You present an interesting commentary, but you include failures in logic and facts.
You must remember the premise of the entire war, and that was what Lincoln said it would be: “...hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts...”. It was that premise that motivated him to send Federal troops to Charleston and to declare war with blockade.
Remember that the Civil War was unlike any other war ever fought by the United States...it was a trade war unprovoked by attack on the Union states either by land or sea.
You reference Sherman and state that “His methods of war were designed to inflict maximum punishment on his enemy and break its will to fight.”
Lincoln knew Sherman's style of mass destruction before he was sent into Tennessee, and Lincoln knew what Sherman would do.......deliver successes to cement his reelection.
The war was prolonged by Lincoln's reelection and Lincoln's unwillingness to negotiate terms, despite Davis’ efforts to bring about peace.
Thus any effort of yours to rationalize Sherman's abuses by tying it to shortening the war is pure nonsense.
Rationalization of Sherman is at best the end justifies the means falacy, and support of genocide at worse. You seem to apprecitate Sherman's tactics to the point of comparing him to General Lee, who unlike Sherman did not bring about destruction in the name of victory, but fought against the enemy soldiers. In Sherman's thinking, as shown in my posted comments, he had a severe failure in rationality in being unable to differentiate between people and combatants.
I have thought for many years that Sherman developed the “total warfare” concept to rationalize his own need to inflict pain as would a true sadist. Had there been an early resolution, perhaps at Hampton Roads, it is likely that Sherman would have been charged with war crimes.
I think your great failure in logic is to not understand that Lincoln used Sherman as a tool for his own need to completely subjugate the South, its people, its infrastructure, and competitive advantages to the point of total compliance to Federal statist regulations.
That totally flies in the face of the very document that empowered Lincoln in the first place.
As to the color “I fly”, it is the flag of truth.
MEMPHIS, TENN., Aug. 13, 1862.
My dear brother: I have not written to you for so long that I suppose you think I have dropped the correspondence. For six weeks I was marching along the road from Corinth to Memphis, mending roads, building bridges, and all sorts of work. At last I got here and found the city contributing gold' arms, powder, salt and everything the enemy wanted. It was a smart trick on their part thus to give up Memphis that the desire of gain to our Northern merchants should supply them with the things needed in war.
I stopped this at once and declared gold, silver, treasury notes and salt as much contraband of war, as powder. I have one man under sentence of death for smuggling arms across the lines, and hope Mr. Lincoln will approve it. But the mercenary spirit of our people is too much and my orders are reversed and I am ordered to encourage the trade in cotton, and all orders prohibiting gold, silver and notes to be paid for it are annulled by orders from Washington. Grant promptly ratified my order, and all military men here saw at once that gold spent for cotton went to the purchase of arms and munitions of war. But what are the lives of our soldiers to the profits of the merchants?
After a whole year of bungling, the country has at last discovered that we want more men. All knew it last fall as well as now; but it was not popular. Now 1,300,000 men are required when 700,000 was deemed absurd before. It will take time to work up these raw recruits and they will reach us in October, when we should be in Jackson, Meridian and Vicksburg. Still, I must not growl. I have purposely put back, and have no right to criticize, save that I am glad the papers have at last found out we are at war and have a formidable enemy to combat.
Of course I approve the confiscation act, and would be willing to revolutionize the government so as to amend that article of the Constitution which forbids the forfeiture of land to the heirs. My full belief is, we must colonize the country de novo, beginning with Kentucky and Tennessee, and should remove 4,000,000 of our people at once south of the Ohio River, taking the farms and plantations of the Rebels. I deplore the war as much as ever, but if the thing has to be done, let the means be adequate.
Don't expect to overrun such a country or subdue such a people in one, two or five years. It is the task of half a century. Although our army is thus far South it cannot stir from our garrisons. Our men are killed and captured within sight of our lines.
I have two divisions here—mine and Hurlbut's— about 13,000 men; I am building a strong fort, and think this is to be one of the depots and bases of operations for future movements.
The loss of Halleck is almost fatal; we have no one to replace him. Instead of having one head we have live or six, all independent of each other. I expect our enemy will mass their troops and fall upon our detachments before new reinforcements come. I cannot learn that there are any large bodies of men near us here.
There are detachments at Holly Springs and Senatobia, the present terminal of the railroads from the South, and all the people of the country are armed as guerrillas. Curtis is at Helena, eighty miles south, and Grant at Corinth. Bragg's Army from Tripoli has moved to Chattanooga and proposes to march on to Nashville, Lexington and Cincinnati. They will have about 75,000 men. Buell is near Huntsville with about 30,000, and I suppose detachments of the new levies can be put in Kentucky from Ohio and Indiana in time.
The weather is very hot and Bragg can't move his forces very fast; but I fear he will give trouble. My own opinion is we ought not to venture too much into the interior until the river is safely in our possession, when we could land at any point and strike inland. To attempt to hold all the South would demand an army too large even to think of.
We must colonize and settle as we go South, for in Missouri there is as much strife as ever.
Enemies must be killed or transported to some other country. Your affectionate brother,
W. T. SHERMAN
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HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI
In the Field, February 24, 1865. Lieut. Gen. WADE HAMPTON, Commanding Cavalry Forces, C.S. Army:
GENERAL: It is officially reported to me that our foraging parties are murdered after capture and labeled "Death to all foragers." One instance of a lieutenant and seven men near Chesterfield, and another of twenty "near a ravine 80 rods from the main road" about three miles from Feasterville. I have ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be disposed of in like manner. I hold about 1,000 prisoners captured in various ways, and can stand it as long as you; but I hardly think these murders are committed with your knowledge, and would suggest that you give notice to the people at large that every life taken by them simply results in the death of one of your Confederates. Of course you cannot question my right to "forage on the country". It is a war right as old as history. The manner of exercising it varies with circumstances, and if the civil authorities will supply my requisitions I will forbid all foraging, but I find no civil authorities who can respond to calls for forage or provisions, therefore must collect direct of the people. I have no doubt this is the occasion of much misbehavior on the part of our men, but I cannot permit an enemy to judge or punish with wholesale murder. Personally I regret the bitter feeling engendered by this war, but they were to be expected, and I simply allege that those who struck the first blow and made war inevitable ought not, in fairness, to reproach us for the natural consequences. I merely assert our war right to forage and my resolve to protect my foragers to the extent of life for life. I am, with respect, your obedient servant.
W.T. Sherman,
Major-General, U.S. Army.
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HEADQUARTERS,
In the Field, Feb. 27, 1865. Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman, U.S. Army:
GENERAL: Your communication of the 24th instant reached me today. In it you state that it has been officially reported that your foraging parties are "murdered" after capture. You go on to say that you have "ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be disposed of in like manner", that is to say, you have ordered a number of Confederate soldiers to be "murdered." You characterize your order in proper terms, for the public voice, even in your own country, where it seldom dares to express itself in vindication of truth, honor, or justice, will surely agree with you in pronouncing you guilty of murder if you order it carried out. Before dismissing this portion of your letter, I beg to assure you that for every soldier of mine "murdered" by you, I shall have executed at once two of yours, giving in all cases preference to any officers who may be in your hands.
In reference to the statement you make regarding the death of your foragers, I have only to say that I know nothing of it; that no orders given by me authorize the killing of prisoners after capture, and that I do not believe my men killed any of yours, except under circumstances in which it was perfectly legitimate and proper that they should kill them. It is a part of the system of the thieves of whom you designate as your foragers to fire the dwellings of those citizens whom they have robbed. To check this inhuman system, which is justly execrated by every civilized nation, I have directed my men to shoot down all of your men who are caught burning houses. This order shall remain in force so long as you disgrace the profession of arms by allowing your men to destroy private dwellings.
You say that I cannot, of course, question your right to forage on the country - "It is a right as old as history." I do not sir, question this right. But there is a right older, even, than this, and one more inalienable - the right that every man has to defend his home and to protect those who are dependent on him; and from my heart I wish that every old man and boy in my country who can fire a gun would shoot down, as he would a wild beast, the men who are desolating their land, burning their homes, and insulting their women.
You are particular in defining and claiming "war rights." May I ask if you enumerate among these the rights to fire upon a defenseless city without notice; to burn that city to the ground after it had been surrendered by the inhabitants who claimed, thou in vain, that protection which is always accorded in civilized warfare to non-combatants; to fire the dwelling houses of citizens about robbing them; and to perpetrate even darker crimes than these - crimes too black to be mentioned?
You have permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of those offenses against humanity and the rules of war; you fired into the city of Columbia without a word of warning; after its surrender by the mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amidst its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march can be traced to the lurid light of burning houses, and in more than one household there is now an agony far more bitter than that of death. The Indian scalped his victim regardless of age or sex, but with all his barbarity he always respected the persons of his female captives. Your soldiers, more savage than Indian, insult those whose natural protectors are absent.
In conclusion, I have only to request that whenever you have any of my men "murdered" or "disposed of," for the terms appear to be synonymous with you, you will let me hear of it, that I may know what action to take in the matter. In the meantime, I shall hold fifty-six of your men as hostages for those whom you have ordered to be executed.
I am, yours, &c.,
WADE HAMPTON