Lewis Regenstein

Lewis Regenstein, a Native Atlantan, is a writer and author. He can be reached at Regenstein@mindspring.com. EMAIL THIS    PRINT THIS   Share

Rumsfeld seeks inspiration from war criminal Grant? - Letter by Lewis Regenstein

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Your “Political Points” article (23 May "Spring Reading I"), describes how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is reading “Grant,” the biography of the Yankee Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, as a morale booster.

But if Rumsfeld is going to adopt Grant as a role model, he should be aware that Grant’s policies and actions included the following:

• Ordering the expulsion on 24 hours notice of all Jews “as a class” from the territory under his control (General Order # 11, 17 December, 1862), and forbidding Jews to travel on trains (November, 1862);
• Ordering the destruction of an entire agricultural area to deny the enemy support (the Shenandoah Valley, 5 August, 1864).
• Leading the mass murder, a virtual genocide, of Native People, mainly helpless old men, women, and children in their villages, to make land available for the western railroads (the eradication of the Plains Indians, 1865-66).
• Overseeing the complete destruction of defenseless Southern cities, and conducting such warfare against unarmed women and children (e.g., the razing of Meridian, and other cities in Mississippi, spring, 1863).

Contrast these well documented atrocities (and many others too numerous to list) with the gentlemanly policies and behavior of the Confederate forces. My ancestor Major Raphael Moses, General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer, was forbidden by General Robert E. Lee from even entering private homes in their raids into the North, such as the famous incursion into Pennsylvania. Moses was forced to obtain his supplies from businesses and farms, and he always paid for what he requisitioned, albeit in Confederate tender.

Moses always endured in good humor the harsh verbal abuse he received from the local women, who, he noted, always insisted on receiving in the end the exact amount owed.

Moses and his Confederate colleagues never engaged in the type of warfare waged by the Union forces, who routinely burned, looted, and destroyed libraries, courthouses, churches, homes, and cities full of defenseless civilians, including my hometown of Atlanta. My ancestors may have lost the war, but they never lost their honor.

Perhaps Rumsfeld should be reading the memoirs of General Lee or Major Moses, instead of the biography of a war criminal like General Grant.

Sincerely yours,

Lewis Regenstein
Atlanta, GA

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Lewis Regenstein, a native Atlantan, is a writer and author. {regenstein@mindspring.com}