Tag: shermans march

D. H. Dilbeck: Did Union Armies Really Wage a Just War? The Lieber Code and Sherman’s March to the Sea

There are several possible ways to explore how fully the Union army adhered to the Lieber code. But the spirit of the code was perhaps nowhere more fully realized—for good and ill—than in Sherman’s March across Georgia in late 1864. The March, like the code, embodied the spirit of a vigorous (and therefore hopefully short) war that proceeded within certain restraints. Continue Reading D. H. Dilbeck: Did Union Armies Really Wage a Just War? The Lieber Code and Sherman’s March to the Sea

Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting

Twitter is more similar to commemorative forms that have flourished since the mid-twentieth century. It appeals to commercialized recreation rather than ritualized reverence, much as the Confederate battle flag gained visibility through college sports and sustained influence through sales of t-shirts and beach towels. Enthusiasm for social media is part of the celebration of technology that has recently reshaped memory of the Hunley submarine. The concept of historical “live tweeting” resembles efforts of Civil War re-enactors to reproduce conditions of the past, such as the real-time unfolding of events, though my day-by-day chronicle does not pretend to offer the “period rush” some hobbyists find in simulation. Continue Reading Thomas J. Brown on Confederate Retweeting

Anne Rubin Follows the Traces of Sherman’s March

I set out on a bright June day, heading south to retrace the path of William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1865 march through the Carolinas.  I’m currently working on a project about the way Americans have remembered Sherman’s March, and I had already driven across Georgia the spring before.  Now it was time to work my way from the Bennett Place in… Continue Reading Anne Rubin Follows the Traces of Sherman’s March