I don’t know why he lost you at that “lie”. He was viscous in burning homes in front of women and children and their husbands weren’t even there. In Savannah, the Union soldiers looted the graves of the wealthy there. To this day they don’t know whose tombstone goes for which grave because the soldiers just piled the tombstones up and dig into the graves.
The ONLY reason Savannah wasn’t burned to the ground was because it was a “Christmas gift” to Abraham Lincoln.
I don’t know how you see that as a “lie”.
Most people don't realize that Sherman had worked and lived in the South just prior to the war. He had been Superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary. He actually loved the south and had hoped to return there to live at some point. Yes, property and agricultural destruction was a part of his "March to the Sea." His belief was that if you take the fight to the people, you break their will to conduct war. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
Some historians view our dropping the bombs on Japan as overkill, and others believe that it saved lives. We took the war to the Japanese people, and in essence, destroyed their will to conduct further war. Some would say Sherman's destruction of the South helped save lives too, because it destroyed the South's ability to wage war. And of course, most Southerners see it differently, and that's their right. Afterall, they fought bravely, and died for that right.
During my years of research, I've tried to view both sides of the war, and the motives that drove each side. I've also tried to understand the atrocities that both sides inflicted on their fellow countrymen. I have to say though, that if I had to pick a side to support today, it would be the South's, and slavery has nothing to do with that decision.