The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-10-20

He Characterizes Sherman rs a Malignant
and Brutal officer.

and Brutal Officer.
Gen. McCrady at winnsboro Is. g., Reunion.
For the malienity and brutality of Sherman l
can have nothing but indignation and resent
ment When our friends at the Ncrth-snd.
my comrades. we have warm ana earnest
friends there -heg Us to forget and forgive the
injuries necessarily incident to the war we our
selves dared, / heartily respond. But when I
come across such a history of the war as
ssHarper's Pictorial History Of the Rebellion"
and see there the picture of the burning of
Colum bis aud Winusboro and read the unpity-
ing and ~exultant upon the misery
thoy depict, / can feel it no part of Christisu or
patriotic duty to suppress the just indignation
which fills my heart alike against the per-
p~etrators and boastful recorders of such in
humanity.
There is there a picture of Wiunsboro in
flames, an on the next page there is one of
Hanging Rock, Sumter's battle-ground, and
between them are pictures OF Sherman's fora
gers and bummers coming in with their spoils
and dividing their booty. With these pictures
ia the story that when Fitzpatrick reached
Hanging Rock he reported to Sherman that
several dead bodies of federais had been found
in the road with q label by Hamp,on's cavalry
that such would be- the fate of all ~foragers,
whersupon Sherman, it ia said, directed imme-
date retaliation, and is reported as having de-
liyered himself OF these heroic sentiments:
1--WE have a perfect right to the products of the
country we overrun, and may collect them by
forage or otherwise. Let the people know that
the war is now against them, because their
army fees before US, and do not defend the
country as they should. 1t is monstrous for
Wheeler and Beauregard and such vain heroes
to talk of warning against women and children.
IL they claim TO be men they should defend
their women and children and prevent Us reach
ing their homes"
Was there ever anything more false. more
strocious and meaner than this pitiful excuse
by Sherman of his brutalityl Tauntine our
men because they were not there to defend
their women and children, when Grant himself
had just declared that we were ''robbing the
cradle and the grave to nil our ranks against
him; but which ranks. nv comrades, of old men
aud children though they were, he had not YET
been able to break. " And yet Sherman
attempts to cover his brutality by falsehood
and sneer that these men would not fight. And
those who had chased this same redoubtable
hero from the first battlefield of the war do not
desire his upon their courage. And
they boast that they were the men who had
fought and defeated Mcclellan, and Pope, and
Burnside, and Hooker, and Rosencrans; who had
drived Mcclellan to bis eunooats and chased
Pope to Washington; who had slaughtered
Burnside at Fredericksbure and ronted Hooker
at Charlottesville; who had held Fort Sumter
against all corners; who had left their dead from
Charleston to Gettysburg, from Gettysburg TO
ChickaInAugs, from Chickamsuga to Knoxville,
and from Knoxville to the Wilderness; who had
defeated a much greater man than Sherman,
Grant himself, in every engagement from the
Wilderness to Petersburg, had killed and
wounded in q month more men in Grants army
than they had in their own; who bad yielded at
last not TO Grant, not to Sherman, not TO arms,
but 10 starvation!