“He liked & respected the South”
So much in fact that he raped and pillaged his way from Atlanta to Savannah. Tough love I guess. :-)
Despite generations of pro-Confederate propaganda, there's no historical evidence of mass rapes or murder by any Union army, including Sherman's.
As for "pillage", that term describes the Confederate army whenever it left the Confederacy (which was more often than people want to admit), and only fails to describe Confederate army behavior within the Confederacy by the legal fiction of worthless money used to requisition its supplies.
As for Sherman's "tough love", it's fair to say: he understood the South better than most, and what it would take to defeat them.