RetroFed
PugJesus
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Explanation: During the US Civil War, the secessionist pro-slavery Confederacy was opposed by the initially-tepidly-anti-slavery Union. As the war drew on, however, many of the soldiers and supporters of the Union radicalized considerably. Many early recruits of the war effort were not particularly gung-ho about ending slavery or creating racial equality (many joining either out of patriotism or the thought it might be a neat adventure), but by their letters, radicalize considerably as enemies of slavers - and some enemies of racism altogether. Interestingly enough, this would be a key point in saving Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 presidential campaign - he was carried to a comfortable victory by the military vote.
One notable hero of the Union war effort, the Northerner William T. Sherman, was largely neutral on the subject of slavery (he believed it should be reformed, but not necessarily abolished, and had a distaste for ardent abolitionists) in 1861 - he had long been a friend of Southern aristocrats, and while he acknowledged the abuses of slavery, he thought it could be fixed by law rather than abolished.
By 1865, he and his wife were ardent enemies of slavery and the slaver aristocracy they once called their friends, with his wife going so far as to call the slavers ‘swine’ who needed to be driven into the sea with fire and sword. (Sherman himself would develop further after the war, eventually becoming an ardent supporter of legal and social equality for Black folk).
The phrasing/meme is a riff on one of the mottoes of the ultra-violent Imperium of Warhammer 40,000, a popular sci-fi franchise.
MalReynoldsThanks, some (me) of us not USians now have context for the Sherman love. A deeper exploration would be nice, but “he and his wife were ardent enemies of slavery” suffices in the meantime.. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve done it before, but a (nother) specific post on why Sherman counts from a more worldly perspective would be appreciated.
As are you.
There were actually numerous abolitionist generals during the US Civil War, some of whom were more (or at least earlier) abolitionist than Sherman. What Sherman gets love for is primarily three things:
1: His prominence. As one of they key figures in the eventual Union victory, he gets a lot of love, especially since after he retires from the military he speaks out in favor of the (then-very-political) issue of racial integration. While still rather racist during the US Civil War, he becomes less racist during the war, and then anti-racist after. During the later years of the Civil War, a group of Black leaders who worked with Sherman as a kind of liasion for ongoing civilian issues of Black integration were questioned by an ardent abolitionist figure in the US government, and reported that Sherman had never treated them with anything but the utmost respect and dignity.
2: His success. Sherman’s most famous act was to, effectively, cut through the slaver Confederacy with a daring and unprecedented march, which not only shortened the war considerably, but also freed hundreds-of-thousands of slaves in the process. The South effectively had no response possible to this, once it became apparent that Sherman wouldn’t be easily turned back.
3: His intensity. During the aforementioned march, he put forward several extremely unyielding positions, at least in the context of the US Civil War. Even in the most fervent supporters of the war effort on the Union side still often believed in some vague notion of a ‘gentlemanly’ war, especially since the position of many on the Union side was that the Confederates were still Americans. Just dipshit Americans who wouldn’t listen to the lawful Federal government. Sherman was of the opinion that “War is hell, and you cannot refine it”, which was part of his march through the South. He tore up and destroyed anything that could help the Confederate war effort if it survived - from railroads, to telegraphs, to cotton warehouses. Burned (most famously), cut, stolen, wrapped around trees. Horses and provisions taken from Confederate civilians, especially the rich ones, cities bombarded as long as they held unsurrendered enemy troops.
The famous “Forty Acres and a mule” saying, wherein the thought was that every freed slave (head of household only) should receive… well, forty acres of farmland and a mule… was formulated by an order of Sherman. Sherman’s thought was (correctly) that Black freedom could only be sustained with economic as well as legal power, and that there was no one better to take economic power from, anyway, than the old slaver aristocracy. Why not take their land, and give it to the newly freed slaves? While radical, this idea also had wide support (outside of the South of course, lmao, but they lost the war, fuck them).
Sadly, the order would be rescinded shortly after President Lincoln’s assassination. Lincoln’s vile successor, President Andrew Johnson, intervened to ensure that it would not be carried out, as he was a sympathizer with the Southern aristocracy and slavery. He just believed secession was wrong.
Sherman definitely had serious faults and flaws. By his own admission, he was an unstable man, and part of his intensity - the belief that “War is hell, and you cannot refine it” - was later used on the much less deserving Native American tribes post-Civil War. His only saving grace was that he was an intensely legalistic man - he regularly wrote on the importance of accepting surrenders and respecting treaties, which unfortunately makes him not only better than much of the US military during that time, but also many white settlers (whom he generally disdained) and the US government itself (which he privately criticized in internal correspondence, but felt he should not criticize a civilian government publicly as an active military man).
Also, as mentioned, it took him time to reach the ‘anti-racist’ views of his later life. He didn’t start - or even end - the Civil War with them. But they clearly developed over the course of the war, going from “Okay, slavery isn’t great but we can reform it” in 1861 to “Slavery is dead, forever, and good riddance.” by 1865. His opinion, in 1865, was still “Black people are inferior, but they should be free, and I’m fine with living alongside them, I guess.” Whereas by the 1870s (probably in part because he had begun serving with Black soldiers after the US Civil War, and Sherman was always very close with his troops), it had become a much more ardent “Black Americans are Americans, and deserving of all the legal rights and social integration afforded to any one of the rest of us.”
in favor of the (then-very-political) issue of racial integration
Won, also freed hundreds-of-thousands of slaves. (really?)
Didn’t believe in ‘gentlemanly’ war (ambivalent but future forward I guess, less is better)
“Forty Acres and a mule” super cool, early reparations.
Also pretty racist (which speaks to the first point, I guess he was into freedom before race)
Thankyou muchly for the context, I now like him (for his time), I’ll look at ShermanPosting differently.
Won, also freed hundreds-of-thousands of slaves. (really?)
Yep! At the time of the US Civil War, some ~4 million slaves were in the US South. When Sherman’s forces cut through the heart of the American South, every area cleared of Confederate forces was legally free, and Black folk wasted no time in taking advantage of that to reinforce their position of freedom by their own hands, once the slavers were no longer capable of using local government to reinforce their brutal control.
Some simply left their former enslavers’ region entirely, now that there was no apparatus available to stop or hunt them; others formed independent communities in the area to watch over one another. In all cases, the law was no longer on the side of the slavers once Sherman marched through, and he was firm on that matter, at the point of bayonet when needed.
God, there’s a haunting bit in Sherman’s memoirs, give me a second to find it.
After supper I sat on a chair astride, with my back to a good fire, musing, and became conscious that an old negro, with a tallow-candle in his hand, was scanning my face closely. I inquired, “What do you want, old man!” He answered, “Dey say you is Massa Sherman.” I answered that such was the case, and inquired what he wanted. He only wanted to look at me, and kept muttering, “Dis nigger can’t sleep dis night.” I asked him why he trembled so, and he said that he wanted to be sure that we were in fact “Yankees,” for on a former occasion some rebel cavalry had put on light-blue overcoats, personating Yankee troops, and many of the negroes were deceived thereby, himself among the number had shown them sympathy, and had in consequence been unmercifully beaten therefor. This time he wanted to be certain before committing himself…
The incident, luckily, had a happy ending (naturally, since it was Sherman recording it, and not some rebel slaver scumbag) in that it was, indeed, Sherman and the “Yankees” who had come through that time. Not only that, the old plantation itself was being looted of all its ‘fine’ valuables by the Northern troops because they had found out it belonged to a major secession supporter. So they shared some of the looted whiskey with the newly freed man, got the location of one the slaver’s slaver relatives, and had that slaver’s nephew (serving with Sherman as an anti-rebel Union officer) steal the slaver’s horses, lmao.
some ~4 million slaves
Damn, that’s a lot, never really got the scope. In Oz, even if you count convicts and bad attitude to the indigenous, you’d be pushing it to get to 500K
Yep. Part of is that the US had a larger population… but only part of it. Nearly a third of the US South’s population was enslaved.
The US South was one of the worst slaver societies in human history. And that’s a low fucking bar to limbo under.
That revolution is not the problem
The problem is what happens next.
So far we’ve had millions of people die in thousands of senseless wars and battles and I’m sure most of them believed they were on the right side
Do you really think that the average Wehrmacht soldier in Nazi Germany thought he was the evil one?
So many people died for what they believe din to make a better world for everyone, but then what?
The US is now run by pedophile oligarchs, Russia is run by oligarchs, Europe is trying not to drown in right extremism, were pretty much back where we started because none of the underlying problems were solved
We still have a world where it’s normal that a single person controls hundreds of billions of dollars, and then you want to ask me to die for all our freedoms?
Fuck no
I’ll die for a future where nobody gets to be a millionaire, where we have wealth caps, where resources are equally divided amongst all of us, where nature goes before humanities shitty needs, a world where no one cares about your skin color, body parts you may or may not have, etc. A world without the mental sickness called religion, that too
But that world ain coming. As soon as the average idiot hears that theeeeiiirrrrr taxes go to people with a color that they don’t like, it’s all off. And of course we do wealth caps, buy just not for these 10 people, please?
Fuck all of that
This post is in the context of the US Civil War, wherein the core cause was the abolition of race-based chattel slavery.
That’s a worthy fucking step forward, regardless of the fact that it didn’t result in utopia.
edgemaster72it is better not to die, rather go and kill someone 😆
"We don’t need martyrs right now. We need heroes. A hero would die for his country, but he’d much rather live for it."
– aaron sorkin
*“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” *
– george patton (or someone he stole it from)
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