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From Sherman: "I estimate the damage done at $100,000,000, of which $20,000,000 has inured to our advantage, and the remainder to simple waste and destruction."

NS says...."So your claim is wrong."

Actually your quote confirms my quote of Sherman who said:

In his report of the march to the sea, Sherman declared that he had destroyed the railroads for more than 100 miles, and had consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country 30 miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah, as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, and carried away more than 10,000 horses and mules, as well as a countless number of slaves.

"I estimate the damage done to the State of Georgia and its military resources at $100,000,000; at least $20,000,000 of which has inured to our advantage, and the remainder is simply waste and destruction."

After admitting that

"this may seem a hard species of warfare," he comforted himself with the reflection that "it brought the sad realities of war home to those who supported it."

Thus condoning all the outrages committed by an unrestrained army, he further reported that his men were

"a little loose in foraging, and did some things they ought not to have done."

The assessed value of real estate and personal property in Georgia in 1860 was $618,232,387.

So his "March to the Sea" was either much more extreme than you say, or he lied. What say you?

So his "March to the Sea" was either much more extreme than you say, or he lied. What say you?

He probably overestimated the dollar amount of damage done. Just like the southron supporters have been doing on a much larger scale for the last 140 years. But I digress.

Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley were vital to the southern war effort. They provided vast quantities of supplies to the confederate armies. The Union command belatedly came to the conclusion that removing them as a source of those supplies would shorten the war. The actions of Sherman in Georgia and Sheridan in the Valley were severe, no doubt about that. War is a harsh undertaking and, as I have pointed out on innumerable occasions, civilians generally wind up taking it in the shorts. That has been the way throughout history, and probably always will be. Rebellions seem to incite even more hatred than wars between nations, and again, it's been that way throughout history. During the American rebellion, China was in the middle of the Taiping Rebellion which took the lives of between 20 and 30 million people. Look at rebellions in Spain, in Russia, China, India, in any country you care to name and I suggest that in none of them was the life and property of the opponents respected as much as it was during the American Civil War, that none of them had as few civilian casualties, and in none of them was the consequence of loosing as mild as it was in the United States.