Excellent article–unusually objective
 
From: johough@swbell.net
To: carlton.fletcher@albanyherald.com
 
To Carlton Fletcher, Correspondent for the Albany Herald:
 
Sir:
 
Although you failed to use the words "genocide" and "holocaust’" in your excellent article, you gave me something about the arsonist Sherman’s work I could read without longing to choke the writer — Actually I was most pleasantly surprised by your article.  It is the best of any I’ve ever read in a modern newspaper.
 
I am an old Louisiana lady (if 81 years is old) with Confederate ancestors who fought for all that had been won by our Southern ancestors during that first secession (the one called the American Revolution).  Some of these forefathers of mine came to America in the early 1600’s. They were excellent marksmen so shot many enemy invaders of the South—sometimes with the enemy’s own guns. My Confederates did precisely the same.
 
Those Revolutionary War Southern soldiers of mine fought in the Carolinas. They fought for freedom–for liberty and for their God-given rights.  Their war was not a “Civil War” –not by the original definition of that word in use in the 1800’s. They fought because the English in them had not forgotten all that the Magna Carta once made possible for their ancestors. They fought because they believed that their rights came to them from God and not from the U.S. government.
 
My ancestors approved the U.S. Constitution and helped get it into law. Two of them, the Carolinians, lived to be 100 and 102 years of age, so had plenty of time to communicate their experiences and beliefs to their offspring. Eventually, I was blessed with a type of knowledge not shared in all American families and never taught in American schools after they were taken over by the Republican government during Reconstruction.
 
My Confederates (Christians) were descendants of those early Southerners, the American Revolutionaries.  They fought for precisely the same things, as did their Revolutionary ancestors–freedom and the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
 
One of my great great North Carolina grandfathers was held in two prisons–one, Camp Lookout, was, also, noted for torturing helpless Confederate prisoners.
 
My great, great Aunt and her husband lost two of their sons– one in the Second Battle of Manassas, and another after torture, we were told, administered at Camp Douglas on the express orders of the U.S. Senate and Radical Republican Benjamin Wade. This torture program was set into motion by Assistant Secretary of War Dana, Secretary of War Stanton and with the approval of Mr. Lincoln. The U.S. Senate voted it into existence. They claimed it would help them win the war, just as they claimed killing women and their babies would do the same.
 
My own children’s "Uncivil War" grandfather Brig. General Leroy Augustus Stafford was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness.  He left behind about a dozen children.  His great, great grandson, my children’s father, was born and grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana where women in his family, kids, and old folks had suffered horrendously because of the fires deliberately set by Lincoln’s Republican arsonists led by General Banks. (Sherman wasn’t the only arsonist in the Union army and the tragic burning of Vicksburg, Mississippi wasn’t the only burning that was not located on Sherman’s marching route. General Sheridan, while in the Shenandoah Valley, also availed himself of the use of matches, torches and the scorched earth policies.
 
Southerners do have a talent for talking– and writing– so along with the genes of my Blakeneys, my Houghs, my Boggans, my Sedberrys, my Sparkmans, my Almonds, my Laney’s, and my Wades I inherited orally conveyed memories of a war which the Union’s military leaders called "a War of Extermination."  I have long known that Mr. Sherman believed it necessary to kill even women and children and that he said so.  I know, also, that it was contrary to International law to wage war on civilians, but the Radicals and Communists managed to twist this law so that torture and murder—genocide and holocausts became acceptable to their soldiers and to the U.S. north’s citizens.  (Even some of the north’s preachers agreed with this.)  I am well aware that the 1848ers (the mostly German Marxist-Communists) were the major instigators of the policies behind the burning, raping, and torturing done in that War of Northern Aggression.
 
Today so many northerners object to the forcing of captives to stick their heads into buckets of water, yet those same northerners lavish accolades on men such as William Sherman–a man who smilingly winked as he gave his mostly German "boys" gentle orders not to rape, or murder or burn and he, himself, made a show of rescuing furniture from his own fire.  Too many journalists and historians declare Sherman a magnificent General because he allowed (slyly encouraged) the uncivilized behaviors of his "boys" while claiming he simply could not control them they hated Southerners so!
 
I know, also, that the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels lists the very goals of Communism–most of which were incorporated in Mr. Lincoln’s government by his Radical Republicans and Marxists and linger in our U.S. government today.  I know that Lincoln was losing his war until the Marxists brought in many thousands of Germans from Europe –hired guns here to get loot and land.  I am one of the informed Southerners who believe with Mr. King (whom you interviewed) that it is past time that the truth is told about the many sadistic monsters in the Union Army –and especially about the crazed Mr. Sherman.  These murderous leaders performed as they did with the full approval of Mr. Lincoln.
 
Had our Confederate leaders been as evil as the U.S. Generals and politicians, they could have burned the entire city of Washington, D. C. and left an unforgettable amount of ash throughout the north. Alas! Our generals were Christians, God fearing, Constitution loving men, so their names are denigrated, their flag insulted, their nation destroyed.  And the lies first told by Mr. Lincoln’s Marxists continue to be taught American school children.  The greatest of the lies, of course is that the war was fought to free the slaves. Slavery was never even mentioned until the middle of the war, when the north was losing and northern citizens wished to quit fighting.  But by now you surely have learned all of this and more.  I commend you on your bravery.  It could not have been easy for you to go against the current level of political correctness and actually tell the truth about anything Southern. I pray you will keep on doing so and will be joined by fellow brave souls and good writers.
 
Only if journalists are brave enough to expose the Republican myths as falsehoods, can it ever be proved that America’s present day newsmen actually value truth.
 
Joan Hough in Spring, Texas