[katana]

People bandy that epithet loosely. In fact, considering the scale and geographic extent of his operations through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina atrocities committed by Union forces against civilians (as opposed to their properties and the infrastructure which supported the Confederate war effort) were remarkably few. His troops who were found to have committed rapes and murder of civilians were tried and hanged. Even historians sympathetic to the Southern cause grudgingly admit that.

And Confederate troops tended to execute black Union prisoners en masse when they could. Isn't that a "war crime"? Were Lemay and "Bomber" Harris war criminals? They burned out entire cities filled with civilian women and children.

I've known enough people with your outlook to understand you're not open to persuasion. But if Sherman was a "war criminal" then there will not be any generals in any war for whom the title couldn't be applied.

[Leaning Right]

You’ve got a lot of nerve making a reasonable argument on a Civil War thread.

(All kidding aside, good post there.)

[TheTimeOfMan]

Your criticisms of Southern actions are valid. Both sides bombed cities - valid if they resisted.

Sherman was spotty when it came to dealing with murder of civilians.

What makes him a war criminal was his waging war against unresisting civilians. He stole anything of value and burned everything else, houses, stock, crops, barns - everything. This was a slow death sentence to hundreds of families.

His conduct, especially at that time and in that war, was outrageous and criminal. Was he the only bad actor? No.