In Citizen Sherman, Michael Fellman describes how Sherman’s chief engineer, Captain O.M. Poe, advised that the bombing of Atlanta was of no military significance (the Confederates had already abandoned the city) and implored Sherman to stop the bombardment after viewing the carcasses of dead women and children in the streets. Sherman coldly told him the dead bodies were "a beautiful sight".
Union artillery, under Sherman's supervision, carried out the bombardment orders.
A couple of points:
I averred out that crimes are committed by soldiers in every army - the quality of a commander consists in whether he permits or forbids such crimes to be committed and whether he punishes such forbidden crimes when discovered.
Your posts show that Sherman did not approve of such activity, and that he punished it when discovered.
Also, Fellman's quotations of Poe are interesting - in light of the fact that Poe was tasked with burning down the remainder of Atlanta and that he did it.
I highly doubt that Poe, a trained engineer, was stupid enough to believe that a city that was a core railhead in the center of the South was "of no military significance."
Sherman informed the mayor that when he surrendered the city, the bombardment would end - and the mayor surrendered and the bombardment ended.
Finally, your list of towns that were partially burned underlines the fact that they were not ordered to be burned. Some fires began as deliberate acts of sabotage by Confederates who - intelligently - wanted to deprive the Union Army of stores. Some fires began accidentally - posting troops who are building literally thousands of campfires is going to start a large quota of fires in residential areas.
And then there are the fires set deliberately on Sherman's orders: Atlanta.