dhuff
Sherman and genocide
Wed May 23 08:15:38 2001


I was ignorant of Sherman's Army passing through Huntsville. Thank you for the quotes regarding his attitude toward Southerners. I had seen a few of these before. Had the South prevailed, the man surely would have been tried for war crimes. I too had kin in Slackland Ala. who owned a small 180 acre farm. Oral tradition holds that our salt was buried beneath the floor of the old smokehouse to prevent it from being taken. I did not mean to suggest that Ne Alabama did not suffer. I was trying to determine comparative degree. It would seem that Sherman however would not discriminate which Southerners he chose to destroy. So it would be likely the destruction would have been complete. I would assume this would be true for wherever he was found to trod. I teach 8th grade students here in the North, and the bias against the South is evident in the textbooks. As a Southerner, a lover of truth, and a lover of history, I find this galling. My novel is designed to portray Southern attitudes, values, and culture in a positive light. It reveals a very tender relationship between blacks and whites in the Old South. Maybe someday media specials like the PBS series, The Civil War, will not refer to Sherman's exploits as his "glorious march to the sea". Education of the youth is needed. Southerners need not carry the burden of guilt heaped upon them by a media bent on cultural genocide. Ask any 8th grader what the war was about and you will know the thouroughness of the propoganda war. Didn't mean to preach.