I should have led with a sarcasm alert:
My point is that the war of aggression/secession is still going on, certainly at this forum it is.
Had Grant simply and finally whipped the Southern armies, then allowed them the basically decent terms he favored, let them go home [including to Kentucky], and held the line for reasonable reparations, the issues would not still be with us after a century and a half.
"splitting the south" hurt the confederacy, diverted troops, and enraged/terrified those in its path - it didn't cause the southern armies to fight less or to run away more. Beating them in the field would have taken their fight away without creating the hatred. That is one of the problems today in Iraq, not that we were not violent enough but that we tried so hard to avoid violence. The Iraqi army and Baathists were NOT defeated and an army that believes it was not defeated 'fair and square' will try a comeback.
Oh, and that potential for a guerilla war that Sherman avoided by his decisive violence against non-combatants? I presume you are aware that the KKK was indeed a guerilla response to occupation?
Point taken. The KKK, circa 1870, would certainly fit the classic definition of a guerilla organization. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a Viet Cong main force battalion -- which is where we were headed if Lee or Joe Johnston's forces had made it to the mountains.