JWB and Company and Atrocities Against Southern Citizens

[LincolnToddFan]

I do wonder what diarist Kate Stone felt about the guy who replaced "tyrant" Lincoln?

Surely she wasn't still rejoicing over JWB's deed after four years of President Andrew Johnson, who spent the night of the assassination bitterly muttering to himself "they will pay for this...they will pay for this" over and over again?

He fanatically loathed the rebels and the Southern planters, and intended to punish them in a way that AL never did. And he made his point by ignoring the military tribunal's recommendation of clemency for the widow Surratt.

Her execution is squarely on his shoulders.

Old Abe and his silly jokes would have been a picnic for the South in comparison to what JWB caused them to get.

For the record, I read James McPherson's excellent "Battle Cry of Freedom" and if I ever believed that the Union armies had any moral high ground I didn't after I put down that book. William Tecumseh Sherman in particular was a vile excuse for a human being.

But...war is hell. And it makes monsters out of men who are engaged in it on BOTH sides. Just ask the victims of the Nathan Bedford Forrest-led Fort Pillow massacre.

We will never know what the Southern armies would have been capable of if unleashed on the civilian population of the North because as Laurie pointed out, they never got the opportunity.