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Archiver > CIVIL-WAR > 1998-03 > 0890606634


From: Brawnerfar <>
Subject: Re: CIVIL-WAR-D Digest V98 #127
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 17:43:54 EST


I still need technical help on downloading, but never mind resending digests #
123 and 124. I successfully downloaded # 127 and think that I've got the gist
of what the earlier digests contained. Enough, already !

A couple of historical points, however. Because of the quoting of quoting of
quotes I couldn't make out who put Sherman in the Shenandoah Valley, but
please get him out of there. Hunter and Sheridan did enough damage; no
further pillage was or is needed. Also, just who was it who burned Atlanta ?
I thought, in spite of the impression made by "Gone With the Wind", that
Atlanta was just another of those Confederate-set fires that got out of hand
---as in Richmond, Buchannan and Hampton.

Please don't bring up Columbia, and perhaps I am wrong about Atlanta. But
whatever the facts of its burning, I think Confederate General D. H. Hill
should be allowed the last word. In a letter responding to Union General
John G. Foster's remarks concerning the burning of Plymouth, North Carolina
on March 24, 1863, Hill wrote:

...You forget, sir, that you are a Yankee and that Plymouth is a Southern
town. It is no business of yours if we choose to burn one of our own towns.
A meddling Yankee troubles himself with everyone's business but his own and
repents of everybody's sins but his own. We are a different people. Should
the Yankees burn a Union village in Connecticut or a codfish town in
Massachusetts we would not meddle with them, but rather bid them God speed in
their work of purifying the atmosphere

At least that is what I have read that Hill wrote. Haven't checked the
source.

D. E. Mayfield
Whose ggrandpappy did not participate in the burning of Chambersburg only
because he was already in a Yankee prison.

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