Talk:Sherman's March to the Sea

message: the article itself is written not as a matter-of-fact piece but as a glaring omission of War Crimes committed by Gen Sherman ~ I see no lists of killed,wouned,missing on either side military or civilian ( not even a estimate of it )  A short list of the level of destruction done to the enemies possessions - surly this was a aim of the march " To make GA howl " and  " If the south wants war I shall give them all they want " - I believe a re write should be forthcoming ~ The Web  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.46.92.198 (talk) 16:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article should also give fair representation to the view that Sherman's march was a strategic mistake.  The argument is that Hood's army was a significant threat, and that Sherman should have focused on destroying that army. JamesMLane t c 07:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is a decidedly minority view, but if you have citations from reliable secondary sources, go ahead. Considering that Sherman's March was a success and that Thomas was able to virtually destroy Hood's army without Sherman present, the logical verdict of history is that Sherman's decision proved to be strategically okay.  Hal Jespersen (talk) 15:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I second that this article needs more mention that Sherman's march could absolutely be considered a war crime, and often is in the South today even. 173.53.31.228 (talk) 21:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And Southern apologetics would have you believe quite a few things.  The Southern view of the Civil War has become a lot rosier today than it was at the time it was proposed. 96.251.63.254 (talk) 19:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

text: You could probably do some research to find out who the person was, but I have changed it to redirect to Confederate States of America, which is probably more appropriate. Hal Jespersen (talk) 11:56, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: "After a successful two-month campaign, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his forces to Sherman in North Carolina on April 26, 1865." 67.243.1.21 (talk) 23:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's one that I think you could have fixed yourself, but thanks for pointing out the ambiguity of the sentence construction. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  So Johnston was successful? 

message: The same quote (or part of the same one) is repeated in the introduction and the section Aftermath. 
In the Introduction, it is 
"A military historian wrote that Sherman 'defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war.'" 
The same quote is in Aftermath as
"David J. Eicher wrote that 'Sherman had accomplished an amazing task. He had defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war.'"
I really don't think it's a good idea to repeat the exact same quote twice...
Yangosplat222 (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the purpose of the lead section (the text prior to the table of contents) is to summarize the main text of the article, I do not see a problem with the duplication. Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeated quote? 

message: At present, Central of Georgia Railroad has no mention of Sherman's March, and neither article mentions Sherman's bow ties. --Pawyilee (talk) 11:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sherman's bow ties 

message: The entire section about how slaves reacted to the march and the invasion is written as well from a POV perspective and is strongly revisionist in its slant. It sources a book that is written by a southern revisionist author who has multiple strongly negative reviews calling out just that bias on amazon. The claim that slaves somehow might have been loyal to the 'Southern way of life" meaning slavery, is just patently absurd. Maybe a few thought so, but to write an entire paragraph about what logically could only ever be a tiny sliver of the general southern black viewpoint is clearly an attempt to sanitize the horrible reality of the 'Southern way of life." I think the whole thing should be removed. I hope I have followed proper wikipedia protocol in addressing this, because this needs to be called out for being ahistorical and revisionist.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.150.129.244 (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a reference to support your disposition? ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 13:52, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Since no further information has been provided, I am removing the "dubious" and "unreliable source" warning labels. Campbell's book, published by a well-known academic press, meets the requirements for a reliable source. It can be refuted with other reliable sources, if provided. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that things were that much different than was portrayed in the fictional GWTW. The field slaves knew, despite having very little good information or education, that things couldn't be much worse, and might even be better, freed. Household servants had been treated "better", sometimes a lot better, and realized that their status was gravely threatened. They were not as enthusiastic about swapping systems, when they had climbed to the top of theirs. Some had whites as "friends" or as near friends as the system could foster. Student7 (talk) 01:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

text: I've located Campbell's book (thanks Google!) to confirm that the citation is in reference to the slaves liberated during the Carolinas campaign. I'm sure slaves in Georgia felt the same apprehensions, but couldn't that be supported with a source pertinent to the Georgia campaign? Robeauch (talk) 22:21, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Campbell reference

message: Currently, the Supreme Court of the Confederate States redirects to this article.  Surely there's a more appropriate article here? 86.149.85.181 (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Corrected. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 23:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supreme Court redirect? 

message: The article claims that the state legislature "called for Georgians to 'Die as freeman rather than live [as] slaves' and fled the capital."  This quotation struck me as highly ironic for a Confederate state, and is offered without citation.  When I searched for this quotation, I found plenty of sources indicating the Second Continental Congress made this statement in their Declaration Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/arms.asp
Of course, it's certainly possible that the Georgia legislature made this statement intending to invoke the revolutionary spirit of the Second Continental Congress, or I suppose it's even possible (though unlikely) they made the statement independent of any knowledge of its origins.  I haven't found any source other than Wikipedia saying the Georgia legislature made this statement in response to Sherman's March to the Sea.  It's possible it exists, and is crowded out on my searches by references to the Second Continental Congress's statement, but this quotation needs a citation.
:It's certainly the sort of thing they could have said -- Confederate leaders often laid claim to the mantle of the founding fathers. But you're right, there seems to be no evidence that they did so on this occasion. That whole section is in need of citations. Most of the information there isn't in dispute, which is probably why the 'Die freemen' pronouncement hasn't been examined more closely. (Good catch!)
:Since you've done the web search, I followed up with a text search of several good references. No mention of such a proclamation. (See also the Journal of the Georgia Senate's November 1864 session.) I'll remove the quote -- anyone finding a verifiable citation for it can always add it back.Rob (talk) 23:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Die freemen rather than live [as] slaves" 

message: This article says Hardee's Confederate army escaped from Savannah over a pontoon bridge into South Carolina. The article on the Battle of Tulifinny says: 'On December 25 Sherman's army captured Savannah but few Confederate troops were killed or captured as most were able to escape to South Carolina on the Savannah-Charleston railroad line.'
:Any enlightenment? Valetude (talk) 12:44, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It would have been a neat trick, as the railroad bridge out of Savannah had been destroyed. All sources are in agreement that the evacuation took place over the pontoon bridge. I haven't looked at the Tulifinny article before now, but the "escape via railroad" parts (intro and aftermath of the article) are unsourced and false. Rob (talk) 15:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems very careless of Sherman to have allowed Hardee to escape. That small Confederate army in Savannah was in the palm of his hand. Valetude (talk) 00:18, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  How Hardee escaped 

message: An irrelevant link has just been inserted into my last comment, above. I don't know how to remove this. Valetude (talk) 12:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Caused by the use of an in-line citation in an earlier section of the talk page. The citation created a wiki reference link, but talk pages don't have reference sections, so the link just shows up at the bottom of the page (i.e., with the most recent comment). I have removed the in-line citation, so the reference link no longer appears.Rob (talk) 15:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  PS 

message: Shouldn't there be an infobox, such as :Template:Infobox military conflict in the article? Abductive (reasoning) 01:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Kind of a gray area for this article, I think. The term "campaign" implies a series of battles between opposing forces, but there was relatively little combat on the march. I'm not even sure what would go into the "Confederate" half of an infobox. For the campaign as a whole, there was no organized, armed opposition of any significance other than Wheeler's cavalry. The article does have a campaignbox (:Template:Campaignbox Savannah Campaign) for the isolated fighting that took place, so maybe that's sufficient.Rob (talk) 03:41, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just that I recall seeing all the casualty figures in one spot. Was I looking at another article? Abductive (reasoning) 07:12, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly the Atlanta Campaign article? It has an infobox, which seems appropriate because it was a serious of major engagements between two opposing armies.Rob (talk) 00:54, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it was about the March to the Sea. But anyway, if one looks around, one will see that some Civil War campaign-level articles have the infobox, and some don't. This article could easily have one; the commanders and units are all known, the facts and figures are all known. The only thing not applicable is the coordinates. Abductive (reasoning) 20:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: Usually articles like this have casualty figures in the infobox, even when there are differing estimates. Why isn't this the case here? And what were the casualties? Hobbitschuster (talk) 07:08, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualty figures 

message: Why is there no section regarding the moral questions of the conflict, or the viewpoint of the other side? This Article is unacceptably biased and reads like some kind of victor's propaganda pamphlet. History has two sides, and to invalidate or exclude altogether the other is to openly lie. Not everything said from the southern perspective is part of the " Lost Cause Myth."  Whatever your angle on history, Sherman is by far one of the most controversial generals of the war. The article seems to skip that he was a well known white supremacist as were many of his men. During this particular operation, he did not allow black soldiers to join the army, and it was certainly not the spirit of the operation to free the slaves, but to confiscate them as property. You can find more about that here: John David Smith, Black Soldiers in Blue (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 229-232.  
Further, let's talk about the operation itself: It was an army of 60,000 U.S. troops marching through unguarded territory--save for a few thousand cavalry and home guard--burning, looting, and conducting an operation of terrorism against a non-combatant population. These were military targets insomuch as anything Southern is a target. Yet the Georgian civilians who endured this destruction of their homes and towns are not mentioned in any detail in the article. This leads us to assume that either they were not there at all, or they were waving happily as the union troops sang a song about John Brown, a man who was best known for attempting to illegally incite a violent slave revolt with the aide of northern money. 
This is a pretty big issue as it pertains to fair history. I hope it will be righted.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.130.17.111 (talk) 10:30, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Anybody can make edits to these articles. You could do it yourself: Any misstatements don't get "righted" without somebody writing them: It might as well be you. But I would make changes just a few at a time, to make sure they'll be accepted. Also, it's better if you have a registered (fake) name, rather than just a number. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality issue 

message: In this edit,  removed references to Total war with the edit summary .  I restored it with  Monopoly then reverted back without discussion, contrary to WP:BRD.
Let's discuss rather than repeat revert.  --A D Monroe III(talk)  17:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the total war version. I don't find any link between Nazism and Sherman, and most historians seem to agree that it was an example of total war. The March to the Sea was clearly a major change in the state of warfare, and although it did not look like the total war of later years, it was certainly related. I see no good reason to remove the mention from the lead. However, I think we could add a qualifier that reflects the divided view of historians:  CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems fair.  I'll wait a while for any other comments, and then edit per above, unless some other editor beats me to it.  --A D Monroe III(talk)  20:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Per consensus presented here, I have restored the reference to total war, per above.  Thanks to all.  --A D Monroe III(talk)  22:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  BRD on total war and Nazis 

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