Article: SUNDAY FORUM: COMPARE TODAY'S TERRORISTS TO SHERMAN, NOT CONFEDERACY.(COMMENTARY)

Byline: W. THOMAS SAWYER

George Will's column, ``Al-Qaida and the Confederacy have something in common'' (op-ed, Dec. 27), had a quote from Gen. Sherman that sounds like an Osama video: ``We must kill 300,000.''

He didn't quite make it: only 258,000 Confederates died, at a cost of 360,222 Union troops plus other casualties, making the total 623,000 Americans killed in this unnecessary war. (Source: A Great Civil War by Russell F. Eighly, Indiana University Press.)

Sherman's campaign of terror against the women and children of the South in 1864-65 - most men were away at the front - would be the envy of Osama bin Laden. Those war crimes included ...

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