IT'S NOT TERROR...:

On September 2, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln received a telegram from General William Tecumseh Sherman that read, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won." [...]

A week after sending his message to the president, Sherman ordered that "the city of Atlanta, being exclusively required for warlike purposes, will at once be vacated by all except the armies of the United States."

In a wire to his superior in the War Department, General Halleck, Sherman went on record. "If the people raise a howl against my barbarity or cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity-seeking."

And to the mayor of Atlanta, who did, indeed, protest an action that would make civilians homeless refugees with winter approaching, he said, in effect, that he agreed. That it was a hard and heartless thing, but, he added, "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."

He would do what he must, then, and Mayor Calhoun should do the same. Which meant he must leave Atlanta "and take with you your old and feeble, feed and nurse them .  .  . until the mad passions of men cool down and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta."

And this was just the beginning.

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