Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-06-15
Jefferson Davis on sherman's Speech.

Inrervfew in the indianapolis Sentinel.
Mr.. Davis was asked if he had read in
yesterdays papers the speech of General
Sherman, replying to certain structures
upon his military conduct contained in
the recently published Rise and Fall Of
the Southern Confederacy." Mr.. Davis
eye glistened with something of the old
fire that was wont to be seen in the Sen
ate, as he replied: Eyes; I have read That
remarkable rigmarole of Gen. Sherman's,
but cannot see that it, in any respect,
breaks the force of my statements. Sher-
man, as the lawyers say, confesses and
avoids. To use another legal phrase, his
defense is in the nature of a negative
pregnant, which contains, on its face, evil
dence of its falsity. In other words, ii is
a negative of one thing while implying an
affirmation of another. History has al
ready decided that Sherman burned Co.
lumbia, s. c., in the mere wantonness of
war and TO crafty brutal spirit of re-
venge against what they called the hot
bed of secession Sherman waged war
with more ferOcity than any soldier since
Attila, who received from his terrified
and Mortified contemporaries the title of
the scourge of God, and boosted that
no blade Of grass ever again grew where
once his horse had planted his hoof.
His cruel treatment of the helpless non
combatants of Atlanta is without a paral-
lei for barbarity and unnecessary vindic.
tiveness in all the annals of war. Sher.
man deserves the glory-whatever that
glory may be worth-of having revived
and given renewed force to that most
Infamous of ancient maxims. '0ae Utctts.
He made woe to the conquered, not
less popular cry in the nineteenth CEN
fury than when first yelled by the bar.
barians as they pressed with dripping
swords to the sack of ancient Rome.
"The truth is, continued Mr.. Davis,
''that Sherman is vain man, who has
been ruined by success and tlattery, and
is possessed of a chronic hallucination
that he is great General. He is really
man of very mediocre talents. either
civil or military, and owed his success
entirely to superior numbers and the
lack of enterprise on the part of his
antagonist, who either could or would do
nothing but retreat, seeming anxious to
be called the Fabius of the civil war.
Had Stonewall Jackson confronted Sher-
man in 1864, instead of Joe Johnston, a
different tale would have been told in my
book. That incompatible body of in.
fantry he led, SO rapid of march as to
have earned the title of foot cavalry
would soon have brought Sherman's
marches to an lnglorious end. His So
called march to the sea, so much laud-
ed, was really the most absurd of mill
tary man@uvres ever undertaken in the
tide of time. 1t was right in the teeth
of all the rules of war, and but for the
fact that the Confederacy was then in its
death agonies, must have resulted in the
irretrievable ruin of Sherman's whole
army. That his band of 'bummers,
which was virtually an organized gang
of plunderers, was not destroyed or cap.
tured, was not due to any generalship of
Sherman, but the folly of the hot-headed
Hood, who, instead of falling back be-
fore Sherman, went reeling off into Ten
nessee like mad-cap on the widest of
Wlld-gOOse chases