In my mind?
“I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources. By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and will gain no result. I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!” —from a telegram, dated 9 Oct 1864, from W.T. Sherman to U.S. Grant. Vol II, p. 152
Yeah, when he says Until we can repopulate Georgia
Why do you think he used "repopulate'? Because eveyone was gonna go on vacation at Sandals? You can't change history, my man. sorry.
“Yeah, when he says Until we can repopulate Georgia
Why do you think he used ‘repopulate’?”
Don’t be fatuous. They didn’t repopulate, did they? I must have missed the part of “history” where the people of Georgia were relocated to concentration camps and folks from New York, etc. moved into their houses. No “repopulation” ever happened, which would lead normal people to believe Sherman didn’t mean it literally. Unless Sherman wanted to do it but didn’t get his way. In that case, what’s the difference, since he didn’t do it anyway? The best you could allege at that point is that it was a failed genocide.
When he says “until,” you’d be better off imagining it as “unless,” because that’s more to the point. Unless the Union army could magically replace the Southerners in Georgia with loyal union men, they’d constantly be a sore spot. Sherman’s saying he knew the local population would never sit idly by and let him occupy them. He knew it’d be prohibitively costly to hold onto the roads and such while leaving their backside exposed.
He might have done what other Union generals did and fought the other side’s army. But he didn’t want to, not least because his fighting prowess was far below his current reputation. He wanted, instead, to destroy the South’s “fighting ability,” which is not the same as committing genocide. But which, incidentally, involved killing civilians.