It was also incredibly successful. I say that as a Southerner. We can learn from every example, and nothing weakens an enemy faster than total war. We can use that also.
Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting take on Sherman and his methods. Sherman basically destroyed infrastructure, not people. There was no genocide. His troops were isntructed to respond to resistance, which they did, but those occasions became less and less as his march proceeded. A brilliant tactic for the day. Those who did not resist learned a lesson - for good or ill - that they would never forget.
See #40
I say cut off the snake's head - after that it's just a mop-up operation.
“It was also incredibly successful. I say that as a Southerner. We can learn from every example, and nothing weakens an enemy faster than total war. We can use that also.”
I recall from my reading of his March to Atlanta that he, (Sherman), was intensely effected by the wholesale slaughter that occurred at Shiloh. He knew that the only way to end the War between the States was to make everyone suffer and make war so unpalatable that they, (the populace of the South), would do anything to stop the war.
And it worked at the cost of so much suffering.