(Sorry, had posted this below, but it really is more appropriate here:)

Thanks to all for a fairly extensive body of anecdotal evidence to support your contention that the Yankees abused cemeteries and churches, along with everything else in their path. Scorched earth. Doesn't get much crueller than that.

But perhaps you will agree that the strategical purpose for targeting Southern property for destruction was to accelerate the end of the war quickly, which it surely did.

Would it have been more humane to let it draw out into an even more protracted struggle that ultimately would have caused even more death, suffering and want? I don't know, maybe someone else can answer that one. But I tend to see the cruel logic in LeMay's dictum that says to "do whatever it takes to end it as quickly as possible."

That doesn't mean that it wasn't barbaric or hateful from your perspective, which is completely understandable and which you have so eloquently and often stated on this board over the years.

I don't have the need or right or authority to apologize for any of the excesses perpetrated by Yankee soldiers in the South, or for Confederate soldiers either, but will simply stand back, try to dispassionately view it in the framework of those cruel times, and let God sort it all out. As He probably already has for those who were there.