Absolutely. My speciality is Russian history, but the American Civil War is a personal hobby. And I have the utmost respect for Sherman as a strategist ( he understood war better than anyone else during that time), and everything he did was deserved. It's not like he was some rampant butcher either - what he did was no worse than when we bombed the crap out of German civilians.
Did the US have to firebomb Tokyo? Lincoln wanted to break the will of the south and Sherman was part of the two headed snake that destroyed their moral and will to fight.
Did he have to? No. He had defeated Atlanta, occupied it, and it was then a Union city. The Union was winning soundly at the time, and the Confederacy had little military will left to break. His actions were about ensuring that the South's will was broken to the point that they weren't a political threat to the North when the War was over. Don't forget that after the war, he campaigned for genocide against the Sioux. From the 150 years later, Sherman sure looks like an evil man.
How about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? For the record ... United States B-29 planes firebombed (using napalm -- a jellied gasoline) 67 Japanese cities. Link ... Na effing palm.
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Surely you see the difference between bombing a military facility and flaming civilians, right? I have no problem with US's strategies in WW2, including Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And Japan's atrocities during the war were on par with Germany's, so it's not like they were saints either. But there's no comparison between Pearl Harbor and US carpet bombing of Japan.
As I understand it, Sherman evacuated the city and then burned it down. So, it's not only not worse than bombing German or Japanese cities with the civilians still in them during WWII, it was a great deal more ethical than that. It's more akin to the Russians burning down Moscow to stave off Napoleon's invasion in 1812. Sherman couldn't hang around and make sure the South didn't re-occupy an important city he just spent a couple months beseiging, so it was better to burn it down. Of Sherman's rampage through the South, I think this episide is probably one of the more defensible ones.
This is just as bad as one kid justifying beating up another kid because the kid he beat up did something worse, or like saying "he started it". In fact, I read in the Houston Chronicle today, yes our Houston Chronicle, a story about the Libyan rebels. It stated that war crime charges have been brought against the rebels but the actions taken by the rebels were not as severe as Gadafi, which his are borderline "crimes against humanity". Spare me. Almost no better than the guilt trip the media took us on this past Sunday, rubbing our noses in the "rememberence of 9/11". There is no way you can argue against the "rememberance" without sounding like a jackass or terrorist (remember you are either with us or against us). But if you "remember" then it's ok and it's also ok to then use the "rememberance" to sell beer or trucks or whatever your company sells. Anybody think that the Nation will pause to remember the heroes who sacrificed their lives during Hurricane Katrina? Oops, starting to sound like D&D, my bad.
