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The following article was taken verbatim from 'The South Was Right' from the authors, Donald and Ronald Kennedy.
Most people would not look to the American "Civil War" if they are
looking for stories of genocide and of the destruction and death of a town. Most
people would look to the invading armies of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union for
such accounts. If they would take the time to look beyond the accepted version
of the history of the war, they would find many Nazi-like accounts of brutality
in the Yankees' actions during the war. Such is the case of the Union invasion
of Georgia. Here we find accounts of wholesale genocide and of kidnapping of
women and children.
Early in July of 1864, Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman's army was pressing toward Atlanta. Although greatly outnumbered, the
Southern army was making the invader pay dearly for his conquest. As usual, when
an invader has difficulty with the standing army of the invaded, he will start
to attack those whom he knows he can defeat with little trouble. True to form,
General Sherman sent his army into the heartland of the South with the orders to
"make Georgia howl." The food supply and factories of the South were the object
of Sherman's wrath. Sherman declared that there could be no peace in the country
until large parts of the Southern population had been exterminated.5 He put his
words into action. first, all the food that could be found was taken for the
Yankee army. Then all means of food production were either taken or destroyed.
Then he turned his attention to the destruction of factories that aided in the
Southern war effort.
It may be a little difficult for us to understand
today what it means to have all the food in one's home taken away and also have
the means to replace the food stolen or destroyed. When they needed food,
Southerners one hundred and thirty years ago did not run down to the supermarket
or corner convenience store. They grew and preserved their food, or they bought
from others who grew their own food. Some food could be bought, but in times of
war when invading armies made normal commerce impossible, the family unit had to
depend on its own resources. Therefore, by depriving people of the means of food
production, the Yankee invader was condemning them to death by starvation.
Who were these people upon whom Sherman had pronounced the death
sentence? For the most part they were women, children, old men, and the sick and
wounded who were unfit for military service. These innocent and defenseless
victims were the ones upon whom the full measure of anger was to be poured. It
seems strange that while the Yankees wrapped the cloak of self-righteousness
around themselves and proclaimed themselves as the beacon of all that was right
and good, they would stoop so low as to starve and destroy defenseless women,
children, the sick, wounded, and dying!
After the Battle of Kennesaw
Mountain, in which the invader was thoroughly punished for being in the wrong
place, Sherman sent elements of his army around Atlanta and into the towns of
Marietta, Roswell, and New Manchester. Several factories that were important to
the war effort of the Confederacy were located in these towns. When the Southern
soldiers were forced to evacuate these areas, the Yankees moved in and began
their work. Food and the means of food production were taken away, and homes
were pulled down or burned. All personal property that could be consigned to the
flames was destroyed. The only items that could be taken by the hapless
Southerners were the clothes on their backs. Even jewelry, such as wedding
bands, was pulled from ladies' hands by the noble defenders of the
Union.6
If the saga of these poor people were to stop here, it would
still rate as one of the low points in American history. But for these
Southerners, their odyssey of horror had only begun. Sherman then ordered all
those who worked in the factories to be gathered up and shipped out of their
country.7 The invader evidently feared that by some miracle these people might
not die of starvation, and by some enormous stroke of luck might rebuild their
factories from the ashes. With little or no concern for homes, women and
children were torn from their families and shipped north. The vast majority of
these people were never to see their loved ones again. In all, more than two
thousand women, children, and a few old men were collected. Families were
divided. Children were separated from their mothers.8 Tearful mothers were
forced to watch as children, who had worked in the factories, were dragged away
from home-almost none of them would ever be heard from again. With no more
remorse than that shown by the Yankee slave trader, the invaders went about
their dirty work of kidnapping defenseless women and children. Even after the
end of the war, the United States government never made any attempt to reunite
these families!
In the town of Roswell, over four hundred young women
and children were kept in the open town square for nearly a week. Imagine the
suffering of those who were cramped in that hot (remember this was July in
Georgia), dirty place. As if that were not bad enough, the whiskey stores found
their way into the hands of the guards. From that time on, the young girls of
Roswell lived a continual nightmare.9
All the factory workers of New
Manchester were taken off in the same manner as the other towns. So complete was
the destruction that the town never recovered from the raid and soon passed from
existence. New Manchester became a martyr for the cause of Southern
independence.
The following comment appeared in a Louisville, Kentucky,
newspaper concerning the women and children whom Sherman had shipped north: "The
train which arrived from Nashville last evening brought up from the South 249
women and children, who are sent here by orders of General Sherman to be
transferred north of the Ohio river. These people are mostly in a destitute
condition, having no means to provide for themselves a support."'10 These people
were hired out to perform work at a price that was at no more than a subsistence
level, making them virtual white slaves for the Yankees. More than two thousand
women and children were sent into the North in this manner. The papers in the
area advertised them as if they were any other commodity for sale. And so the
Yankees maintained their illicit trade in human flesh even as they were singing
glory, glory, hallelujah
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