The Marxist President, the War Criminal, and Slave Reparations

By Al Benson Jr.

There was an article posted on www.thefederalistpapers.org  for April 19^th  about how our Marxist president wants to punish all Americans (at least all white Americans) for slavery. I have been watching over the years as various race-baiters have sought to find a way to scam more Americans out of what little money they may have left. The slavery reparations game is just one more Marxist “redistribute the wealth” campaign. Does anyone honestly think that any of the ordinary black folks in this country will ever see a thin dime of “reparations” money if they manage to pull this off? Hardly! The Je$$e Jacksons and Al Sharptons and their organizations will be the ones to benefit from this scam, not ordinary black folks, so let’s don’t try to kid anyone as to what this is really all about.

The Federalist Papers article was written by Russ Helper, and he noted: “Every decade or so, the radical left mentions paying reparations to African-Americans for pre-Civil War slavery. The idea is that even though slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, many in the black community are still suffering from its effects. But now a report has come to light that the President is seriously considering forcing all Americans to pay reparations to descendants of slaves.”

Now I have to admit, I’m not a real big fan of that idea. My family didn’t come here until the early 1880s, from England and Scotland, so they didn’t own any slaves before the War of Northern Aggression—but, then, I forgot. They were white, so they were automatically guilty of “racism” and therefore, I, who am white, should feel guilty over that (I don’t. Sorry!) and I should be willing to shell out big bucks for slaves my family never owned to someone who has never been a slave. That’s the way this game is played in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.

So now the next installment of the reparations game is in full swing. Charles Payne, who is black, and works for Fox News has predicted that we will soon see an apology for slavery from the Red (White) House, and also the possibility of “massive sums of money doled out in reparations for slavery.” He says “There’s going to be a major push to get cash, and I’m talking LOTS of cash.”

All the slaves are dead, as are all the slaveowners, so how will Obama justify trying to pilfer the wallets of present day Americans with his reparations scheme? Well, he’s checked that out, and Mr. Helper’s article noted: “He cites a special field order from Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in which he confiscated 400,000 acres of land along the Atlantic Coast for division into the 40 acre lots to house the tens of thousands of freed slave refugees who had joined his march. Sherman’s intentions are disputed, though many believe it was meant to be only a temporary fix for an immediate problem. According to Payne, that order will be seen as an unfulfilled promise by the federal government, and that it could very well be a driving force behind the push for reparations…On the surface, some people could make the argument that this is only just and the right thing to do, but is it really? The truth is that 90% of those living in the south prior to the Civil War never owned slaves. Why should any of their descendants be forced to pay for something their ancestors didn’t do?” Because they are white, that’s why.

The special field order under discussion here is Special Field Orders Number 15. According to Michael Fellman in his book Citizen Sherman, “Sherman then recalled that he had then sat down and drafted his Special Field Orders Number 15, which he issued after (Edwin) Stanton had edited them carefully. Other historians have stressed Stanton’s role in the authorship, as well as that of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. Whatever their exact genesis, these orders were an extremely radical proposal for redistribution of land confiscated from slaveholders to the newly freed slaves…’abandoned’ plantations (from which the owners had fled on the approach of Union troops)  were to be distributed in plots of ‘not more than forty acres of tillable ground’ to black heads of families’.” Fellman continued: “Land confiscation as one means of displacing the Confederate leadership had been discussed widely during the war…The general too had, since 1862, threatened Southerners with dispossession, their land to be distributed to Northern white colonists.” And Sherman continued: “…it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population…If they want eternal war, well and good; we will dispossess them and put our friends in their place…Many people with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.”

So it would appear that Comrade Obama and his socialist cadre plan to use this approach as their excuse to gouge the American public for reparations money. However, is this claim really legitimate?  Fellman noted on page 169 of his book that: “After the war, Sherman would claim that he intended his Special Field Orderss Number 15 only as an emergency war measure, and he did not protest when Andrew Johnson revoked it in 1866. So if Andrew Johnson revoked it that means it no longer had any binding authority after his revocation. Of course Obama and his minions have not bothered to mention Johnson’s revocation—at least not that I’ve read about and you can bet the farm that if the “news” media is aware of it they are not about to mention it either.

This whole scenario aptly illustrates why I call those people Yankee/Marxists. The Northern political and military industrial complex had a decided Marxist bent to it even that early.

In The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, writing at the behest of the League of the Just  (Illuminati) listed ten points that Communists should employ in their seizure of various countries. Number One was: “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.” Number Four was: “Confiscation of the property of all émigrés and rebels.” So, basically what Sherman sought to do in confiscating thousands of acres and redistributing them to ex-slaves was an exercise in pure Marxism—but that wouldn’t bother Comrade Obama. That’d be right up his alley, just the like the reparations scam will be right up his alley—redistribution of the wealth is another Marxist tenet and you can bet the wealth always gets “redistributed” to their friends, their corporate fascist buddies.

I don’t know if he will try to push something like this through Congress, although many of them wouldn’t be averse to it, or if he will try to do it through yet another “executive order.” The gutless wonders in Congress, in both parties, would probably love to give him this, but there is an election coming up next year, farce though it is and some of these turkeys do want to get voted back in so they can keep feeding at the trough. But keep your eyes open either way. This Marxist scheme needs to be resisted.

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Was the War of Northern Aggression a Marxist Revolution?

by Al Benson Jr.

The title of this article is asked as a rhetorical question, as Donnie Kennedy and I have already dealt in depth with this subject in our book Lincoln’s Marxists. But it does not hurt to ask it again, as many folks have not only not read our book, but they have never been confronted with some of the information that is now out there dealing with this subject. The leftist radicals in the early Republican Party were not bashful in giving away their socialist tendencies when they commented on the South and their plans for it and its people after the War.

James M. McPherson, who is by no means my favorite “historian” has dealt with some of this in an Internet article–Some Thoughts on the Civil War as the Second Revolution. McPherson seems to enjoy dealing with the subject of the War as if it were, indeed, a revolution, only he quotes the people that portray the Southerners as the revolutionaries. Needless to say, it was really the other way around. But then, a standard Marxist tactic is “condemn others and elevate yourself.”

McPherson noted the comments of future president James Garfield while he was in Congress, and he noted that: “During the first three of his seventeen years in Congress, Garfield was one of the most radical of the radical Republicans. He continued to view the Civil War and Reconstruction as a revolution that must wipe out all traces of the ancient regime in the South. In his maiden speech in the House of Representatives on January 28, 1864, he called for the confiscation of the land of Confederate planters and the redistribution of this land among the freed slaves and white Unionists in the South.” It hardly needs to be stated that such a concept is in total agreement with what Karl Marx advocated in the Communist Manifesto. This position was in total agreement with the first and fourth planks of the Communist Manifesto. Marx–sorry, I meant Garfield–then sought to excuse such Marxist confiscation on the premise that this had been done during our War for Independence with land that had belonged to the Tories. Of course a lot of the Tories had left the country, many going to Canada, and so much of their land was vacant anyway. And Garfield went on: “The leaders of this rebellion must be executed or banished from the republic…” So, was Garfield advocating mass executions of Southern leaders? Or at least their banishment so the federal government could then control the land that had been theirs? This was the same attitude as that displayed by General Sherman regarding Southerners–and it was still consistent with Marx.

Land confiscation was a cardinal tenet of Marxism and it was also a favorite among the Northern elite. In his book Citizen Sherman, Michael Fellman observed: “Land confiscation as one means of displacing the Confederate leadership had been discussed widely during the war. As early as August 24, 1862, John Sherman had written his brother, ‘If we can’t depend on the loyalty of the white men of the South, I would give the land to the blacks or colonize a new set (of northern whites).’ The general too had, since 1862, threatened Southerners with dispossession, their land to be redistributed to Northern white colonists…When the inhabitants persist too long in hostility it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population…If they want eternal war, well and good; we will dispossess them and put our friends in their place…Many people with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.” Almost makes you wonder if such is a veiled threat.

And Sherman made it quite plain that he would not hesitate to practice what we today call psychological warfare on the Southern people. According to Fellman, “His army would not inflict military defeat on a Confederate army, but intentionally humiliating destruction on a peaceful, cultivated Southern landscape and her people.” Lots easier to fight mostly unarmed Southern civilians than it is Confederate soldiers that can shoot back. But this is the way Marxists fight a war. Almost makes you wonder if Lenin took lessons from Sherman.

Radical abolitionist (and Unitarian) Wendell Phillips was among the most outspoken. In his mind he insisted that the War “is primarily a social revolution. The war can only be ended by annihilating that Oligarchy which formed and rules the South and makes the war-by annihilating a state of society. The whole social system of the Gulf States must be taken to pieces.” And dear old Thaddeus Stevens, that “gentle giant” of the radical abolitionists said they had to “treat this war as a radical revolution” and “reconstruction” then needed to “revolutionize Southern institutions, habits and manners…The foundations of their institutions…must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain.” So, as you can see by the statements made, the real revolutionaries in this war were not the Southern people or their leaders, but were, instead, those among the Northern elite who had imbibed the doctrines of socialism that became so clearly apparent when they spoke. What they have been describing here is nothing less than what the Communists in Russia and China did when they took over those countries–cultural genocide. Change the culture and make it totally unrecognizable to those who had lived under the old Christian culture. For “those people” the war and “reconstruction” were nothing more than exercises in Cultural Marxism–the 19th century variety.

Back in 2012, Andre M. Fleche wrote a book called The Revolution of 1861: The American Civil War in the Age of Nationalist Conflict. I haven’t yet read it so I can’t comment all that much on it, but Fleche does deal with the Forty-eighters that Donnie Kennedy and I deal with in Lincoln’s Marxists. A review by Jarret Ruminski (University of Calgary) noted that: “Fleche supports his argument for the importance of 1848 by highlighting the significant roles European revolutionaries played in shaping American nationalist debates in the years leading up to the Civil War, and showing their continued influence after its outbreak.” So Mr. Fleche also recognizes how influential the Forty-eighters in this country were before the War and how their revolutionary influence affected what went on.

More and more, the general public, and especially Southerners, need to be much more aware of just how (from a socialist perspective) the North was influenced by the Forty-eighters and how that influence affected not only the War and “reconstruction” but how it has affected everything that has gone on since then.

This demonstrates that “reconstruction” never truly ended in the South, or anywhere else in the country, but is, in fact, in operation today. Obama’s plan to “fundamentally transform the United States” is all part and parcel of it. The old (Christian) culture has to be gotten rid of and a new one instituted. If you can say anything about Obama, you can truthfully say that he is a “change agent” for the New World Order, and he has taken many of his lessons in that area from Abraham Lincoln and from “Lincoln’s Marxists.”

The Yankee/Marxist Mindset—alive and well among Lincoln’s military

By Al Benson Jr.
How many have followed the news in recent months, noting the contemptuous comments by those in the Obama Regime regarding the average American? Those people look down their long, Marxist noses at us with utter contempt. They have no use whatever for us except to use us as the cash cow to fund their efforts to destroy our faith and culture. They use us to pay for our own destruction. And we are supposed to be too stupid to know what’s going on. Unfortunately, thanks to what has passed for education in this country in the last 100 years, they are often right. However, after the last six “transparent” years of thinly-disguised fascism/Marxism some people are finally beginning to wake up, much to the chagrin of our current ruling elite. After all, you can only spit in people’s faces for so long while telling them it is dew, before some of them wise up.

The recent run-off election here in Louisiana showed that some folks have wised up. Liberal (socialist) Landrieu was finally sent packing after six years as an Obama clone that should have shamed anyone but an outright Marxist. Now we have to watch the man that unseated her to make sure he does what he claims he will do, and let him know we will be watching him if he doesn’t.

Unfortunately, this political (and military) contempt at the national level for ordinary people is not something that is new. It has not only been around since FDR, which many naïve (and some otherwise) people tell us is when our national problems really started. Anyone who has read any of my recent articles pertaining to the Constitution and the weakness of the checks and balances system realizes that our problems began long before FDR—not that he didn’t mightily contribute to those problems—but he was not the originator.

This elitist attitude toward the ordinary man was especially prevalent during and after the War of Northern Aggression. In an article by Thomas DiLorenzo that appeared on LewRockwell.com for December 4th Professor DiLorenzo noted the attitude of General William Tecumseh Sherman toward the civilian population of the South, and toward South Carolinians in particular.

Dr. DiLorenzo observed: “In a January 31, 1864 letter to Major R. M. Sawyer, Sherman explained the reason why he hated the South in general, and South Carolina in particular, so much. The war, he said, ‘was the result of a false political doctrine that any and every people have a right to self-government’.” Why how dare these insignificant South Carolinians think they had a right to self-government! Didn’t they realize that all they existed for was to serve the mighty federal Leviathan that reigned in Washington under “King Lincoln”? Why else would they even want to exist?

One of Sherman’s subordinate officers, a sterling individual named George W. Nichols, got a book published about his outstanding exploits in the War. He described South Carolinians as “the scum, the lower dregs of civilization” who are “not Americans; they are merely South Carolinians.” And General Carl Schurz noted that the average Yankee soldier looked at South Carolina as “deserving of special punishment.” Interpreted into real English that meant that the Yankee/Marxist military leadership from Sherman on down were willing to let their soldiers burn, rape, plunder and pillage in South Carolina while doing little to restrain them. After all, these South Carolina folks had to be taught a lesson—you don’t defy Yankee/Marxist authority and get away with it. With generals like Schurz on board you can bet that major appropriation of Southern property was near the top of the agenda. Comrade Schurz was one of the socialist generals Donnie Kennedy and I dealt with in our book Lincoln’s Marxists. . If you want to read more about Comrade Schurz that the history books will not inform you about, get our book. Schurz is dealt with in some detail and you will learn things about him the authors of the “history” books have seen fit to drop down the “memory hole.”

Sherman had no more use for the concept of self-government than those socialists and Marxists from Europe that were so much a part of Lincoln’s armies. In his book Citizen Sherman, Michael Fellman said of Sherman that: “His rejection of democracy and his semisecret reactionary faith in a military seizure of power deepened through the secession crisis and into the opening stages of his involvement in the Civil War.” In other words, this was Sherman’s attitude before the War even really started. Where do you suppose he got that from? Sherman’s thinking in this direction deepened as the War went on. After Vicksburg, he wrote to his brother, John that “A government resting immediately on the caprice of a people is too unstable to last… (A)ll must obey. Government, that is, the executive, having no discretion but to execute the law must be to that extent despotic.” The wishes or desires of the ordinary people made no difference. All must obey. Period! One wonders where the vaunted Constitution was during all this—in Lincoln’s bottom desk drawer maybe?

This was Sherman’s attitude toward ordinary folks—sheep to be shorn—as they bow the knee to an all-powerful secular messiah in Washington—be his name Lincoln or Obama. Unfortunately, too many Christians are willing to accept that, forgetting that there is only one King, King Jesus, and we are to bow the knee to Him, not to some tinpot dictator that wants to usurp Him and take His place.

As the new Congress files in to take its place in January, start keeping an eye on it and what it does, and if your Congressperson starts leaning to the left, let him/her know in no uncertain terms that you don’t like it—even if he/she does look down his/her nose at you for reminding them who they are supposed to be there to serve. Reminding them we already know what official Washington thinks of us would not be out of line.

Sherman, a Disturbed Personality

By Al Benson Jr.

In his book The History of the Confederacy 1832-1865  Clifford Dowdey on page 321, made some interesting comments about some of the Yankee/Marxist generals involved in the War. He noted: “The Sheridans, Milroys and Hunters had a different kind of arrogance from the neo-princelings of the Cotton South. They had the arrogance of unrestrained might. Without regard for rights—of belligerents or fellow citizens or even of the so-called human rights.” Let alone the Union—these bully boys had a lust for physical violence and wanton destruction.”

Of William Tecumseh Sherman Dowdey wrote, on page 374, “He was the executioner of the sentence which the sitters-in-judgment wished to have carried out against the Southern people. He destroyed a civilization. To the South he remains a symbol of the wanton and ruthless brutality of a might which denied all human rights to its victims…All through the reign of terror (Sherman’s march) the coarsest of the Union soldiers displayed the lust to degrade and desecrate the symbols of a civilization superior to anything they had personally experienced. Class hatred had been localized into hatred of a section which represented the pride of the aristocrat. That pride they wanted to humble and, by humbling, establish their own superiority to it…Sherman’s glorified march set back the real cause of union by at least the fifty years he mentioned…Sherman struck the heaviest and most lasting blow for continuing division.” Considering some of the socialist and Marxist generals commanding his troops that should come as no real surprise.

Sherman had with him Brigadier General August Willich, called by his Communist comrades “the reddest of the red.” He also had Brigadier General Peter Osterhaus and Colonel Frederick Knefler. All three of these men are profiled in our book Lincoln’s Marxists. Also present in Sherman’s officer corps was Brigadier General John B. Turchin, the European officer who “turned his back” while his command destroyed the town of Athens, Alabama. Can there be any doubt that such men contributed to Sherman’s lust for the destruction of Southern private property—one of the major tenets of Marxism.

That such men would comprise part of Sherman’s command is borne out by Sherman’s own proclivities toward military dictatorship. In his book Citizen Sherman  published in 1995, Michael Fellman has noted in several places that Sherman was a proponent of military dictatorship. On pages 59-60 Fellman observed: “His rejection of democracy and his semisecret reactionary faith in a military seizure of power deepened through the secession crisis and into the opening stages of his involvement in the Civil War.” His interest in military dictatorship went far beyond the opening stages of the War. After the fall of Vicksburg Sherman wrote to his brother and said: “A government resting immediately on the caprice of a people is too unstable to last…All must obey, Government that is, the executive, having no discretion but to execute the law must be to that extend despotic.” And then he told his brother, who, in his own right, had a dictatorial mindset, “If Congress don’t provide, the Army will’” by which he meant provide a dictatorship.’” Many “historians” would rather not write about this and so if they don’t downplay it they just ignore it. The public doesn’t need to know this if knowing it will interfere with the agenda. I must admit, until I read Fellman’s book, I had never come across this. And Fellman has noted that, although Sherman never made public his thoughts on military dictatorship and kept them private, “…he often acted on those same impulses…As he gained larger commands he imposed his authority with increasing energy.” His threats “…demonstrated Sherman’s willingness to issue repressive orders and his authoritarian bent” and that included censoring local newspapers.

Sherman displayed little of the humanitarian impulse with either Southerners or Indians. Burke Davis told us in his book Sherman’s March that, at a certain point, Sherman was beginning to develop his theory of total war and he sought to make the War to horrible that “…the rebels would never again talk up arms. The Southern people, he said, though they ‘cannot be made to love us, can be made to fear us, and dread the passage of troops through their country.’”

Not only did Sherman have fascist tendencies regarding army control of the country, he had a hard time getting along with his wife also. Fellman stated that: “…the quarrels of their marriage would rigidify into fairly violently expressed rituals of mutual recrimination, punctuated from time to time by protestations of admiration and affection…They were hurt and angry to be apart—being together made them hurt and angry as well.” His wife was a traditional Roman Catholic while Sherman was what was described as a “Jeffersonian deist.” Never the twain shall meet—and they didn’t. Sherman, at one point, said that “I believe in good works rather than faith.” Problem was, Sherman got it exactly backwards. He surely did not display much in the area of “good works” while his bummers were sacking and terrorizing Georgia. But, then, maybe he considered making war on civilians in Georgia and South Carolina to be among his “good works.”

After the War was over and he had successfully burned and destroyed a good part of the South, Sherman then had to deal with those nasty Indians out west who wanted to hang onto their land. His policy was one of indiscriminate extermination. He didn’t care who his men killed, men, women or children. All were fair game for Sherman’s “western bummers.”

In regard to the Sioux Indians Sherman, according to Fellman, said “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men women and children…I suppose the Sioux must be exterminated for they cannot and will not settle down, and our people will force us to it.” Good old Cump Sherman—the reluctant exterminator! Fellman noted of Sherman: “Yet however mutely or overtly he might express it, genocide was one of the poles of his agenda, one he would never entirely adopt nor completely reject. Extermination if need be; displacement for certain.”

So we have General Sherman, a man who contributed mightily to the destruction of Southern civilization, who was willing not only to exterminate Southerners and ruin their land and who had the same inclinations toward the Indians in the West, a man who could not get along with his wife, who was basically an agnostic at best, a man who favored military dictatorship over representative government (and he wasn’t the only Yankee general who held those sentiments) and this is the man we are all supposed to consider a hero. You’ll pardon me if I disagree. War criminal yes, hero—no! Sherman worked mightily to ensure that everyone he had to deal with would learn to bow to the “national interest.” The typical Yankee/Marxist–just like what we are forced to deal with today.

And these same people tell us we should forget all this and just put it in back of us yet they are the same people who are trying to tear down our flags and symbols and denigrate those among our generals who actually were heroic men. Problem is, too many Southern folks are willing to go along with all this. They want their “Southern heritage” without any Confederate flags or gray uniforms or streets named after Stonewall Jackson. The word “Confederate” is like a cussword to them—they wouldn’t be caught dead uttering it. Because they are willing to sell out their heritage they will lose it. And disturbed men like Sherman will end up with statues all over the South because more Southern folks wouldn’t stand up and call a spade a spade. Sherman was partly responsible for starting the cultural genocide in the South and his spiritual descendants , even those with Southern drawls,  will try to complete it. Will we let them?

Sherman’s March

by Al Benson Jr.

The internationalist and dictatorial mindset of the Sherman brothers was clearly evident in the statement made by John Sherman, brother of William Tecumseh, when he said “Nationalize as much as possible (and thereby) make men love their country before their states.” This quote was in the book Donnie Kennedy and I wrote Lincoln’s Marxists, on page 127. You have only to compare this quote with the rantings of former presidential candidate John McCain when he ranted about “country first.” It sounds so patriotic until you stop and think about it. Seems that if I recall correctly, that was the same tack that Hitler took.

However, any similarities between General Sherman and Hitler are more than coincidental. They were both endowed with the same mindset.

One thing most noteworthy of Sherman’s barbarian hordes was their attitude toward clergymen and toward Christians in general. In Sherman’s March  Burke Davis noted: “The Reverend Mr. Connor, a Methodist minister whose parsonage was burned, emerged with a sick child wrapped in a blanket. A (Yankee) soldier seized the blanket. ‘No!’ Connor said, ‘he’s sick.’ The soldier tore off the blanket and threw it into the fire. ‘Damn you’ he said. ‘If you say one more word I’ll throw the child after it’.” Now there’s Yankee charity and mercy at its finest! The Yankee/Marxist mindset in it’s finest hour!

Sherman’s bummers treated the Catholics no better than the Protestants. The account is given in Davis’ book about a Catholic convent destroyed when Atlanta was burning. According to Davis: “Father O’Connell led a final benediction. The schoolgirls were kneeling, reciting the rosary, when the chapel door was broken in by ‘the most unearthly battering…like the crash of doom. Drunken soldiers piled over each other, rushing for the sacred gold vessels of the alter,…Father O’Connell led them to a nearby church, from which they saw the burning convent roof collapse into a fiery grid of timbers. The sturdy building endured until long after nearby structures had burned to the ground, but at three in the morning its cross plunged earthward in a cascade of flames and embers. Laughing soldiers taunted the nuns and blew cigar smoke in their faces. ‘Oh holy! Yes, holy! We’re just as holy as you are!…Now, what do you think of God? Ain’t Sherman greater’?” You are forced to wonder how many of the “forty-eighters” marched in Sherman’s columns. Their freethinking mindset would make this sort of abuse of Christians right up their alley. And you can bet that Sherman, who, was at best, an agnostic, would have had no problem with all of this.

It seems that Sherman’s men had a real antipathy toward Christianity and Christians. Davis observed in his book that: “Sergeant Fleharty watched as the village church was attacked: ‘First the pulpit and seats were torn out, then the siding and the blinds were ripped off. Many axes were at work. The corner posts were cut, the building tottered, the beautiful spire, up among the green trees, leaned…vibrating to and fro,…By the use of long poles the men increased the vibratory motion of the building, and soon, with a screeching groan the spire sunk down…and as the structure became a pile of rubbish, some of the most wicked of the raiders yelled out: ‘There goes your damned old gospel shop’.” With some exceptions this seems to have been the mindset of Sherman and those barbarians he commanded.

And in keeping with the Marxist mindset of many in the Union armies Sherman was strongly inclined to a program of “land confiscation.” He wanted to dispossess Confederate leadership from their property. Sherman’s beloved brother, John, mentioned earlier, had said: “If we can’t depend on the loyalty of the white men of the South, I would give the land to the blacks or colonize a new set (of northern whites).” Sherman, himself, since 1862 had threatened to take the land away from Southerners and to redistribute it to Northern white colonists and in 1864 he wrote: “…it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population…If they want eternal war, well and good; we will dispossess them and put our friends in their place…” This was Sherman’s mindset, as well as the mindset of his brother in Washington. How different was this from what Karl Marx advocated “Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.” Most historians have yet to deal with the Marxist mindset of many Northern generals and politicians. It’s hard for them to grasp that the sainted Mr. Lincoln was a friend to the Marxists and socialists and had no problem whatever with their mindset or with what they did to the South. Christians have no concept of the depredations perpetrated against churches in the South during the war. That’s another whole subject in itself–another subject that almost never gets touched upon. They have been bemused into thinking Lincoln was a truly godly man because many pastors have told them this. No supporting evidence is necessary, in fact, most of the real primary sources you will run across say exactly the opposite–that Lincoln was really anti-Christian in his outlook. But then, in our day, our Christian brethren are hardly noted for their aggressive search for any truth that conflicts with the “cunningly devised fables” they have been fed, so they just go along to get along and never question anything. Their concern for historical truth is like the Platte River “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

It is rumored that the people of Georgia didn’t forget Sherman’s March for over 100 years after it happened. Who can blame them? I have just touched on a very few incidents here. There were many, many more and some so horrendous as to be beyond description. Until we begin to deal with the penetration of Marxists and socialists into Northern political and military life in the 1860s and before, we will never understand the War of Northern Aggression and the part people like Sherman played in it.