More one of America’s most sinister ex-presidents (with Wilson and Carter) can be found at the King Lincoln Archive.

Q: I greatly enjoyed “The Soul of Battle”. However, I would like you to address Mr. Buchanan?€™s critique (?€œWhere the Right Went Wrong?€?) of Sherman as a ?€œmoral monster?€? who spoke of a ?€œfinal solution to the Indian problem?€?. This is, of course, after Uncle Billy made his trek across the South. How do you reason with American policy towards the Plains Indians? Was Sherman immoral in his muscular approach?

Hanson: What Sherman said and did were often quite different both in Georgia and the frontier; as I recall his remarks about the Indians, he felt assimilation was the only answer and championed it as much as possible, especially education and agriculture on the reservation. Today, of course, his stance is illiberal, but at the time, his notion of paternalism was not as extreme as some since it was based on the idea that the Indian could only survive by emulating his conquerors and becoming one with him, at least in protected enclaves on the reservation.

Only a few hundred died in Georgia and he sought to mitigate the killing at Bentonville, the last battle of the war, so the notion of the ?€œmonster?€? Sherman arose over the hurt of the plantation classes and their fury at seeing stately work of decades put to the torch. Sherman answered that it made no sense to kill young white boys, poor and without slaves, in Virginia while the slaveholding architects of that slaughter remained sacrosanct behind the lines.

I didn’t like Mihan’s Lee’s at first either, but after reading through the majority of the 1st prize essays, hers definitely stands out. She makes no pretentions to being a great (and brainwashed) citizen of the (American) world who needs to bring the torch of freedom to lesser countries. Read all the essays; the majority of them carry this very banal, pseudo-artistic, and pretentious point depicting America as savior and glorious guardian of Freedom. Hers is cautious, honest, and personal — no reference to Iraq or Afghanistan, no Bush bashing or praising, no red, white, and blue, no bald eagles attached.