Sherman’s goal, as he stated, was to commit genocide against the people of Georgia. He was not met by any serious military resistance - there was none - other than a few cavalry skirmishes. It was almost entirely a campaign of death and destruction of civilians and their property.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-641
Even the Georgia Encyclopedia recognizes that attacks against civilians were quite rare.
“Sherman’s goal, as he stated, was to commit genocide against the people of Georgia.”
I seriously doubt he ever stated that goal. And don’t tell me you take quotes like, “the utter destruction of its...people” literally. That’s merely grandiloquence. Sherman’s goal was to end the fighting power of whatever territory he took over, not by confronting the opposing army—which could fight back—but by attacking the “economy” or “infrastructure,” which happened to be defended by civilians.
He was, no doubt, a war criminal, since he clearly violated the code of conduct of the time. He was also an innovator. In what I’d call a bad way, since “total war” is what people don’t like about modern warfare. You can say it’s all about direct or indirectr “military targets,” but come on. Arial bombings and the like are used to terrorize the public. Not that we can get around terrorizing them, I guess, because no war in recent memory ever failed to mobilize the population to one degree or another.