AotP and Total War

[MikeyB]

Other than Sheridan's destruction of the valley, did the AotP ever engage in "total war" in the Sherman style? As they marched through Virginia, were they razing and burning anything that could help the Confederates? I assume this policy dramatically evolved over time from McClellan to Grant, but what did it look like in 1864?

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Sheridan and Sherman practiced Hard War, not Total War.

There are also really two kinds of Hard War: destructive and living off the land. Sheridan and Sherman engaged in the former, while Grant's operations against Vicksburg were the latter.

The AotP probably engaged in some living off the land during the Overland Campaign, but the area between Richmond and the Rappahannock probably had little in the way of available supplies because Lee's army would have taken them. Destructive Hard War can only be waged with minimal organized armed resistance and thus was not practical in the Overland Campaign.

Pope's army engaged in Hard War prior to Cedar Mountain.

 

[jackt62]

With McClellan commanding from 1861 through 1862, the AotP practiced so-called "soft-war," in which the focus was on engaging and fighting enemy combatants only. This was in distinction to targeting infrastructure and/or civilian resources. McClellan's strategic belief was that southern property (including ownership of enslaved persons), was off-limits in the hope that some sort of reconciliation would be made easier once southern armies were defeated. But McClellan's failure to vanquish the ANV, his opposition by the Radical Republican faction, and a realization by the Lincoln administration that southern defeat would also require striking the non-military means and methods that supported the rebellion, led to McClellan's dismissal after Antietam and the promotion of senior officers whose strategic vision were more closely aligned with "hard war." Similarly, Buell's advocacy of "soft war" in the west led to his dismissal after the summer of 1862, when the war making attitude in Washington was quickly changing.

 

[7thWisconsin]

The area of northern Virginia where the armies were operating in 1864 had beebeen marched and fought over for 3 years. There wasn't much left to destroy. I've seen the word "desert" used to describe it. Sheridan went through the Valley because it was the breadbasket of the Confederacy. I'd say that was the app's hard war campaign.

 

[OpnCoronet]

I think Total War is a major conflict wherein all the resources and citizens of the combatants are liable to be committed to victory, no mater the cost.

IMO, to the extent that that either the North or South were actually able to marshal all their resources, both material and citizens, I believe both the North were fighting a total war for total victory, no matter the cost, at least under Lincoln and Davis they were, i.e., it was not just the AoP engaged in a Total War.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I think Total War is a major conflict wherein all the resources and citizens of the combatants are liable to be committed to victory, no mater the cost.

IMO, to the extent that that either the North or South were actually able to marshal all their resources, both material and citizens, I believe both the North were fighting a total war for total victory, no matter the cost, at least under Lincoln and Davis they were, i.e., it was not just the AoP engaged in a Total War.

Total War has two meanings:

1. Warfare not simply waged against civilian infrastructure, but against the civilians themselves. Aerial bombing of civilians in the 20th century or Edward The Black Prince's chevauchées in the Hundred Years War.

2. Full mobilization of a society in pursuit of victory. Neither Union not Confederate did this. Certainly Lincoln and Davis were totally committed to their cause. However, neither side's industry was fully mobilized toward victory. The Union left a large amount of manpower untapped, both for political reasons and logistical ones. The Confederacy had too many plantation owners who insisted on growing cotton, too many railroads that resisted government control, too many state governors who resisted Richmond, and too many blockade runners running in luxury goods. The wartime propaganda was mostly politicians giving their usual speeches and partisan newspapers being partisan; nothing like the government-organized propaganda on both sides of both world wars.

 

[MaeSophia]

Without commenting on the use of total war or its applicability, as others have already made good points, I will say that many features of what you describe existed since the beginning, regardless of whether it was the 'policy' of McClellan, Lincoln, or anyone else.

For example, William Marvel notes in his Mr. Lincoln Goes to War that prior to the First Battle of Bull Run, McDowell's troops essentially looted and destroyed Germantown as they marched to Centreville. This was the result of terrible discipline, which is in keeping with the reputation that United States volunteer soldiers had going back to, say, Mexico. Naturally, there were no orders by McDowell to target and damage this area, but it occurred nonetheless.

Another point: I'm currently reading Joseph Harsh's Taken At the Flood, wherein he describes this same area (Fairfax County) during the next summer in 1862. Harsh argues that a major factor in Lee's decision to invade Maryland was that through his success his army had found itself in an area completely ravaged by occupation and stripped of its sustenance. In other words, there could be no return to the state of affairs of the previous winter when Johnston had occupied a broad defensive line around Centreville. Occupation by both Johnston's army and then later federal troops throughout 1862 had stripped the area of food, wood, and other supplies. This was not the result of a hard war policy by either Johnston (though of course he did burn substantial stores when he retreated) or the Union forces (McClellan, as well as Lincoln, pursued a conciliatory strategy during the first year of the war), but the outcome of 'hard war' had been effectively achieved through the simple act of armies occupying that area over the course of a year. In other words, land necessarily became stripped of supplies and resources, regardless of whether armies were attempting to live off the land. The devastation came as an inevitability of war (with particular instances of looting and atrocities naturally arising) rather than policy.

So in a way, I almost see the policy as beside the point. Of course, there were certain Union units, armies, and commanders that were more known for their piratic and lawless actions than others, but I sense a great deal of the suffering inflicted in Virginia during the early war years was inevitable, no matter what the official policy of the commander or government was. As such, it's quite easy to understand Robert E. Lee's desire to take the war out of Virginia in 1862 and 1863, as well as resentment during and after the war by southerners for the destruction of their homes and property. To conclude, I think the practical gap between the hard war practiced by Sherman and others with the soft war policy of McClellan and others early on may not be as wide as we think. It's also just difficult in either case, absent of explicit documentation, to distinguish between intentional, strategic acts of destruction versus cases of poor discipline, negligence, corruption, &c.