"Sherman's bummer" Topic

Hello everyone ,
The A.C.W.C.3s reference of my ACW Minifigs 'S' range is designated as " Sherrnan's Bummer ".

They have hats with some kind of feathers on their left side.

What are "Sherman's bummer"?

They are probably the 60,000 or so men Sherman led on his march through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea at Savannah in November-December 1864. While the Union Army of the Potomac in the eastern theatre favored the forage cap, hats were more popular with the Western armies.

I do not know what the feathers might be, though. Hardee hats (the dress headgear before and after the war) sometimes had feathers, but this sounds altogether too fancy for the Western armies.

Grelber

I'm pretty sure the feathers are supposed to represent items appropriated or looted. They were not authorized adjustments to the uniform.

Sounds like some miniature sculptor took some liberties when making the figures. Isn't the S range from 1968? Not a lot of research to draw on back then.
I'm not saying some soldier in Sherman's 60,000-man armies in Georgia didn't wear a feather at some point. It wasn't standard to any uniform though.
Sherman's Bummers was just a nick-name for the Union soldiers marching through Georgia to the sea. Even more specifically, to the foragers that scoured the countryside looting and taking food, both officially as foragers, and unofficially as, well, looters.

I had that figure. Marvellous.
Bought it in 1973 along with about 7 other figures (I was poor).
It made the day trip to Southampton Northam road a pleasure.

martin

When Sherman's army marched through Georgia in 1864, it had no supply line, but lived off the country. His men who scrounged up edibles from the country-side, officially or unofficially, were called "bummers." They often ranged pretty far from camp or column and from higher authority.

Side note that may be interesting, or not.

In 1860 the republicans won in Pennsylvania
56.26% 37.54%

In 1864 after Lee's Invasion Republicans won, but things had changed.
51.75% 48.25%
Adams County where Gettysburg is located, went for Little Mac. Franklin where Chambersburg is located went Republican but only by a slim margin.

My guess is this result had much to do with Lee's invasion of 1863. The reason I bring this up is, how different would the 1864 results have been if Lee gave his men freedom to pillage and burn as they pleased? Had spent his time doing this, instead of attempting to bring the Union to battle. Would Pennsylvania have gone for McClellan?

I believe the term is more specific to those men in Sherman's army who fell back from the rest of the army as it was marching through Georgia. They then proceeded to loot, burn rob and harm the civilian population.

Oh and yes I know Mac was from Pennsylvania. 🙂

100 years later the term was used to describe a bad LSD trip. "Ridin' hard on a bummer," as the hippies would say.

Merriam-Webster says "failure or flop" and "probably modification of German Bummler loafer, from bummeln to dangle, loaf." First recorded use 1855. I agree--a behavior rather than a troop type, casual looters on the fringe of the army merging insensibly with foragers.

In colloquial (American) English, to "bum" is to borrow or beg, and within my lifetime to go "on the bum" or to be a "bum" was to become a tramp and avoid honest work as much as possible.

@Grelber
Attention this figurine is a rider with a saber in his hand.

@Rakkasan
In some conflicts there are no longer unauthorized adjustments to the uniform.

Wasn't that the case in ACW?

@Cleburne1863
So this character would indeed be a Yankee?

@martin goddard
I understand you but if you were not aware, you will learn that I now only have historical 25mm MiniFigs, including hundreds and hundreds of 'S' ranges from many different ranges and often several times the same reference, as well as ranges of 25mm "chubby" figures that replaced the 'S' ranges in 1974.

In the early medieval ranges, the first "chubby" ones were cast with their offensive armament.

Of course I also have all those that appeared later and that have their hands open for production facilities and are still sold by the CBs.

However, I am missing a few references in the 'S' ranges and I spend a lot of time looking for them, so any help is welcome.

@donlowry
So it is indeed a Yankee because as I have trouble with the English language, for a few days I was wondering if this was not a figurine representing a member of a rebel cavalry unit that would have harassed Sherman's troops.

@35thOVI
Why would the looters not be Republicans?

@Grattan54
So this would be a Yankee irregular?

@Michael May
Bummer means deception or disappointment?

@robert piepenbrink
So maybe it's a term to insult all of Sherman's troops regardless of their conduct?

Yes, a Union soldier. They often captured (stole) horses or mules to ride. A saber does not seem very appropriate, though. They were usually infantrymen, not cavalry.

They were not irregulars, but members of real military units, but under very loose or non-existent supervision.

I'm not sure why they were called "bummers." But I think the other Federal troops called them that.

Wikipedia is your friend:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bummers

"So maybe it's a term to insult all of Sherman's troops regardless of their conduct?"

So maybe not. I've never seen the word applied to units under discipline or in battle, but only for soldiers on the fringe of the army looting.

See the second part of
"Gone With the Wind" for a characterization of a bummer.

If we're going cite movies, Montgomery Cliff and Lee Marvin become a couple of Sherman's bummers in the 1957 film Raintree County.

link

If he's in a pack labelled "Sherman's Bummers", then yes, its a Yankee.

@donlowry
Actually this reference could be any type of Yankee cavalryman at the end of the war despite his feathered hat.

Thanks for the links, that explains everything!

@robert piepenbrink
It's amazing how much hatred there was from Sherman and the Yankees towards the rebels.

You might think it was indiscipline in the Yankee army but it's actually weird I don't believe it.

@Shagnasty
Yes we see this kind of bad guy in some movies about the ACW.

@Cleburne1863
Now I'm sure of it.

Believe whatever you want, hi EEE ya. But Sherman was trying for a job at a southern military academy when the war broke out, and at Johnson's surrender he tried to offer the Confederates a softer peace than his superiors, military or political, were interested in.

Possibly Cump Sherman understood that "war is Hell and you cannot refine it" and got wars over quickly, as opposed to kinder, gentler wars which seem to drag on for decades?

And do please keep in mind that every year the war remains acceptable to the Confederates, more "uppity" men will be whipped to death, and more small children sold away from their parents--and, of course, more young men will come home without arms or legs--if they come home at all.

How many more years ought the ACW to have been dragged out so that Sherman will appear less mean?

It's amazing how much hatred there was from Sherman and the Yankees towards the rebels.

Quite the contrary, Sherman liked the South and Southerners. And he HAD the job as superintendent of a Louisiana military academy when the war began, but he refused to receipt for weapons taken (stolen) from a Federal arsenal, so he had to resign.

His actual quote, IIRC, was "War is cruelty, and the crueler it is the sooner it will be over."

Sheridan said, "Reduction to poverty brings pleas for peace quicker than the loss of human life."

@robert piepenbrink
However, he is also widely criticized for his harsh scorched earth policy and the total war he wages against the Confederate States.

@donlowry
Yes Sherman liked the South and Southerners.

The proof after Atlanta, Sherman undertakes to march due South, declaring that he "will make Georgia scream".

Sherman marches with 62,000 bummers on the port of Savannah, looting supplies and causing, by his own estimates, over a hundred million dollars of damage.

Go ahead, hi EEE ya. Tell me how stretching the ACW out into 1867 or 1868 would have been better for even white southerners, let alone black ones. Read current political news, and tell me there's an objective relationship between being "widely criticized" by a group and actually hating them.

Hap Arnold Carl Spaatz and Curtis LeMay didn't hate Germans, but they caused more death and destruction than Sherman ever dreamed of to win WWII. Would you rather they had not?

I agree with the above. However, there was some glee among Union soldiers when they marched and burned their way across South Carolina. Soldiers saw South Carolina as the major secession state that started the movement to leave the Union.

I don't doubt you, Grattan. You could hear it when their grandsons entered Germany and crossed the Rhine. But hi EEE ya here is accusing Sherman of personal animus because the Confederates didn't like being beaten and wouldn't quit.

It was, as we've noted, no longer a military matter. There was no hope for the Confederate armies by the time Sherman left Atlanta. The southern strategic plan, such as it was, was to drag out the killing until the north lost interest. The north could either go on until the last 15 year old--the lower limit of the last Confederate draft--was killed, or it could bring the war home until southern civilians stopped voting for it. I'd burn a lot of farms and railroads before I killed more 15 year old boys, which seems to be hi EEE ya's preference.

" Sherman marches with 62,000 bummers on the port of Savannah."

Sherman did not have "bummers" in his army. As has been noted above, and in any history, the bummers were deserters, escaped slaves and bandits. But why let the facts get in the way of a story you've decided to believe?

Agreed Robert. Sometimes I don't think Hi EEE you read the responses. Sherman did not command 62,000 Bummers. It has been made clear that Bummers were men who came behind the army to rob, loot, rape and burn private homes. That was NOT the entire army.

Also, it was not about liking or disliking Southerners. Sherman was trying to break the morale of the South to keep fighting. He was showing them their armies could not defend them and the war was lost. It was hard, but necessary.

A CSA General KIA at the battle of Franklin Tennessee was only 15.

1865 ended the conflict. The idea that it could have been stretched out to 1867 or 1868 is ludicrous. Tennessee was conquered early as was Kentucky, and Missouri. Alabama was carved up in 1864 by raids and the loss of Mobile. I have even seen redoubts that were built on the Coosa River near Childersburg that were intended to block Union gunboats.
There was hot an area strong enough to offer any resistance to the Yankees.

@robert piepenbrink
I think a majority of white southerners would have liked to prolong the war and thought it would have been better for them.

Hap Arnold Carl Spaatz and Curtis LeMay?

Which one said that if his country lost the war he would be considered a war criminal?

"I would burn a lot of farms and railroads rather than kill more 15-year-old boys," but he did both and that is not my preference since I am not concerned with this war.

@Grattan54
I agree with you, "there was some glee among Union soldiers when they marched and burned their way across South Carolina." and elsewhere in the south …

I know that Sherman did not have an army of 62,000 bummers, but I read somewhere on August 23 that he had an army of 62,000 men at that time and I just replaced the word "men" with the word "bummers" for fun, but alas obviously you did not understand that…

@TimePortal
Yes, the idea that the ACW could have been extended until 1867 or 1868 is ridiculous and it is not a thought of mine LOL…

A CSA General KIA at the battle of Franklin Tennessee was only 15.

Huh? A 15-year-old general?

"I know that Sherman did not have an army of 62,000 bummers, but I read somewhere on August 23 that he had an army of 62,000 men at that time and I just replaced the word "men" with the word "bummers" for fun, but alas obviously you did not understand that…"

What we do understand is that you enjoy stirring up the masses, do not read the replies, and deny that you said what you said.

"…the idea that the ACW could have been extended until 1867 or 1868 is ridiculous and it is not a thought of mine LOL"

"I think a majority of white southerners would have liked to prolong the war and thought it would have been better for them."

he EEE ya, which of these opinions is yours?

But, TimePortal to the contrary, the war would go on until either the Confederacy no longer had the resources to feed an army or a majority of (white) southerners wanted peace more than a prolongation of the fighting. If you want the war OVER there's no point in sniping--from a nice, safe 150+ year distance--at the generals who are depriving the South of resources and making prolongation of the war intolerable.

I can find no evidence for the existence of a fifteen year old ACW general on either the REBEL side or the UNION side.

Oh. Lemay, actually. Or rather he said he would be prosecuted as a war criminal, which is not quite the same thing. And if I recall correctly, he also said it would also apply to a senior admiral involved in the submarine war on Japan.

None of which invalidates what I said, and the 15 year old Confederates killed makes my point. The longer the Confederacy had the resources and the will, the more boys would die. A war which did not lay waste to southern railroads and bridges or burn southern farms would have been a longer war.

How long do you suppose WWII would have gone on had humanitarianism kept us from doing anything damaging to the German and Japanese economies?

@donlowry
A military genius?

@robert piepenbrink
I personally think that a majority of white southerners would have liked to prolong the war and thought it would have been better for them."

There is no such thing as a clean war, but there are limits.

Finally, as the 'S' range Minifigs that I want to use are extremely rare, for the moment I only have four A.C.W.C.3s reference "Sherman's Bummer".

With this I do not risk "making Georgia scream" as Sherman said. LOL

@mahdi1ray
Time Portal must have a source?

Iirc, it has been over 25 years since I researched the article for Time Portal Passages. I was researching summaries of Generals who died in ACW.
The lad was appointed LTC of a regiment clothed at the expense of his family. Early on he became the regiments Colonel when the Colonel was lost. In the Franklin campaign, due to the high loss of officers, he became the Acting Brigade commander, so a brevet rank. Killed at Franklin.

"There is no such thing as a clean war, but there are limits."

Indeed. And Sherman seems to have kept a pretty firm grip when it came to rape and murder. Personally, I prefer the destruction of crops, bridges and railroads when the alternative is actually killing people. Of course, if you'd be happier with crops rotting in the field because there were no men left to harvest them, that's your choice.

Acting brigade commanders don't automatically get the brevet of a brigadier general. Plenty of colonels in charge of brigades in both armies.

^ As far as I know, the CSA never gave out brevets of any kind.

@TimePortal
If he did the job no problem.

@robert piepenbrink
My choice is that I am neither for one nor the other.

@Cleburne1863
So a colonel can lead a brigade.

@mahdi1ray
A formal nomination was enough.

@All
Finally many slaves were massacred defending their 'owners' farm against the Yankees.

I haven't read a single instance of a slave being killed defending their master's home during the war. I'm sure it happened a few single times. But massacred? That implies it happened a lot, or one or two instances where a lot of slaves were killed at once. No. Where do you get this information? Do you just make it up?

I have never heard of any slave dying to protect their masters property. In fact slaves ran away to the Union lines and gave key information to the Union soldiers. Why would any slave willing die for the person who was enslaving them?

I'd like to see the source of that story about the massacred slaves myself. Certainly a number who weren't greatly impressed by a bunch of white Yankees coming through looting and burning, but that's quite different.

Why would any slave willing die for the person who was enslaving them?

I don't know but this happened when Spartacus' army besieged cities in southern Italy, it's incredible but that's how it happened.

You deflected. Where did you read that masses of slaves were massacred defending their masters or their property in the American Civil War?

hi EEE ya, if you do not cite a source we can check for this story, few people are likely to believe you, and I will certainly not be one of them. And don't wave a copy of Livy at me. You specified "against the Yankees."

@Cleburne1863
You deflected.

That's not what I wrote I wrote the 27 Aug 2024 and yes finally slaves were killed defending their 'owners' farm against the Yankees.".

@robert piepenbrink
Yes, that's true Piepenbrink, but what happened in the Spartacus War must have happened in the ACW.

There is no reason why this should not have happened, we have learned much more about the behavior of slaves on another topic

Again, I have never heard of a single slave dying to protect their slave owner. If you read the oral histories of the slaves themselves you learn quickly how they felt about their masters. Why would they die for someone who owns them? Especially against the Union army they saw as liberators?

"what happened in the Spartacus War must have happened in the ACW."

And you arrived at this insight how, exactly? And you prove it by what means?

In well over 60 years of reading on the ACW, I have not seen a single support for such a notion--no documented instance, no anecdote, not even a rumor. The most pro-Confederate writers of fiction suggest no such thing. You're going to have to do better than "a Roman historian insists their slaves were loyal."