25 years after 1790. Before 1790 only a handful of battles had involved more than 100,000 combatants; in the 1809 Battle of Wagram, largest in the gunpowder age to date, involved 300,000. Just four years later the Battle of Leipzig drew 500,000, with fully 150,000 of them killed or wounded. During the wars, France alone counted close to a million war deaths. In the process, France carved out for itself the greatest empire seen in Europe since the days of the Caesars, but lost it again in a stunningly short time.
Among the most hideous novelties of the period was the spread of vicious insurgent campaigns against French occupying forces that the French themselves tried to murderously suppress. The first such campaigns took place in France itself, involving struggles by traditional Catholics and Royalists against the Revolutionary government. But as French rule spread like an inkblot over the map of Europe, more such episodes followed: in Belgium, in Italy, in the Tyrolian Alps of Austria. The worst of all occurred in Spain, where the War of Independence of 1808–14 set a new standard of horror in European warfare, and bequeathed a new word to European languages: guerrilla, from the Spanish for little war. It was in Spain that the French army’s brutal campaign to suppress those guerrilla wars revealed fully the ugly face of the new total war.
During much of the e