debora000
War Is Cruelty and You Cannot Refine It
The vast majority of Atlanta's inhabitants had left during the six-week siege. When Gen. Sherman took Atlanta, he controversially ordered the evacuation of the remaining civilian population of the city so his army could be unencumbered for future struggles. City officials pleaded with him to reconsider.
His reply was very characteristic of his attitude during his campaign in Georgia: "...We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies...
"The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of the contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month?...
"War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop...
"... the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed... Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry the war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people...
"I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success..." (September 12, 1864, full text at www.sewanee.edu/faculty/willis/Civil_War/documents/Sherma...)
During the forced relocation in September, a total of 705 adults, 860 children, and 79 "servants" made their way from Atlanta to the end of the tracks in Union hands. Confederate wagons then carried the evacuees to Lovejoy Station, from which they could take the train to Macon. (www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Atlanta_Under_Sherman)
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It wasn't easy to think of a good place to draw to represent the evacuation of Atlanta. I went to Oakland Cemetery and looked toward the gold dome of the state capitol building. The tower to the left to the dome is Atlanta City Hall, built on the site of the house Sherman used as his Atlanta headquarters. As I drew, I was surrounded by the graves of people who had lived through the events of 1864.
Drawn September 13, 2014
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
War Is Cruelty and You Cannot Refine It
The vast majority of Atlanta's inhabitants had left during the six-week siege. When Gen. Sherman took Atlanta, he controversially ordered the evacuation of the remaining civilian population of the city so his army could be unencumbered for future struggles. City officials pleaded with him to reconsider.
His reply was very characteristic of his attitude during his campaign in Georgia: "...We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies...
"The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of the contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month?...
"War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop...
"... the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed... Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry the war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people...
"I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success..." (September 12, 1864, full text at www.sewanee.edu/faculty/willis/Civil_War/documents/Sherma...)
During the forced relocation in September, a total of 705 adults, 860 children, and 79 "servants" made their way from Atlanta to the end of the tracks in Union hands. Confederate wagons then carried the evacuees to Lovejoy Station, from which they could take the train to Macon. (www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Atlanta_Under_Sherman)
-----------
It wasn't easy to think of a good place to draw to represent the evacuation of Atlanta. I went to Oakland Cemetery and looked toward the gold dome of the state capitol building. The tower to the left to the dome is Atlanta City Hall, built on the site of the house Sherman used as his Atlanta headquarters. As I drew, I was surrounded by the graves of people who had lived through the events of 1864.
Drawn September 13, 2014
Atlanta, Georgia, USA