Put on the mantle piece so i was glad to get it. I thanked him for it and i was going to waco to do some research at baylor, wrapped it up in old dirty tshirts and put it carefully in my suitcase and went down to waco in the rental car the next day, spoke well and came back and went to the airport at dfw, checked the bag to go to washington because i was going up there to a smithsonian program. I spent a few days at my brothers doing research in the archives. Did that, the jar still wrapped up in its tshirt. Went back after i finished to the airport, checked the bag to go back to my home in americas where i was living then and changed planes in atlanta and they changed the bag to the little world war i plane that they used between atlanta and albany, georgia. Got down to albany, picked up my suitcase, put it in the car and drove back. I was convinced that bell jar was broken and there would be a million pieces of glass and i would have to throw out everything in the suitcase, but i got home, opened the suitcase and very carefully unwrapped the bell jar. The glass bell jar was fine, but somewhere in the jarring around the little figure of joe johnston had gone that seems very symbolic. Thank you, people. I hope ive geffen you something to think about. [ applause ] tonight on American History tv a focus on slavery and cinema beginning at 8 00 eastern with a look at the depiction of slavery in film since the 1930s and then the movie lincoln and its portrayal of the debate of the amendment abolishing slavery and the 1939 movie gone with the wind and its depiction of Southern Society and thats all tonight starting at 8 00 eastern starting on cspan3. Here are some of the highlights for this weekend. Tonight on cspan in prime time. Well visit important sites of the history of the civil rights movement. Highlights of the new York Ideas Forum including cancer by ol jest Andrew Hessel and on sunday, q a with new york congressman Charlie Rangel at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight at 8 00 on cspan2, indepth with writer and religious scholar ressa aslam. Retired neurosurgeon on, ben carson and sunday night at 11 00 p. M. Eastern Lawrence Goldstone on the competition between the Wright Brothers and glen curtis to be the predominant name in manned flight. American history tv on cspan3 tonight at 8 00 eastern. A look at hollywoods portrayal of slavery. Saturday night, the 200th anniversary of the burning of washington. And sunday night at 8 00 p. M. , former white house chiefs of staff discuss how president s make decisions. Find our Television Schedule one week in advance at cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400 and comments at cspan. Org and join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Next, how general sherman brought the war to the south and the impact of the union armys capture of atlanta. As shermans troops set towns on fire, he established a code of conduct. Sarah ruben discusses shermans march hosted by the u. S. Capitol historical society. This is an hour. Thank you very much, paul and thank you all very much for comi coming. Mergeant of terror, attila. If you type, was sherman a into doingel. The autocomplete includes war criminal, hero oroville an and if you add a couple more letters you get terrorist. The urban dictionary, a popular website, describes general william t. Sherman as having employed the vicious tactic of targeting civilians continuing, such tactics had previously been deemed morally unacceptable. The deliberate targeting of civilians for attack was taken up in world war ii ending in the deaths of millions. The bombing of european cities by both sides of the war and japanese cities by the u. S. As well as attacks on civilians in china the philippines and korea by japan were consistent with n and encouraged by shermans precedent. The logic of these tactics seems to have been refuted by history. Finally, if you scroll through this entry, the words related to general william t. Sherman tags at the bottom include collateral damage, modern warfare, murder, terrorist and war criminal. Now let me be a little bit honest and fair here. This is not the best source out there on sherman. It was written by somebody named tex in tex, and it misquotes sherman at one point and ill also concede that if you look at the Word Association tag line it does also include war hero, but what this does represent a really popularlyheld view that william t. Sherman and the march through georgia and the carolinas during the final months of the civil war have something to do with the creation of total war, and the millions of civilian deaths in the wars of the 20th and 21st century can somehow be laid at his feet nor does this view reside entirely on the internet, noted repository of crack pot theories. A history of henry county georgia explained simply that, quote, shermans march to the sea was the first hint of the concept of total war which was to come to full fruition during the Second World War in which civilian infrastructure is considered a legitimate military target. Later writers photoably james reston, junior, reston made the argument and said that when a rash confederate venture to shot on his trains from a courthouse, the courthouse was burned. When a lady burned her corn crib, she lost her house. The proportionality, this is against reston of the retaliation is roughly the same if geometrically less as hostile fire from a jungle rifle being greeted by a b52 strike. One of the issues that comes into play when we talk about sherman and the questions of total war and the lawses of war is that people seem to use pretty slippery definitions. Often sherman seems to be judged by the standards of today rather than of his own time and often when not as much historian, but when people use total war they seem to be referring to the degree of mobilization rather than the range of targets, so what i want to do today is take a closer look at shermans march in the context of changing Union Policies over the course of the car and see if that doesnt paint a more nuanced picture of what sherman was doing and whether that fell within the bounds of kind of civilized warfare. So in 1864 there were no hague or geneva conventions, and that was not to say there were no guides for military behavior and conduct, but these wars were very fluid and evolving and changing as the very nature of the civil war changed. So initially, union policy towards the confederacy and its civilians would be one known as of conciliation. The idea behind it was lincoln believed that there was this silent majority of unionists in the Confederate States and that all he needed to do was animate them and they would rise up and the states would rejoin the union. This conciliation policy meant a narrow focus on targeting the confederate armies rather than antagonizing southern civilians and in effect southern civilians were still being treated as though they were american citizens rather than the citizens of a belligerent nation, but as early as 1862 that had begun to change and during that summer Union General john pope had issued a series of orders that allowed the army of virginia to sub cyst on the produce of the local countryside and lincoln actually, he was frustrated by the progress of the war at that point and he approved these orders. Popes soldiers went on a tear of destruction and violence reminiscent, actually, of the stories that would come out of georgia and the carolinas two years later and so great were the abuses perpetrated on on civilians that pope had to backtrack and condemn his men for being so out of control. So thats happened. At the same time in the summer of 1862, lincoln has come to the realization that he needs to use emancipation as a war measure and once he issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation in september 1862, the opportunity for this policy of conciliation to work was pretty much over and the war would be common, historian mark brimslys phrase hard handed. At the same time, all of this is happening simultaneously in different levels, the Union War Department had begun consuling with oppressionborn professor named Francis Lieber about devising a military code. Lieber then in turn called his 1863 work a code for the government of armies, but the War Department issued it as general orders 100, and its more comfortably known as the lieber code. So, the lieber code was designed to codify the laws of war and particularly as they pertain to the interactions between civilians and soldiers. One of the most significant sections of the code are articles 14 through 16 which very carefully delineate military necessity. Lieber has a pretty broad definition of that that deplores cruelty and deplores acts of vengeance as he would put it, but did allow for the making of war on civilians in specific situations, and in fact, theres a sort of tension internal to the lieber code over whats military necessity and whats going too far. So he does explain further in article 17, wars not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hospital belligerent armed or unarmed so it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy. He talks about also in a later article, he said the citizen or native of a hostile country is, thus, an enemy as one of the constituents of the hostile state of nation and as such is subjected to the hardships of war. So its clear from liebers code that there are ways that civilians can be targeted because of the fact that civilians are presumed to be inherently helping their military. That being said, among the codes prohibitions were the death and destruction of art works and the like and under punishment of death, this again is liebers language all wanton violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of property not sxha commanded by theboq[z jju q officer and all robbery and pillager sacking and taking place by main force, a rape, wounding or maiming and killing of such inhabit apartments. There is a line and that is physical violence against civilians. You can destroy their property, some of them, not their art, which is nice. Theres limits. Confederates when they read the lieber code complain that its so broad that as to license mischief under the grounds of military necessity. Also by 1864 when sherman is preparing for the march, lincoln and the union in general have become comfortable with a high degree of destruction of private property. Cotton could be burned easily, if not the contents of homes if not the homes themselves in areases like missouri and the shenandoah valley. So one can argue that the lieber code, at least as it it pertains to the treatments of civilians and their property was honored more in the breach than it was followed to the letter. Just after the war something called Field Service at war by francis j. Lipity was val published specifically on military logistics and he also leans on this doctrine of military necessity to justify foraging and he argues that foraging was a, quote, wellestablished right of war. Now he does concede, though that there need to be restraints placed on foraging because, as he put it, to do otherwise would be to bring dishonor upon the the country. And lipitys work, i know it was published after the work, but it will all make sense. Lipitys work demonstrates the complexity of the issue that surrounds foraging. By its very nature, when you see supplies from civilians you are inflicting hardship on that civilian population and so in order to inflict sort of the magical right amount of hardship enough, and to operate within the moral boundaries of civilized warfare, officers need to maintain tight control and lipity explains defined foraging parties and centralized systems, chaos could ensue and the army could really descend into a sort of armed mob engaging in pillage and so forth. So whats interesting is that you would have expected lipity to use shermans march as his examples as hes making this complicated case. He doesnt and it goes back to napoleons russian campaign. In fact, though, he doesnt ignore the march when hes talking about how an army can descend into chaos. Thats where he uses napoleon. He actually defends shermans march and he claims at first that when seizing Household Goods the men carefully discriminated between and this is actually the language from shermans orders, discriminated between the rich who were generally hostile to us meaning the union and the poor and industrious who were usually friendly or at least neutral and he also describes sherman as having a very organized system and with rules and receipts and he explains that any deviations from this nice, orderly, foraging system on the march, were the and stragglers and the like and not the main force of marchers. Well kind of talk about that in a minute. White southerners during the march and immediately afterwards frequently drew comparisons between shermans march and robert e. Lees invagus in 1862 and pennsylvania in 1863 and theyve often quoted lees general orders, 72 in the Gettysburg Campaign in which he reminded them, this is lees language that the duties expected of us by civilization and christianity are more obligatory than in our own and now aen go, lees language. We make war only upon armed men and we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies. So lees often praised for these orders, right . That hes restraining his men and relying on their sort of inherent gentility thats a pretty selective reading of what actually happened and many of these defenders of lee ignore the many wrongs perpetrated by lees men specifically when they kidnapped africanamericans to sell into slavery and virginia. So well set that aside. Okay. Ive gotten ahead of myself and a little off track. So lets talk now specifically about sherman and his march. Despite many allegations to the contrary, sherman himself was very well aware that war was governed by rules. These charges against sherman. Is sherman a war criminal generally focused on two events. They focus on the march, obviously, which ill talk about, but they also focus on his expulsions of citizens, of civilians, rather, from atlanta. So, shermans army took control of the city of atlanta on september 2, 1864. They werent planning to stay for very long but he did want his men to use their time in the city for sort of recharging to rest after the rigors of the campaign to take atlanta and he didnt want his men distracted by confederate operatives or women and children. He didnt want to have to feed women and children, and he didnt want to have to leave any men behind to hold on to the city of atlanta when he pulled out of the city. So he famously ordered civilians, unionists and confederates out of the city and gave them ten days in which to comply. It was with about 1200 people who were affected by this. Many people have used his september 12th 1864 letter to the mayor of atlanta in which sherman famously wrote, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it to make the argument that he was willing to do whatever worked to wreak all kinds of havoc on civilians in order to end the war. Sherman is quite explicit about following the rules and laws of war. In fact, he was quite angry when confederate general John Bell Hood challenged the eviction of confederates from atlanta and he wrote to hood, i think i understand the laws of civilized nations and the customs of war and then he suggested, in fact, that maybe the confederates ought to be taking better care of Union Prisoners at andersonville. In his final letter to hood, in fact, sherman proclaimed that, quote, he was not bound by the the laws of war to give notice of the shelling of atlanta because, he said, the city had been fortified and was being used for military purposes. See the books, he testily concluded. So what of the march itself . Before sherman left atlanta in november 1864, he set ground rules for his 62,000 men and he did them in the form of his special field orders number 120. There were nine article s altogether ask there are marching orders and then there are Center Sections that, in fact, deal explicitly with what the army could and could not do along the march. So the men were instructed to, quote, forage liberally on the country and to destroy mills, houses, cotton gins, et cetera, but within limits. The foraging parties were supposed to be regularized and under the control of discreet officers. Soldiers were not supposeded to enter homes as long as the the and if the army was left unmolested, southern property was also supposed to be left alone. Essentially what sherman is saying is a group of union foragers came up it a farm or plantation and they were allowed on and nobody was shooting at them or smarting off to them, then they were supposed to leave all the property. And again, sherman also ordered that when seizing livestock in particular his men, as i said earlier, ought to discriminate between the rich who are usually hostile and the poor and industrious, usually neutral or friendly and if the army was well treated during their foraging, they were invukte ed o strucked to quote, leave a portion for their maintenance. So he is setting parameters. Most of these rules were really more more honored in the breach than in reality. Theyre pretty elastic, but i think that their very existence of these rules gave sherman and to a lesser extent his men a degree of, i think, moral cover or at least thats what sherman is trying to achieve. They also allow for a certain elasticity. So you could treat some people more harshly and other people leniently and theres evidence that, in fact, the march does have an ebb and flow into it. Certainly, its pretty harsh in georgia and its extremely harsh in South Carolina and then the men are ordered to really pull back and be less destructive in North Carolina because North Carolina was perceived to have a lot of unionists. So, i dont really want to come away from today thinking im an apologist for shermans march or that i in any way am trying to minimize the very real damage and devastation that the Soldiers Left in their wake, but what i am trying to say is that the men were bound by rules and they knew they were bound by rules. Sherman certainly believed that he w