150 years ago today (Dec. 22nd, 1864), General William Tecumseh Sherman via telegraph presented to President Abraham Lincoln “as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah [.]” The day prior, the Army of the Mississippi took Savannah, GA hence closing Sherman’s March to the Sea. In a little more than a month, Sherman marched 62,000 war-weary soldiers from Atlanta to Savannah without reinforcements, communication lines, or supply lines. The March to the Sea was not only a great military feat that dealt a mortal blow to the Confederacy with the fewest casualties on both sides of the war, but Sherman’s conquering of Georgia reintroduced the concept of total war into the Western warfare. Throughout the Civil War (1861-1865), Union and Confederate generals adhered to the strategic philosophies of the Napoleonic general Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779-1869), who argued that military engagements were geometric problems won with strict adherence to set military principles. In other words, Jomini and the Civil War generals viewed war as a game of chess with set rules. Conversely, Sherman saw Jominian tactics as ineffective and immoral, because these tactics only led to the death of soldiers and ignored the causes of the conflict. To Sherman the only way to win the war was to introduce to the Southern populace and, specifically, to the slave owners that pushed for secession, the hellish nature of war. As Sherman exclaimed, “I can make this march, and I will make Georgia howl!” Thus, Sherman introduced his scorch earth strategy, also known as total war, to the Civil War. As Sherman’s army marched through Georgia, the Union soldiers destroyed railroads, freed slaves, and appropriated food and cotton from the Southern populace. Not only did Sherman’s scorched earth strategy cripple the South militarily and economically, it destroyed the South’s morale. Along with being a departure from the mindsets of his military peers, Sherman’s scorched earth strategy was notorious. Those who viewed any attack on civilian populations as unethical deemed Sherman’s total war reprehensible. Epitomizing this derision with Sherman was Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind,” which portrayed Sherman’s soldier’s a thieves and rapists. Despite these ethical and theoretical objections, Sherman’s total war proved to be effective. Additionally, Sherman’s total war would lead to a paradigm shift in military strategy. The scorched earth strategy mirrored the philosophies of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831). Clausewitzian philosophies countered Jominian strategy. Clausewitz purported that war was not an art or science but rather a social entity; therefore, Jomini’s claim of the ability to predict military campaigns with mathematical concepts was flawed. To Clausewitz, war encompassed all aspects of society, not just the events on the battlefield. Thus, Sherman’s total war, which affected the Southern populace as much as the Confederate armies, fit the Clauswitzian theory of war. Despite the lack of evidence that Sherman had studied the works of Clausewitz, Sherman’s tactics are independent verification that Clausewitzian military theories are superior to Jominian theories. Sherman’s March to the Sea shortened the Civil War, and did so with few causalities -- a miraculous feat in America’s bloodiest war. Although, Sherman’s actions were very controversial, the total war strategy saved lives and proved that the honorable and ethical way to fight war may necessitate the use of notorious techniques.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:57:07 +0000
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