WE’RE NOT LAUGHING. It was reported that a recent sort of “victory party” held by the South Rome Redevelopment Corp., the audience “chuckled” when guest speaker Shirley Franklin, former mayor of Atlanta, said:

“Why didn’t Sherman come this way?” … Our news story continued: “It was her understanding, she said, that there were people at that time who made sure Rome wasn’t torched and burned the way other cities were, Atlanta being one of them.”

If the chucklers thought her observation was accurate and clever, and made during the 150th anniversary of the Civil War besides, then it reinforces our oft-stated point that Romans are not being taught enough about a local history kept too much out of sight.

If they chuckled because the Romans attending thought the former Atlanta mayor was one of the most uninformed political figures they’d ever encountered, that would be understandable.

For Ms. Franklin’s education, or as a suggestion to avoid really bad jokes:

Rome was the first city that Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s forces burned as they began their infamous March to the Sea. They burned it flat down days before torching Atlanta.