Sherman William T. Sherman: Total War vs. Hard War

Us are the people who log onto the internet to have a civil exchange of ideas and rational discussions without trying to exasperate one another. However, we have the unfortunate annoyance of having to deal with you forlorn, doleful, introspected types, who relentlessly try to incite drama by defending an accursed brood of peasants who have been dead for over 100 years. You don't have to defend them anymore because they're good, good and dead..
Thank you. Civil exchange is impossible when you permitedly pass insults without substance. With that......:bye:.
 
Thank you. Civil exchange is impossible when you permitedly pass insults without substance. With that......:bye:.

Exactly my point, you get offended on the internet. You won't engage in a civil exchange, you zoomed in here and recommended I use the search engine instead of making this thread. That's not a civil exchange, that is was an attempt to thwart this thread. You're more than welcome to post in here, I just want to discuss the strategy Sherman used in the south. But will you give us your opinion on Sherman's strategy???
 
Exactly my point, you get offended on the internet. You won't engage in a civil exchange, you zoomed in here and recommended I use the search engine instead of making this thread. That's not a civil exchange, that is was an attempt to thwart this thread. You're more than welcome to post in here, I just want to discuss the strategy Sherman used in the south. But will you give us your opinion on Sherman's strategy???
I can give you an opinion on the thieving murderous pyro maniac. What would you like to hear?
 
I can give you an opinion on the thieving murderous pyro maniac. What would you like to hear?

Exactly what I said in the opening post: did Sherman administer total war or hard war on the south? We don't care what he supposedly did during Reconstruction or the subsequent Indian endeavors. All you have to do is give your opinion on what type of war Sherman fought in the south at the end of the CW. Hard war vs. Total war. I believe he went easy on the south with hard war, but should have razed the ground :smile:
 
Exactly my point, you get offended on the internet. You won't engage in a civil exchange, you zoomed in here and recommended I use the search engine instead of making this thread. That's not a civil exchange, that is was an attempt to thwart this thread. You're more than welcome to post in here, I just want to discuss the strategy Sherman used in the south. But will you give us your opinion on Sherman's strategy???
No offense taken on my end. Posted some links that have actual substance differentiating between “hard” and “total” war since it has yet to be presented in this thread.
 
No offense taken on my end. Posted some links that have actual substance differentiating between “hard” and “total” war since it has yet to be presented in this thread.

Jeffbrooks asked my definitions and I gave it to him in post #32
 
I think total war was the kind of war the Mongols often made when the enemy had a choice between complete and utter submission or complete and utter destruction. Or like the Germans made in the Soviet Union in which case complete and utter destruction was the goal regardless of submission.
 
Sherman didn't practice total war in the South as regards his march through Georgia. We may ask - which campaign might actually make that case? I would suggest Meridian on a smaller scale - like a practice march - or Sherman's long term operations in West Tennessee. The latter comes very close to qualifying for total war, and targeted primarily the civilian support for the Confederate military. However, if you are defining total war as salt the earth and kill everybody in sight, Sherman does not qualify. He had no heaping pile of skulls in the town plaza, didn't poison the ground so nothing would grow for 1000 years, didn't kill every single man and boy so there would be a big hole in the gene pool - none of that.

Indians always get entered into this equation and there is no comparison. The only similarity is both Indians and Southerners faced the same general. The Southerners, because the Confederacy was never recognized by anybody, remained American citizens. They were able to sue in court for damages and were treated as citizens in rebellion. (Sherman didn't hit the regular farmer with maybe a slave or two, he hit the planters who had hundreds of slaves, lots of crops and usable supplies for a large group, and had all the money.) That's a lot different than being a foreign entity at war with the United States. The rules were considerably different - Native people made treaties and were assigned reservations that depended one hundred percent on the government feeding and clothing them. I have yet to see anyone point out a Confederate reservation totally dependent on the government for existence. Even the freedmen's villages were better off and they were the closest to that system. Still, neither made treaties with the US. That's reserved for nations. So, one simply can't compare the Indians or the post-CW Indian wars to the Southern experience during the CW.
 
If you want comparisons actually relating to the Civil War, IMO, Shernan’s Meridian campaign, March to the Sea, and through the Carolinas were more hard war and the Missouri / Kansas conflict was more total war.
How was Missouri " Total War". Yes there was harsh guerrilla warfare waged by the Confederacy countered by a harsh counterinsurgency Campaign. When you use the term " hard war" what historical analogy are you using? There has certainly been harsher guerrilla and counterinsurgency conflicts.
Leftyhunter
 
How was Missouri " Total War". Yes there was harsh guerrilla warfare waged by the Confederacy countered by a harsh counterinsurgency Campaign. When you use the term " hard war" what historical analogy are you using? There has certainly been harsher guerrilla and counterinsurgency conflicts.
Leftyhunter
Please reread my post, when I stated it was “more” ie closer to total war. There was the previous (now closed) thread concerning the war on civilians that gave quite a few examples to review since the KS/MO conflict is off topic.
 
Please reread my post, when I stated it was “more” ie closer to total war. There was the previous (now closed) thread concerning the war on civilians that gave quite a few examples to review since the KS/MO conflict is off topic.
The counterinsurgency Campaign in Kansas/Missouri does have some hard war characteristics. It comes somewhat close to a modern counterinsurgency war.
Leftyhunter
 
How do Sherman's actions compare to the actions of the British during the American Revolution?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/bo...tionary-war/X4Kr4EzUUrNeVmnrNeSh2N/story.html

Britain responded with “desolation warfare.” British warships bombarded coastal towns; Falmouth, for one, was reduced to a smoking ruin. The redcoats looted indiscriminately, seizing crops and property of rebels and Loyalists alike; plunder was often accompanied by rape. Some British commanders instructed their men to take no prisoners; wounded and defeated American soldiers were killed on the field. When they were made prisoners, American soldiers suffered in conditions so terrible that mortality rates ran as high as 70 percent.

The Colonial Army was not manned by saints, either. There were also unnecessary slaughter by the colonists.

Also:

Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton’s cruelty was legendary. He allowed, if he did not order, the murder of troops who had been sleeping when attacked and attempted unsuccessfully to surrender. The term “Tarleton’s Quarter” was used to describe times when those who surrendered were killed rather than taken prisoner.

Wars are terrible. Men do awful things to each other. Was Sherman worse than commanders who ordered/allowed massacres? Is does his behavior compare with having a POW system that up to 70% of prisoners did not survive? Respectfully I don't think so.
 
Until the early 19th century, warfare was generally restricted to fighting between professional armies that did not involve civilian populations. (Yes, there will be exceptions for guerrilla fighting and insurrections, such as the American Revolution in which civilians got caught up.) But the unfortunate fact is that warfare worldwide, since the late stages of the Civil War, have involved civilian populations to one extent of another, in which civilians, infrastructure, and sources of supply become military targets. Sherman was simply an early practitioner of this type of warfare, albeit in a much milder form than what we have since become accustomed to.
 
Until the early 19th century, warfare was generally restricted to fighting between professional armies that did not involve civilian populations. (Yes, there will be exceptions for guerrilla fighting and insurrections, such as the American Revolution in which civilians got caught up.) But the unfortunate fact is that warfare worldwide, since the late stages of the Civil War, have involved civilian populations to one extent of another, in which civilians, infrastructure, and sources of supply become military targets. Sherman was simply an early practitioner of this type of warfare, albeit in a much milder form than what we have since become accustomed to.

You are correct, although I might say "between the early 18th Century and early 19th Century", rather than "Until the early 19th Century". The Thirty Years War of the early 17th Century was a total war unlike anything the Western world would see until World War I.
 
Until the early 19th century, warfare was generally restricted to fighting between professional armies that did not involve civilian populations. (Yes, there will be exceptions for guerrilla fighting and insurrections, such as the American Revolution in which civilians got caught up.) But the unfortunate fact is that warfare worldwide, since the late stages of the Civil War, have involved civilian populations to one extent of another, in which civilians, infrastructure, and sources of supply become military targets. Sherman was simply an early practitioner of this type of warfare, albeit in a much milder form than what we have since become accustomed to.
Some major caveats would be the early Crusades where Jew and Moslem Civilians were massacred in Jerusalem and Bulgarian Christians were massacred by West European Christian's. I have a book the "Military history of Afghanistan" where there are many examples of atrocities against Civilians over the centuries in Afghanistan.
We have various massacres in Scotland and Ireland by the British. During the ACW there was a far bloodier Civil War in China. There was a bloody counterinsurgency Campaign in Southern Spain in the early 19th Century with the irony both sides were Roman Catholic.
Point being there never was a golden era of civilized warfare.
Leftyhunter
 
I think total war was the kind of war the Mongols often made when the enemy had a choice between complete and utter submission or complete and utter destruction. Or like the Germans made in the Soviet Union in which case complete and utter destruction was the goal regardless of submission.

Yeah, and that's why I believe Sherman gets a bad rap for being accused of something he didn't do.
 
I'm tempted to merely cut and paste one of my many earlier posts on the subject but as the search function has been mentioned...

Regardless when compared to other Generals of his era Sherman comes nowhere near total war. The idea that Total War was a new thing is grossly incorrect. The Romans standardized it and the Mongols professionalized it. Both the English and French practiced it with glee prior to and after the ACW. When compared to ANY General of antiquity when dealing with a rebellion or revolt the South made out incredibly well as there were no mass executions or murders, no mass starvation or mass forced exiles. There is no honest comparison to the treatment of the CS during the March to the Sea, Carolina or the Meridian Campaign vs the Native American. If there were there would be no CBF's flying today, no SCV etc. If it had been a French or other continental army I expect the birth rate would have risen dramatically in 1865 and the population would also have taken a significant hit. A Mongol army putting down a rebellion... there would have been large piles of bodies and a large shipment of sacks containing ears sent to the capital as evidence of the effectiveness of the Mongol general.

The reality of why Sherman is so hated and reviled by those who still praise the CS is that he broke the back of the CS showing it to be nothing more than a hollow shell. His march proved to be the death knell of the CS and the slaveocracy that sprouted it. Before Sherman's march east out of Atlanta there was still a chance in the minds of the CS and even their foreign supporters as well as a doubt in the minds of the US. After there could be no doubt. The CS didn't even have enough to slow Sherman let alone stop or destroy him.
 
I want to thank everyone for posting in here and giving slightly different views on our beloved Uncle Billy. I will conclude that Sherman did nothing wrong and deserves much praise for his operations in the southeast. If anything, Sherman was a great humanitarian and showed restraint and magnanimity to the feebleminded. Sherman could have easily totally destroyed the south along with its inhabitants but spared it. His hard war tactics were a mortal blow to the Confederate pride because he proved that they could not protect their women and children from an outside force. Therefore, it's indicative that the Confederacy sovereignty was nothing but a semblance and once it was tried under fire it collapsed and revealed it wasn't remotely autonomous. In other words, Sherman showed the south and the rest of the world the Confederacy was one of or not, the worst governments in the history of civilization.
 
I'm tempted to merely cut and paste one of my many earlier posts on the subject but as the search function has been mentioned...

Regardless when compared to other Generals of his era Sherman comes nowhere near total war. The idea that Total War was a new thing is grossly incorrect. The Romans standardized it and the Mongols professionalized it. Both the English and French practiced it with glee prior to and after the ACW. When compared to ANY General of antiquity when dealing with a rebellion or revolt the South made out incredibly well as there were no mass executions or murders, no mass starvation or mass forced exiles. There is no honest comparison to the treatment of the CS during the March to the Sea, Carolina or the Meridian Campaign vs the Native American. If there were there would be no CBF's flying today, no SCV etc. If it had been a French or other continental army I expect the birth rate would have risen dramatically in 1865 and the population would also have taken a significant hit. A Mongol army putting down a rebellion... there would have been large piles of bodies and a large shipment of sacks containing ears sent to the capital as evidence of the effectiveness of the Mongol general.

The reality of why Sherman is so hated and reviled by those who still praise the CS is that he broke the back of the CS showing it to be nothing more than a hollow shell. His march proved to be the death knell of the CS and the slaveocracy that sprouted it. Before Sherman's march east out of Atlanta there was still a chance in the minds of the CS and even their foreign supporters as well as a doubt in the minds of the US. After there could be no doubt. The CS didn't even have enough to slow Sherman let alone stop or destroy him.

This is a good post. I think people don't realize how much of an impact Sherman's operation made on unveiling the Confederacy. To me this is the whole essence of the CW, Sherman proved that the Confederacy wasn't capable of governing within the parameters of a sovereign entity.
 
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