Why Did Sherman make "Georgia Howl"?

The American Civil War saw an equal number of deaths to all other American wars combined (Faust, 2012, xi). The Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865 and was fought between the Union of the North and the Confederates of the South. The root of the conflict was the fundamental disagreement on the existence of slavery in the United States. The South fought for their right to hold and own slaves, while the North fought for emancipation. It is estimated that 620,000 soldiers died in the conflict, which accounted for approximately 2 percent of the entire nation’s 30 million (Ibid, 2012, xi). Should the same mortality rate be applied to the current population of about 325,000,000 Americans, a staggering 6,500,000 would have perished. The destruction of the Civil War was not just limited to America’s fields and forests, however. On November 12th, 1864, General William Sherman, promising to “make Georgia howl”, left Atlanta in ruins, and led his Union Army on a 360-mile rampage through enemy territory, capturing Savannah on December 21st, 1864 (Rhodes, 1901, 469-74). During this campaign, known as “Sherman’s March to the Sea” or simply “Sherman’s March”, the Union Army purposely sought out the destruction of civilian property and morale. Given that the Union fought the Confederacy over the existence of slavery - a moral crusade - what led Union General William Sherman to wage war with the specific intent of exploiting civilians? Faced with the requirement of ‘total victory’, General Sherman’s campaign utilized ‘total war’, wherein tactics of civilian exploitation were used to exhaust the Confederacy’s ability to fight. To Sherman, this was justified by holding civilian populations collectively responsible for their war effort. A total victory is required when a war cannot be won by simply conquering the land, but instead, the complete subjugation of the enemy is necessary. This occurs when the outcome of a conflict cannot be compromised. The application of absolute warfare does not rely on defeating the enemy in battle, but on ending the enemy’s ability to wage war.

Coined by Prussian General and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz, absolute warfare comprises three reciprocal actions: the utmost use of force, the aim of disarming the enemy, and the utmost exertion of power (Clausewitz, 1832, Chapter 1). The employment of these techniques occurs when the war requires a total victory. In such a circumstance, the outcome of war cannot be compromised, and the resulting conflict demands the most extreme tactics of war. The first reciprocal action, the utmost use of force, sets the foundation of extreme warfare. Clausewitz states that “…he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to bloodshed involved, must obtain a superiority if his adversary uses less vigour in application” (Clausewitz, 1832, Chapter 1). Therefore, in order to gain superiority, a victor must not only outcompete on the battlefield but surpass an opponent in their willingness to exercise brutality. Consequently, the following reciprocal actions lead to violence being employed to its utmost extent. According to Clausewitz, the purpose of war is to make your enemy comply with your will (Clausewitz, 1832, Chapter 1). The second reciprocal, the aim of disarming your enemies, is employed to place the enemy in a position where submission is a better option than continued conflict. Both sides use the second reciprocal as they try to disarm each other. The use of power, composed of two factors, the strength of available means and the strength of will, is fundamental to victory. Clausewitz states that if a fighting side wishes to defeat its enemy, they must annihilate them in what is called a total victory (Clausewitz, 1832, Chapter 1). Both fighting sides compete to destroy their opponent’s ability to exercise power, by deteriorating both their strength of available means and strength of will. Specifically, a state’s strength of will is a measure of the morale of soldiers and the civilian population. Published in 1832, this modernized theory of warfare was set to influence the battlefield thirty years later in the American Civil War.

Prior to the start of the American Civil war in 1861, the employment of absolute warfare was not accepted by the American military or their officers. In the Articles of War of 1806, it was written that “any officer or soldier who shall quit his post or colours to plunder and pillage shall suffer death or other such punishment as shall be ordered by sentence of a general court-martial” (Reston, 1984, xi). At the start of the 19th century, military commanders held that war was to be fought in a moral manner and with chivalrous limitations. This principle continued to thrive at the start of the American Civil War, and even into it. In 1863, the General Order One Hundred was issued by the Union Army and stated that “the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit” (U.S War Department, 1880-1901, Series Three, 150). Thus, at the beginning of the conflict, the Union Army’s generalship and doctrine disallowed the use of extreme military tactics. This view was shared by the top of the Union’s military command, General McClelland. In 1862, McClelland wrote “I have not come here to wage war upon the defenceless, upon non-combatants, upon private property, nor upon the domestic institutions of the land” (Janda, 1995, 12). Here, McClelland’s words demonstrate an aversion to the brutalities of extreme reciprocal actions of absolute warfare. During the outset of the conflict, tactics like targeting civilians for the purpose of destroying the South’s strength of will and available means were unacceptable at a personal and doctrinal level. As the war progressed, however, the realities of victory dawned on the Union and lofty principles eroded in the face of desperation. Ultimately, absolute warfare became a primary strategy.

The requirement of achieving a total victory in the American Civil War was the impetus for the use of absolute war tactics by the Union side. Though initially fought with traditional notions of combat, American Civil War was not fought with a traditional sense of victory. As it’s outcome would decide the very existence of the belligerent’s respective societies and it’s driving force was as monumentally important as slavery, the outcome of the war could not be compromised. Typically, in a territorial conflict, one side can concede land to negotiate peace and maintain their sovereignty and societies’ infrastructure. Conversely, victory in the Civil War could not be ‘partially’ won - survival or defeat was the grim reality. Therefore, in accordance with Clausewitz’s view of total victory, the belligerents needed to annihilate their enemy. To win, the Southern rebels had to destroy the Union to birth a new nation. For the Union, victory required annihilating the resistance (Badeau, 1882, 642-44). The Civil War could not be won by simply occupying territory, success required the complete defeat or surrender of the other side. General Grant was very clear in his orders to General Sheridan regarding the use of absolute war tactics. In a letter to Sheridan on August 26th, 1864 Grant instructed that “if the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste.” This uncompromising determination to win at the cost of America’s landscape illustrates the use of absolute warfare by 1864. Grant is instructing Sherman to employ the utmost use of force as a reciprocal action to the state of war. Specifically, by ordering that the Shenandoah Valley should “remain” a barren wasteland, Grant intends to place civilians in a position where surrendering is a better option than continued fighting. The destruction would weaken the available means of the South and seriously affect their will to fight. In a telegraph sent to General Grant on October 4th, 1864, by Major General Sherman, Sherman proposed that the “destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources” (Sherman, 1864). By intending to disarm the enemy by destroying their available means and will to fight, Sherman has proposed the use of absolute war tactics.

The application of collective responsibility through the notion that there were no ‘non-combatants’ in the South led to the exploitation of civilians by the Union army. In his memoirs, Sherman wrote “we are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and we must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as the organized armies (Sherman 2006, 584).” Sherman was motivated to bring the war firsthand to the people of the South. Without support for the war, the Southern armies would not just collapse from lack of supplies but from lack of morale (Janda, 1995, 15). In a letter to Henry Halleck, a Union officer, Sherman wrote that he would “make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it (Sherman 2006, 365).” The campaign’s goals were to destroy Southern morale and collectively punish civilians for their participation in the war-making effort. On November 7th, 1864, Union soldiers received field orders instructing them to “forage liberally on the country during the march ( (Rhodes 1901, 472). "In a letter to Union Commander Henry Halleck, Sherman wrote:

"We have consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah as also the sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, and have carried away more than 10,000 horses and mules as well as a countless number of their slaves (Rhodes, 472)."

By treating the population as collectively responsible for the actions of the Confederacy, Sherman justified the actions of his army. In the same letter to Halleck, Sherman wrote that he had brought “the sad realities of war home to those who have been directly or indirectly instrumental in involving us in its attendant calamities (Ibid, 472).” Here, Sherman is justifying the use of extreme tactics on civilians with the basis that they have all had a hand to play in the Confederate resistance. The absolute war tactics of Sherman brought war to the homes of civilians, disregarding the value of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness - core ideals on which the Union was founded on.

The American Civil war has often been regarded as the first modern war in history. The war saw the birth of modern weapons of war, such as the submarine and iron clad, however, it was the tactics of the war which characterize the Civil War as modern. Violence against civilians has been used throughout history, but the Civil War was the foundation of these tactics in the modern era. The Civil War’s tactics against civilians taught how the success of democratic societies at war are just as bound to the morale of the people as they are to the strength of their army. When McClelland wrote in 1862, “I have not come here to wage war upon the defenceless, upon non-combatants, upon private property, nor upon the domestic institutions of the land”, he may have been the last American General to do so.

Bibliography

Badeau, Adam. The Military History of U. S. Grant, 3 vols. New York: Appleton, 1882.

Clausewitz, Carl Von. On War, Book One, Chapter 1. 1832.

Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, xi.

Janda, Lance. Shutting the Gates of Mercy: The American Origins of Total War, 1860-1880.

Rhodes, James Ford. “Sherman's March to the Sea”, The American Historical Review 6, no. 3 (1901).

Sherman, William T. “The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete”, Gutenberg Press. (Published 1875, eBook: 2006): 584

Sherman to Halleck, 17 September 1863, in Sherman’s Memoirs, 365

Telegram of William T. Sherman to Ulysses S. Grant, October 9, 1864

U.S War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 129 vols and index (Washington: GPO, 1880-1901), Series Three, 3:150

Michael Malichen-Snyder is an associate editor for The Commandant. He is currently double majoring in History and in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto. He also serves as a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces.