Geogiaglen, everyone who disagrees with Old South and Lost Cause mythology is not a carpetbagger or scalawag. A vast mythology was perpetrated and perpetuated by the post-war ruling class who in concert with their Yankee masters enslaved and divested The South. I grew up believing that every forlorn chimney on a country road in Georgia was the result of Sherman's March; they weren't, they were the result of ignorance, poverty, and the unwillingness of the wealthy to pay taxes. History is a hard thing, and real history pierces myth. Southerners should do more research and spend less time watching Gone With the Wind, because it couldn't be gone with the wind, it never was. I heard my great-grandmother's stories of Sherman's troops in the yard when she was a young girl. It was horrifying, but they didn't burn the house or rape anyone. There were burnings, rapes, and random, gratutious violence to be sure, but it was nothing like the mythological swath of destruction. I haven't read the book, but I don't need to read it to know that. Our Confederate soldier ancestors were proud, brave, and honorable men. I can't say the same of most of the men who led them or of any of the Southern leaders who came after them. Deo Vindice