Are the Media Right to Single Out William Tecumseh Sherman As the Most Reckless Civil War General of Them All?

Among Southern historians the legacy of General William Tecumseh Sherman is one of death and destruction on a scale matched only by the most formidable tyrants in human history. However, traditionalists view his contributions to the Northern war effort as necessary to victory and, ultimately, the preservation of the Union. Much of the current debate over specific campaigns is based upon current perceptions of relevance to modern controversies. Though it is a simple task to admire or admonish a figure from the past, a more daunting endeavor is to comprehend a controversial action based upon the mores of an era removed from ours; therefore, contemporary criticisms and allegorical uses of Sherman's march within a modern context are suspect at best.

Sherman's march was an integral part of a Union strategy to overwhelm Confederate resources and cause Southern resistance to implode upon itself. It was Sherman's role to isolate Rebel armies in Georgia and the Carolinas and impede them from launching any organized defensive. According to T. Harry Williams, this would be accomplished by a"march across Georgia on a wide front, destroying economic resources as he moved." Such a movement would inhibit Southern abilities to mobilize and supply troops and, if successful, thwart an incursion by John Bell Hood. The object of the campaign was not specifically to take Southern lives, but to break their will to continue the rebellion:"We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies." In line with this strategy, Sherman ordered his men to wreak havoc upon the enemy. Much of the carnage centered on the Confederate railroad system, though private property was not immune.

In his wake, Sherman's army destroyed over $100,000,000 [estimate in 1865 values] in property--most of it upon Southern railroads--and inflicted between 7,000 to 10,000 casualties upon the Southern army. In the years following Confederate defeat the Union general's deeds became the fodder for legend and myth. Southern chroniclers of the war made stinging criticisms of Sherman's actions while embellishing pertinent details. Religious leaders compared him with Satan himself in the liturgy. In his 1867 book The Lost Cause, Edward Pollard wrote that"Sherman is an example of the reputation achieved in the North by intrepid charlatanism and self-assertion," and deplored the fact that in the North"the chief excursionist was raised to the dignity of a hero." Historian Gaines M. Foster observed that at Confederate reunions held in 1895,"Southerners almost delighted in recounting the tales of violence, destruction, and thievery that they claimed the armies of Sherman, Sheridan, and other northern generals directed at civilians." Thus, the popular Southern image of William Tecumseh Sherman was that of a pariah to be wholeheartedly admonished.

Due to the disparity of the disagreement between historians, the question under consideration is not whether Sherman caused an excessive loss of life during his march towards Savannah, but whether or not his actions were ethical under the standards of warfare at that time.

If one contends that war is morally wrong, then the conclusion will not be in Sherman's favor, for if the overall action itself is immoral, then the end product of that action shall also be. This is based upon a traditional philosophical tenet that because mankind cannot construct life from scratch, mankind does not possess the right to destroy it. In war casualties are a given, and the more efficient the technology, and the more driven the aggressor, the higher the number of casualties. Under this premise had Sherman's actions cost one human life, military or civilian, his actions would have been immoral.

Should one argue that a nation has an inalienable right to self-preservation, the destruction and casualties wrought from Sherman's actions are morally defensible. This conclusion is based upon a modern philosophical tenet that a community or state has a duty to its citizens to defend itself against elements that would cause its demise. Thus, any action taken in the defense of that state was wholly justified, even if those actions caused the wholesale destruction of both property and lives. Under this premise, Sherman's actions are a necessary evil, for his march was part of an overall strategy to force the Confederacy to surrender, which could have effectively ended the blood shed by ending the war and, in tandem, preserved the Union.

Which of these moral perceptions is correct? Would Southern historians have brought up the question of battle casualties had Robert E. Lee sacked Philadelphia and marched up the Atlantic coast toward Boston? Indeed, had this been the case, would traditionalist historians have made the same claims of excessive destruction and loss of life? Perhaps the answer to this question was best demonstrated in the trial of Henry Wirz for"war crimes" perpetrated at the Andersonville Prison Camp when evidence of the ghastly treatment of Confederate prisoners of war held in Union facilities at Elmira, New York were excluded from consideration in his defense. Thus, charges of excessive force seem on the surface to be the little more than the claims of losers against victors as a means of claiming some sort of moral victory.

Neither North nor South held the moral high ground in this conflict. Both sides were fighting for what they believed to be the best course of action for themselves specifically. The Confederate States possessed as much moral justification in waging a war for political independence from the United States as the American colonists had in their efforts to free themselves from the"tyranny" of Great Britain. Therefore, historians could legitimately argue that Southerners had perpetrated a legitimate conflict with the Union as the aggressor. But historians also argue that the United States had the impetus to preserve itself, which meant that the South was in rebellion and that Union troops used only the force that was necessary to bring them back into the Union.

There can also be no question that the actions taken by the Union army towards the South during the final campaigns were brutal. But, they were also instrumental in preserving a nation hell-bent on self-destruction. All of those who perished in the American Civil War were the casualties of a necessary evil. For had not the United States been forced to endure such a repulsive loss of life two nations would now exist where one had formerly resided.