Gettysburg was that victory. Sherman understood that to bring the war to a swift conclusion he need to destroy the means and logistics that supplied the Southern war effort.
“Well is cruel. The crueler it is the sooner it's sooner it's over’’. The war is over. Tough shit for the South.
Instead of crying over events that happened 150 years let's deal with the present and march on DC and start throwing the Democrats down the capitol steps and run them out on a rail.
“Instead of crying over events that happened 150 years...”
No one is crying, just stating facts. A wise man once said, “Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It.” As I said, the victors won that war and they tell the story of history — truth be damned.
If you read any history and look at an electoral map, you can see relics of patterns of our past. It was primarily the northeast that wanted to dictate their beliefs on the rest of the country. That is when for the most part, we were an eastern nation (geographically speaking). And, no, it was not only about slavery. There were significant philosophical and even cultural differences that went all the way back to England (at that point we were still primarily an Anglo country).
Sherman would be tried as a war criminal today. There was no reason he should have destroyed civilian homes and take away their right to sustain themselves. You can have your warped view if you wish.
That phenomenon is still in play today (philosophical and cultural differences). The difference is the same groups have migrated mostly westward, and to a lesser extent southward, and picked up the black population in the process in addition to other non-Anglo cultures (with their own beliefs and folkways).
So Lincoln sent over 700,000 soldiers to their death for a belief that the states did not have the right to succeed. Now, I’m sure we both understand it was more complex than that, but that is what it boiled down to. That would be the equivalent of 9M to 10M dying today. Was it the right choice? That depends on your point of view.
So now we face another split, which is expected based on history (about every 80 years). It is not at all clear how this one will unfold since it is far from over. We lost about 300,000 in the last major conflict (WWII).
Hopefully, we’ve learned from our past (but I doubt it).