And we're doomed to repeat it...

After a particularly pusillanimous, groveling letter from the leadership of Atlanta to stop destroying their city Sherman sent back what must have been a devastating reply. His response to the people of Atlanta seems to capture a much more complex person than I ever came to understand in my US History classes.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. 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, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country…You deprecate [war’s] horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Governor of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. 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 an early success.

He then closes with this passage:

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.