JWB and Company and Atrocities Against Southern Citizens

[brtmchl]

I think you would have to factor this in Betty. There were many references made about Lincoln being a tyrant. Sherman and Sheridan certainly weren't rogue officers. "Total War" was a strategy played by the administration.

"Leave them only their eyes from which to weep." - Sheridan

Sherman stated that this War is no longer against a hostile army, it is now against a hostile people.

Kate Stone writes in her diary:
May 15, 1865
"Conquered,Submission.Subjugation. Are the words in my heart." Then rejoiced in the death of Lincoln at the hands of Booth for "riding the world of a tyrant. We are glad he is not alive to rejoice in our humiliation and insult us with his jokes."

Betty, I think emotion and despair played a huge factor.
I think you can make a great argument that vengeance played a huge roll in the aftermath of Lee's surrender. The war was in all sense over. It was vengeance that ultimately killed Lincoln, and it was vengeance that punished the South during Reconstruction. Melville's poem " The Martyr " sums it up quite nicely.

GOOD Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime
Of clemency and calm--
When with yearning he was filled
To redeem the evil-willed,
And, though conqueror, be kind;
But they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And they killed him from behind.

There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.

He lieth in his blood--
The father in his face;
They have killed him, the Forgiver--
The Avenger takes his place,
The Avenger wisely stern,
Who in righteousness shall do
What the heavens call him to,
And the parricides remand;
For they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And his blood is on their hand.

There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.