B. U. G. S.

Talking about Sgt. Mark reminded me of something odd about my mentality.

Yes, children, my mentality is sometimes a bit odd. Please do not let this statement destroy your faith in me as the Only True Wisdom. Just put it down to the fact that I am tired and upset at this moment.

This particular oddity has to do with my attitude towards General Sherman, who, among other things, burned my home town, Columbia, SC, to the ground. He said, “War is hell,” and he made it hell.

I saw what was left of a man I had known in Africa after the Soldiers of Liberation and the People’s Peace-Loving Democratic Republics, backed by the World Council of Churches, had gotten through with him. He had had his skin slowly cut away from him until he died, and then he was left for us to find.

My reaction to this was not the objectivity you would expect of me.

Sherman treated the South with what was considered at the time total brutality. He burned us out. He violated every rule of war. But few Southern women were raped. In fact, compared to the kind of war we take for granted today, the whole thing was within limits we would consider pure restraint.

Within the restraints of THAT TIME, Sherman was inexcusable. He set precedents for war AMONG WHITE MEN that were new and destructive.

But war is PREJUDICE. You are killing people, not for the color of the skin they were born with, but for the color of the outfits they happen to be wearing at the moment.

So when I saw what had happened to my friend, my reaction was not rational. He was ONE OF MINE, which is what war is all about. My men wanted to go after them. They wanted to do to them what Africans do to Africans.

Well, I couldn’t stop them, could I? I even helped them a little.

On the Confederate side, I am incensed about what Sherman did. But we had been killing HIS men.

On the one hand, I know what a monster he was. On the other hand, I understand how he took our killing HIS men as something special.

A commander who is objective abut his own men bothers me.