Click here to listen to what passes for an understanding of the American Civil War on the Diane Rehm show this morning.
The floor is open.
Click here to listen to what passes for an understanding of the American Civil War on the Diane Rehm show this morning.
The floor is open.
Anyone want to tell me about Sherman’s march through Jefferson City, Missouri?
I’m wanting to hear about that one too:-)
I’ve lived in Jefferson City for about 20 years. I work for an agency that is very much involved with Missouri history, and am in regular contact with historians and history buffs. Having never heard of this I floated the question to a couple of folks around here. . .I’ve had two people ask me to please leave their offices and one just stare at me while she reached for the phone and called security.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM8MPV_Wallendorf_Joseph_and_Elizabeth_House_Jefferson_City_MO
Apparently a reaction to Sherman’s march.
“Confederate General Sterling Price was quite familiar with Jefferson City- he had been Governor of Missouri in the 1850′s, On October 7,1864 the forces of his calvary raid across Missouri were on the city’s outskirts. The raid was in response to Sherman’s march to the sea in Georgia. That evening under a sky that was threatening rain he decided not to attack Jefferson City, but to bypass the city through Russelville,Boonville and points west.”
From the website that I sent.
Sherman’s march started a month after Price’s Raid … that being said, it’s certainly much more likely that some of Price’s men would be stealing little boys (quantrill, bloody bill, frank and Jesse james).
Still trying to find a reference to this ‘march’ in my CW library. Will get back to you when I do.
The “old guy” doesn’t hear well anymore, from what I gathered it didn’t much matter anyway.
Bummer
Not much of a discussion but then Doctorow isn’t much of a writer.
Never heard of this show before. Unintentionally funny … I have written programs that rendered speech better than the host. I half wonder if the caller with the Jefferson City story wasn’t trolling the show, and was surprised to hear the historian support her story albeit half-heartedly. Sherman stealing young boys?? In Jefferson City????
Tony, Diane Rehm suffers from a disorder called spasmodic dysphonia, hence the speech issue.
I still wanting to see documentation of the wholesale burning of civilian farms and property by Sherman in Georgia. Sherman’s right wing passed the area where I’m at, I can point to many houses and buildings in my area that are pre-war and still standing. In Milledgeville the old state capital and governor’s mansion are still there and in good repair. Most complaints from civilians I have read against both Sherman and Wheeler’s men were from the larger plantation owners complaining about having livestock and food taken.
Sherman practiced total war – except for not harming civilians, leaving 90% of southern towns and cities untouched, and not destroying roads and bridges. But other than that he was a beast I tell you, a beast. Unlike R.E. Lee who handed out sugar canes and lollipops during his invasion of the North.
No, no … the cities that he left untouched were simply “too beautiful to burn.”
It seems almost every town Sherman visited seem to have a fire
Even way back to 1st Manassas, IIRC the unit he was commander of burnt Germantown, Va…..all 10 buildings. Of course he was never to “blame” 
Sherman was a great general and even a better arsonist 
The war he waged on citizens would today label him a terrorist.