there are remarkably few records of civilians murdered or raped ...the best known exceptions are Grant at Vicksburg and Sherman's "march to the sea". In both cases, their actions were crucial to victory.
You are calling THOUSANDS of civilian lives murdered an "exception" "crucial to victory."
In contrast there is one known civilian casualty due to Confederate forces (a farmer at Gettysburg).
“In contrast there is one known civilian casualty due to Confederate forces (a farmer at Gettysburg). “
Think about this a bit, with the numbers killed that is simply impossible. Can you name a source for that conclusion? Give me some time and I can give you civilian casualties due to Confederate forces. It was war, it happened.
I've seen no confirmed records of "THOUSANDS" of civilians killed anywhere, and only one report of hundreds of civilians killed: in Confederate Captain William Quantrill's raid into Lawrence, Kansas in August, 1863.
I've seen no reports of any similar Civil War Union army massacre of civilians.
Except of course, for the single greatest atrocity of the war, the Lawrence Massacre, when Confederate irregulars murdered up to 200 men and boys, most of them unarmed civilians, and a good many of them by throwing them alive into burning buildings.