Comment Re:War is Hell. (Score 1) 224
Nope. My argument is that it was a total war and Sherman destroyed targets of military value. He didn't directly kill civilians;
Doesn't matter, because the world doesn't work that way. Sure, Sherman may have behaved properly and ordered decent treatment of civilians that got in his way. But that doesn't matter much, because:
When you send soldiers somewhere - especially soldiers who have to fight bloody fights to gain ground, soldiers who loose comrades to enemy activity - they won't necessarily behave. Some will be nice enough, some will rape, loot, pillage, kill and burn. At least when officers aren't looking too closely. Just because they can! Because theyr'e angry, and hating. They believed the motivational speeches, now the enemy is going to pay! And any civilian dumb enough to support the enemy cause, which is anoune around . .
This is well known, and it has always been like that. You can get your troops into "kill'em-mode", they do not come out of that all at the same time. And if you don't provide enough military police to keep them all in check at all time - then you will have senseless raping, killing and looting. Simple human nature, for some of us. People are not nice at all when they fight, and real assholes see a huge opportunity in war.
All of that would have been avoided if the South had given up on the idea of keeping humans as property as a state right and had not gone into rebellion to preserve their "Southern institutions" (including that one involving keeping humans as property.)