Day 18: A moment that made you cry

[ericadawn16]

Day 18: A moment that made you cry

This is going to sound a bit redneck but...

Actually, I'm always sad just reading about Sherman's march to the sea in history books.

One one hand, it can be argued that it was a necessary evil to end the war quicker.

On the other hand, it severely hampered reconstruction efforts and must have been very traumatic for the civilians. Suddenly, all their land, their possessions and their livelihood are destroyed and done so by the military. Poor, rich, white, black, it didn't matter. They burned everything and how hard would it have been for the children? The younger ones wouldn't have understood what was going on and the older ones would have greater incentive to hate the north.

Comments

[amerally.livejournal.com]

As an Atlanta native, Sherman has never been one of my favorites from history. For one thing, it's because of him that my hometown has no historical buildings to speak of. Burn the train-related structures, yes, but what was done was inhumane. "War is hell," Sherman declared, and he certainly demonstrated it.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Yep, I totally agree.

New York Times Editorial (on the destruction of Penn Station)- "We will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."