I am sure that there were particular instances of the kind of destruction--salting soil,
carcasses in wells, etc.--that you refer to.  As a historian working
diligently on the rural South during the War and Reconstruction, I
do not find such instances.  Moreover, it is clear that after Sherman
and Sheridan's very purposeful destruction of military assets, that
included food supplies, cotton and tobacco, rails and rolling stock,
and Confederate gov't buildings, there was little such destruction
after Lee's and Johnston's surrender.
  There certainly was a food shortage after the War.  There had
been one during the War, chiefly because of the needs of the
armies, but after the War on key factor was the loss of so many
draught animals.  It is also important to note that the burden of
labor in food production was profoundly redistributed by
emancipation.  It was no longer the burden of the black population
to produce not only the food supply it consumed, but also to
produce commodities for white consumption in the plantation
districts.  I have the distinct memory of Scarlet O'Hara proclaiming
to the sky that she would never go hungry again.  I thought at the
time, that her problem was two fold:  not only were supplies
scarce, but also she (and most in her social class) had no idea
how to produce and prepare foodstuffs.  The people who were truly
berift after emancipation were those who had neither the stamina to
produce from what has always been a bountiful land, nor the local
knowledge that every peasant in the world possesses.
  Finally, it is important to remember that the Freedmen's Bureau
provided for white refugees perhaps more readily than it did for
Freedmen.  (The full name was the Bureau for Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Land.)  Some white southerners may
have been too proud to accept charity from the Yankees, but the
records of the BRFAL suggests that many weren't.)
  An excellent place to start asking these questions of the
historical sources is Lawrence Durrill's WAR OF ANOTHER KIND;
about the War in Washington County, North Carolina.  I taught that
book in a seminar on the Civil War and Reconstruction and was
stunned by its depth.  For instance, Durrill points out that as
Washington County society disintegrated during the War, blacks
simply occupied abandoned plantations at planting time and begin
putting in a subsistence crop of food in, I think, 1863.  It reminded
me that everyone in the South in the 1860s functioned on an
agricultural calendar, but some were more in touch with the basics
of agriculture than others.  Why the South ceased to be self-
sufficient in food after the War, not just during Reconstruction, is a
very serious question and well worth further exploration.

Harold

Date sent:              Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:33:03 -0400
From:                   Deane <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: sherman
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>

> Well, let me just say this.
> I am a 54 year old housewife with nothing but Southern roots on each side
> of my family, so I admit to a strong bias. My paternal grandparents were
> born in North Carolina in the 1880's. My maternal grandparents were born
> in Tidewater Virginia in the 1880's. During my childhood and formative
> years in the 1950's, it was their reflections on their parents' lives that
> shaped my thinking and taught me to regard certain aspects of Southern
> American history the way I do. I certainly will not bore you folks with
> that. However, it was my beloved and dear and college degreed (i.e., not
> ignorant red neck) grandparents who taught me that men like Sherman were
> gross and vile. On the other hand, one of  my grandfathers (whose name was
> Wade Hampton King) had a brother whose middle name was Grant......that
> brother was named after Ulysses Grant.  The family legend has it that my
> great-grandfather named that son after the Union general out of gratitude
> for being able to take his horse home from Appomatox. In fairness, I think
> that it was the horrors of Reconstruction.... the salted fields that the
> Yankee troops had left behind them along with poisoned water wells,
> needlessly slaughtered live stock, the ring-barked fruit and nut trees and
> the resulting starvation that caused the deepest and most induring
> bitterness.
>  I do not think that Margaret Mitchell's book created myths. I think that
> when many Southerners read GONE WITH THE WIND they were relieved that
> after so many decades someone had finally come close to putting it right
> and putting it down on paper.....and better yet, folks everywhere were
> reading it and, perhaps, coming to a better understanding, albeit a
> romanticized one, of what Southerners tended to be like. I could go on and
> on and on, but I won't. I could tell you about the teacher I had in
> college in the 1960's who asked me (the only southerner in that small
> Vermont college), "Is it true that you Southerners despise the blacks, the
> Jews and the Catholics. And if so, why?" I was so flabberghasted that I
> could not answer except to say, "Why no. We just hate Yankees!" I could
> try to describe to you the anguish on my own mother's face as she told me
> about her own grandmother's stories of eating insects and make 'tea' out
> of shoe leather after the "Wah". I can hear my mother now, telling me how
> her grandmother said over and over and over, "We were SO hungry." Deane
> Ferguson Mills a 13th generation Tidewater Virginian and proud of it.
>
>
> > I agree with your assessment of Margaret Mitchell's role in tarnishing
> > any understanding of Sherman.  But no matter  what is written, I'm
> > afraid,
> some
> > Southerners, and nearly all Native Americans, will continue having a
> > difficult time believing Sherman had any noble purpose in waging all out
> > war, either against the Confederacy, or against the Sioux and other
> Western
> > peoples he subjugated in the Indian Wars.
> >
> > -Paul Shelton
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jim Watkinson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 3:21 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: sherman
> >
> >
> > Harold is right.  Total war is key.  There was a review of a bio of
> Sherman
> > 2 or 3 weeks ago in the NYT Review of Books which strongly suggested
> > that the man who said "war is hell" believed he could end the war sooner
> > -- and stop the carnage -- by fighting the war in a differrent manner.
> > This
> seems
> > to ring true.  Margaret Mitchell (and David Selznick) probably did more
> > to set back the cause of understanding the war than anyone who has ever
> lived.
> >
> > Jim Watkinson
> >
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