Terrible Thing Quotes
Truman had been briefed on the number of Japanese who committed suicide rather than surrender—including civilians—in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other locations where United States troops had invaded. He and his experts agreed that the Japanese would not surrender unless there was a new dramatic factor that was outside the usual thinking—the atomic bomb. He was proved right about the warning. Not only did the Japanese ignore it, but they did not even surrender after the nuclear devastation at Hiroshima. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to motivate the surrender. So even a demonstration with all those Japanese casualties did not cause the surrender until it was repeated.
Sherman had friends in the South and he saw rebellion and war coming. Most Southerners had a romanticized view of war and were so wrapped up in trying to preserve their economic and cultural way of life that they did not think through the implications of such a war. After and during the war, he was particularly angry with the Southerners who had brought such terrible casualties and destruction upon the land and its people.
