Analysis: Hard War

Date: September 12, 1864

Author: Sherman, William Tecumseh

Genre: order

Summary Overview

The letter written by Union Army general William T. Sherman is in response to correspondence received from Atlanta mayor James M. Calhoun and Atlanta city council members E. E. Rawson and S. C. Wells asking Sherman to refrain from evacuating the citizens of Atlanta, Georgia. It was written days after Sherman’s troops successfully defeated Confederate forces in the city and were in the process of evacuating the remaining citizens before destroying it and continuing with their campaign through the state.

General Sherman’s now famous campaign through Georgia to the coast, often called Sherman’s March to the Sea, resulted in vast damage to civilian property and business as well as to military targets such as railroads. Sherman adopted the “total war” strategy whereby his men were ordered to destroy property and consume civilian supplies in order to hurt Southerners physically and psychologically and also to demoralize Confederate forces and reduce citizen support for the enemy, bringing a swifter end to the war.

This collection of documents also contains Sherman’s exact orders delivered to his army as they prepared to leave Atlanta and continue their campaign to the port of Savannah. Taken together, Sherman’s response to Calhoun and the Atlanta city council and his orders to his men illustrate the philosophical underpinnings of his aggressive combat strategy; they also illustrate his reservations and desire to protect those he saw as innocent from the violent tactics he was prepared to use in an effort to bring a swift end to the war.

Document Analysis

Major General William Sherman began his advance on Atlanta in August of 1864, and though he encountered significant early resistance, Confederate forces retreated on September 1. At the time, Sherman was stationed near the town of Lovejoy, Georgia, which was the site of the Battle of Lovejoy on August 20 and was a key victory for Sherman’s army. On September 8, Sherman issued Special Field Orders, No. 67, which officially gave the command for the citizens of Atlanta to abandon their homes and businesses and leave the city. Mayor James Calhoun, realizing the hardship that the evacuation would cause to the citizens of his city, wrote to Sherman, supported by several Atlanta city council members, requesting that the general refrain from enforcing the evacuation order.

On September 12, Sherman personally drafted a response to Mayor Calhoun and the council members explaining why he would not cancel the planned evacuation of the city. Sherman’s letter to Calhoun explains the reasoning behind his strategy of total war, which involved punishing not only enemy combatants, but also all noncombatants who supported enemy forces, either directly or indirectly. Though Sherman was aware that the evacuation of Atlanta would be a devastating hardship for its citizens, many of whom did not directly support the Confederate war effort, he stated that his orders to evacuate the city were “not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest.”

During the first two years of the Civil War, Sherman, like many Union officers, ordered their soldiers to avoid harming the citizens of Confederate states and to limit their aggression toward those who played an active role in the Confederate war effort. As the war continued, Sherman and many other Union generals found that they were repeatedly attacked or had their supplies and munitions compromised by groups of Southern citizens who employed guerrilla tactics to undermine Union forces. Additionally, the Union generals realized that civilian support in the form of food and shelter allowed Confederate forces to withstand extended attacks in their own territory, which ultimately prolonged the war. “Now that war comes home to you,” Sherman argued in his letter to Calhoun, “you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition… to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people.”

Sherman explains much of his reasoning to Calhoun in his response. In once section, Sherman writes, “The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families.” What Sherman wanted to convey was that the manufacturing, agricultural, and economic resources of the city were considered by him part of the overall war machine that supported the Confederate cause. “I cannot impart to you what we propose to do,” Sherman wrote, “but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away.”

Sherman wanted to avoid stationing significant numbers of his soldiers in the city to guard it against returning Confederate soldiers, so his intent was to destroy the manufacturing capabilities of the city such that the Confederates would not be able to use it as a supply port. Sherman intended to remove Atlanta as a potential safe haven by damaging the city’s infrastructure and its capabilities to a sufficient extent that it would need to be rebuilt over a long period before it could again serve as a source of comfort and supply to the enemy forces.

Sherman’s letter to Calhoun is the source of one of his most famous quotes, “War is cruelty,” sometimes misquoted as “War is hell,” which is often cited as part of the central underpinnings of his military strategy. Sherman believed that it was hypocritical to try and conduct war in a “refined” or “civilized” manner, as war was essentially a violent and destructive process. Further, he believed that any attempt to reduce the impact of a war only undermined the effort needed to achieve victory. It was Sherman’s intention that the people of Atlanta and all Southern citizens would be subject to what he saw as the realities of warfare such that they would embrace a Union victory and submit to complete surrender. In Sherman’s opinion, any compromise that did not guarantee total victory for the Union would only permit the continued instability of the country, forcing the United States to, in his words, “reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war.”

Toward the end of his letter, Sherman wrote, “You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable.” Sherman offered no solution for the citizens of Atlanta except in that he guaranteed them safe passage if they chose to evacuate the city. To end the war, Sherman said, all of the Southern citizens would have to admit, “that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.” Sherman goes on to say that the Union Army was not interested in the wealth or property of the Atlanta for its value. “We don’t want your Negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or anything you have,” Sherman wrote, adding that the only thing they demanded from the citizens was “a just obedience to the laws of the United States.” This, Sherman asserts will be won, even if he and his soldiers needed to destroy the South in order to achieve it.

Sherman’s southern campaign was only beginning when his forces took control of Atlanta, and over the next month, they continued marching south through the state to the coast and the port city of Savannah. In the cultural legacy of the Southern states devastated by Sherman’s campaign, his total war tactics have been condemned as war crimes that violated even the most basic moral standards. While it has been factually shown that Sherman’s forces decimated property throughout Atlanta and purposefully destroyed any business or facility that might provide materials or aid to combatants, the popular mythology of the event holds that Sherman’s men also committed numerous acts of violence against citizens, including public beatings, murder of unarmed civilians, and widespread rape. More comprehensive analyses indicate that while crimes of this nature occurred in some cases, they were not widespread and rumors of Sherman’s war crimes were perpetuated by Confederate propaganda. Whether the Union Army’s actions have been exaggerated in historical recounts, the destruction and suffering caused by Sherman’s campaign in Atlanta and states further south was considerable and left a lasting mark on the culture of the region.

In addition to Sherman’s memoirs and correspondence from the period, which have helped historians to preserve the philosophical motivations behind his military strategy, historians have also studied the orders issued by Sherman to his soldiers, including the now infamous Special General Order 67, which called for the forced evacuation of Atlanta. Another set of military orders is the Special Field Orders No. 120, which were issued on November 9, 1864, and contain specific instructions to his army regarding the procedures that would be used as they began the Savannah Campaign, Sherman’s March to the Sea.

The specific orders issued by Sherman indicate that while he was committed to his philosophy of total war, he asked his men to limit their destruction in areas where the citizens provided no resistance. In addition, Sherman explicitly instructed his soldiers to take supplies and provisions from those who were wealthy, while exercising caution in taking needed supplies from the poorer citizens they encountered.

Sherman’s forces numbered more than six hundred thousand men, with nearly three thousand wagons in addition to cavalry and peripheral personnel. As the armies left Atlanta, they did not carry sufficient provisions with them to survive the trek to Savannah and were instead ordered to “forage liberally” from the surrounding territory. Sherman instructed his soldiers not to enter the homes of any citizens along their route, but he gave them permission to take food from farmland as needed in order to maintain a supply of food and water for ten days. Sherman also gave the army freedom to take any horses, mules, or other needed supplies, but again he cautioned his men in regard to their treatment of the citizens: “In all foraging, of whatever kind,” Sherman wrote in the sixth item in the Special Orders, No. 120, “the parties engages will refrain from abusive or threatening language.” Further, Sherman ordered that his soldiers should leave the citizens with sufficient food, supplies, and equipment to maintain themselves.

While the specific orders issued by Sherman indicate a level of concern for the citizens of Georgia that exceeds the image perpetrated in Confederate historical accounts, he remained committed to his policy of forcing the submission of the populace as well as the Confederate soldiers. Sherman also issued an order to his corps commanders to destroy any buildings, mills, or other manufacturing facilities as they see fit in the course of their march. Here, Sherman’s philosophy of total war is at the forefront, as he intended to render all of the towns and cities along his march unable to lend aid of any type to rebel forces.

With regard to slaves, Sherman gave his soldiers permission to enlist as many “able bodied Negroes” as they saw fit during their march, but he cautioned that the commanding officers should be careful not to take so many extra persons as to place too high a demand on their supplies. Sherman was not concerned with the abolitionist goals of the war effort, and he drew his primary commitment to the war from what he viewed as the more important concerns of economics and national security. By the end of the war, Sherman had become more dedicated to abolition, perhaps in part because he was asked to meet with black abolition leaders and had been widely praised by former slaves who viewed him as a savior. In 1864, when Sherman issued these orders to his men, he shared the belief held by many on both sides of the civil conflict that the lives of African Americans were of less absolute worth than the lives of white men. Sherman also recommended that each marching unit should create a “pioneer brigade” to march in front of the other soldiers, and should, if possible, utilize African Americans in this unit (as this was the unit that was most likely to incur heavy casualties in the event of a battle).

In both his direct orders to the soldiers under his command and his response to Mayor Calhoun’s plea, Sherman’s primary focus was to bring the war to an end as expediently as possible. “I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war,” Sherman wrote in his response to Calhoun, adding “I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.” Sherman’s total war strategy, though surely increasing the suffering of the citizens of Atlanta and elsewhere along his march, ultimately shortened the war by destroying the morale of the citizens who emotionally supported the soldiers fighting for Confederate independence. Sherman’s tactical strategy made him a hero in the North and infamous throughout the South.

Bibliography

Campbell, Jaqueline Glass. When Sherman Marched North From the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Home Front. Greensboro: U of North Carolina P, 2003. Print.

Caudill, Edward, and Paul Ashdown. Sherman’s March in Myth and Memory. Lanham: Rowman, 2009. Print.

Trudeau, Noah Andre. Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea. New York: Harper, 2009. Print.