4 thoughts on “Michael Givens Delivers His Farewell Address(es) to the SCV”
Stefan JovanovichAugust 4, 2014 / 7:04 am
His use of the word “annihilation” to describe the North’s evil war aims is sadly mistaken. The search for the decisive Napoleonic battle of annihilation was at the heart of Lee’s strategy, not Grant’s and certainly not Halleck’s or McClellan’s. Sherman’s letter to James Guthrie acknowledges the terrible irony of how annihilation did come to the South: “War is cruelty, and you can not qualify it, and those who brought war in our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour on. War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunderstorm. I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are.” William T. Sherman. Sherman’s Civil War Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865. Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin, eds. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 693.
In the first part of the speech he acts as if the south did nothing in the coming of the war but sit down south and get invaded. The Mildred Lewis Rutherford would be so proud.
Corey, I’m new to the CW blog community, so pardon me for asking if it’s inappropriate, but what happened to your blog?
SF WalkerAugust 6, 2014 / 6:13 am
Exactly. They all seem to act as if the South did nothing to provoke the war, and for a good reason. A detailed, thorough examination of all the events from South Carolina’s secession to Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers would be lethal to the “South as victim” argument.
Crossroads 
His use of the word “annihilation” to describe the North’s evil war aims is sadly mistaken. The search for the decisive Napoleonic battle of annihilation was at the heart of Lee’s strategy, not Grant’s and certainly not Halleck’s or McClellan’s. Sherman’s letter to James Guthrie acknowledges the terrible irony of how annihilation did come to the South: “War is cruelty, and you can not qualify it, and those who brought war in our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour on. War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunderstorm. I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are.” William T. Sherman. Sherman’s Civil War Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865. Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin, eds. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 693.
In the first part of the speech he acts as if the south did nothing in the coming of the war but sit down south and get invaded. The Mildred Lewis Rutherford would be so proud.
Corey, I’m new to the CW blog community, so pardon me for asking if it’s inappropriate, but what happened to your blog?
Exactly. They all seem to act as if the South did nothing to provoke the war, and for a good reason. A detailed, thorough examination of all the events from South Carolina’s secession to Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers would be lethal to the “South as victim” argument.