And to follow on the heels of Harold's excellent post, I should mention the
New York Ladies' Southern Relief Association, which was an organization
founded in NYC (and surrounding areas) to raise money for widows and orphans
in the South in 1866-67. Many of the NYLSRA's board members were
southerners (as was its primary founder, Mary Mildred Sullivan, wife of
Algernon Sydney Sullivan), but contributions were made by all manner of New
Yorkers who wanted to alleviate the suffering in the post-war South.
Distributions of clothes and food that were purchased by the organization
was through southern ministers of many faith traditions. The NYLSRA was
only one of many such organizations throughout the North. Robert H.
Bremner's _The Public Good: Philanthropy and Welfare in the Civil War Era_
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980) has an extensive discussion of such
groups.
--Eric
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harold S. Forsythe [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 11:56 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: sherman
>
>
> 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
> > >
> > > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
> > > instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
> > >
> > > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
> > > instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
> >
> > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see
> the instructions
> > at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
> instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
