The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1891-03-11
THE MODERN ALARlC.
Some Truths About the Vandalism o
Sherman's March to the Sea.

Snerm3QS 1AaEth ~ liIO oS~.
DUE WEST, February 1.-THE mem
ory of Gen w. T. Sherman is clearly not
without a stain. No one will question
his brute bravery, but every right-mlnd-
ed nam must regard him as a cruel
monster. \ large amount Of the region
Of country traversed by him in his
march to the sea- was at the time
bercft of all its population except the old
men. women and children. The able
bodied men were al in the Confederate
a.. av, and the force by which his pro-
sress was opposed was not adequate for
tie purpose. 1t is fact beyond doubt
that he burned, or caused to be burned,
houses Of every description and destroy
ed property Of all kinds. By his orders
or with his full consent all the stock was
Destroyed.
In all this wholesale destruction there
was not the shadow ofnecessity, viewed
from military point Of view. The
North may laud him as much as 1t
pleases, but the solemn truth is ''Sher-
!. ans march to the sea" is disgrace
to the whole American nation and ioul
b ot on the civilization of the nineteenth
century, The barbarlties perpetrated
by his army, and with his appreciation,
exceeded any recorded in MODERN hlsto-
y, except it be tho e practlced by the
Span,ards. His ''march to the sea" was
a st Bartholomew's Day repeated on a
Grand scale. Gen VIM 7. Sherman had
a spleneid opportunity to display the
chivalcy of cor Queror, but he chose to
pay the part Of a black-hearted murder
e.. 1t is to hoped that he repented OF
ali his sins.
IfGen Sherman had taken the horses
and mnles OF the country and used them
this would. by the laws of war, have
been regarded as proper, out this he did
not do. The horses and mules, IN every
section of the country through which he
passed, were collected and shot. The
co n and fodder and everything Oh which
ID IN o: beast could live were turned up.
Everything was destroyed. Domestic
low and domestic animals-even the
dogs and cats were killed. Houses, IN
which there were none bu; old men and
ladies in humble ci'cul. stances, were
entered, destroyed. Mich COWS were
sto; down in the yard, the crockery was
all broken up; the pals and pots were
smashed into pieces, the clothing OF the
family was violently taken cut OF the
houses and sometimes of, the persons OF
old men and old momen. of little boys
and girls and burned befo:e their eyes.
Tl:s was not all. Those who were
reduced to want wsre cursed and abused
as if hey had not the feelings Of brute
Gen Sherman on his march to the sea-.
ac;ed as if he believed that the only good
Southern man was dead Southern man,
and the o1ly mercy that the South de-
served was to be burned up.
The probability is that IN the course OF
a few months .ome book agent Will be
trampine over the South endeavoring to
sell to the people Of Georgia and South
Carolina the life of Gen Sherman. It is
to be hoped that our people will have
enough Of selfrespect neither to buy it
nor read it..
Some Southern man ought to write the
history,ofS "Alarch to the sea, "
that coming generations might know the
truth. All thatis really necessary is to
State unvarnisled the tacts-the truth ;
nothing but the truth. We have no
desire 10 blacken the name ofGen Sher-
man. He is dead. But ii is doing the
South great injustice for the Northern
press, and especially the religious press
of the North, to point to the march OF
Gen Sherman to the sea as the pilgrim
age of an unselfsh saint.-News and
Cor,riar