#cump

[nora3alk]

🔥✨✨✨

[m1sterryan]

the only word you need

[givemegifs]

[icedteapee]

Opinions on Sherman? Good or bad general? What about good or bad person? Is what he did justified?

I personally have a very good opinion of Sherman. I think he was a great general (he brought the majority of the success in the West after Grant went East to command the Army of the Potomac). I can understand why morally some people view his March to the Sea as a negative thing, but the straight fact is that it was an extremely effective military move. I do think he was a good person who did a lot of positive things even while dealing with mental illness (manic depression, possible bpd, etc). You’re probably referring to the burning of Atlanta when you ask about justification, and I would point you over to a great post @teamputvedev made about his letters to John Bell Hood in which he warned him what was coming and offered to help civilians a week in advance. All in all, I love Sherman and he’s one of my favorite civil war generals— despite all the debate and controversy around him I think that his actions were a net positive since they helped preserve the Union and end slavery.

[footnoteinhistory]

This is a only if you have time question; so on Sherman’s Wikipedia page, in the profile image, he is wearing some sort of medal but I am not certain what medal is it, do you want to take a shot at identifying it? Thank you!

What an intriguing question which led me down an interesting rabbit hole! I think I got you an answer but I still have some questions. Here’s the badge in the photo you’re talking about and a better view:

Both of these were taken shortly after the war (note the black mourning armband for Lincoln) but I can’t decide if they were taken at the same portrait session or not. In any case, Cump is wearing the same medal in Healy’s 1866 portrait now on display in the National Portrait Gallery:

After some digging I’ve figured out that it’s the (or a) corps badge for the XV Corps, which Sherman commanded at Vicksburg etc.

Based on a scouring of various ACW sites, it seems to be made up of various corps symbols, but I know next to nothing about corps badges and organization so I don’t know who/how/why these symbols came together to represent XV Corps. “40 Rounds” is the XV Corps’ motto, though, something Sherman writes about in his memoirs:

It was on this occasion that the Fifteenth Corps gained its peculiar badge: as the men were trudging along the deeply-cut, muddy road, of a cold, drizzly day, one of our Western soldiers left his ranks and joined a party of the Twelfth Corps at their camp-fire. They got into conversation, the Twelfth-Corps men asking what troops we were, etc., etc. In turn, our fellow (who had never seen a corps-badge, and noticed that every thing was marked with a star) asked if they were all brigadier-generals. Of course they were not, but the star was their corps-badge, and every wagon, tent, hat, etc., had its star. Then the Twelfth-Corps men inquired what corps be belonged to, and he answered, "The Fifteenth Corps." "What is your badge?" "Why," said he (and he was an Irishman), suiting the action to the word, "forty rounds in the cartridge-box, and twenty in the pocket!" At that time Blair commanded the corps; but Logan succeeded soon after, and, hearing the story, adopted the cartridge-box and forty rounds as the corps-badge.”

The red, white, and blue of the ribbon symbolize the first, second, and third divisions of the corps, that’s one thing I do know with certainty lol. This seems to be a badge made specially for Cump because I can’t really find it or records of it anywhere else in that exact form. If anyone knows more about corps badges and ACW decorations please feel free to school me!

[footnoteinhistory]

In honor of the ACW discussion today and the Grant miniseries premiering tonight, here are two less famous cartes de visite I’ve recently found of Sherman and Grant lookin’ gooood

[footnoteinhistory]

Was Sherman's March to the Sea as brutal as I've often heard it portrayed? Was it a form of "total war"? And did it actually destroy the will of Georgia to fight? Also, where did the idea to "Make Georgia Howl" come from?

Hi! Not sure what you’ve heard about it, but I imagine the reality of Sherman’s march was not as brutal as you might’ve heard. The Lost Cause has worked hard to turn the Savannah Campaign/Sherman into a boogeyman, but it was not as hellish as Southern sympathizers would have you believe. I mean, it was war, and war is hell, as Cump himself said. But it was not a murderous free-for-all.

Whether or not it was total war depends on how you would define total war. Sherman’s main objective was to destroy the South’s capacity for war (breaking up its infrastructure, blocking railways, material considerations like that). His second goal was to win the psychological war -- i.e. convince Southerners that they could not and would not win, that as long as they were in rebellion his boot would be on their throats, and that as soon as they surrendered he would come to their aid again. He knew it was either this, tear up Georgia swiftly, or enter a prolonged and bloody conflict that would cost thousands of more lives as it dragged on.

“Make Georgia howl” came from a telegram Sherman sent to Grant in October 1864 -- as I mentioned above, he knew the South and he knew they would not surrender until they realized the futility of their efforts. He proposed to destroy infrastructure, roads, morale, etc. in order to bring the war to an end without more large, deadly battles.

This involved destruction (mostly of infrastructure) and Union foragers often ransacked local property. Worth noting that once the Confederate army got desperate enough, Southern soldiers also started looting their fellow Southern citizens as well. Most houses were not totally destroyed and random murder was not common (very few reported rapes, but wartime sexual violence is notoriously underreported, especially in the 1860s).

[footnoteinhistory]

For the love meme, General Sherman!

His beard 😍

And also how deeply he cared for his country, and how he overcame his mental health challenges

But mostly that beard!