Why did Gen. Sherman believe that the U.S. Army should wage "total war" against white Southerners?
Although the tide had been turned in the war, much bloodshed remained. In 1864, the U.S. Army, now under the command of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, fought to break white Southerners' will to fight. At the battle of Cold Harbor in June, 7,000 of Grant's men were killed or wounded in a single hour! Lee complained that Grant's tactics were not warfare, but murder. The high casualty rate at Cold Harbor would haunt Grant for years, but he knew that the Union could afford high casualty rates better than the increasingly weary, poorly-supplied Confederate army.
To break the Confederates' will to fight, Grant ordered Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (above) to invade Georgia. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September 1864 proved an important victory, because it contributed to Lincoln's reelection in November over the Democratic candidate, former General George B. McClellan, by 2.2 million votes to 1.8 million.
After capturing Atlanta, Sherman began his brutal March to the Sea across Georgia. His army moved along a 60-mile wide front, advanced roughly ten miles per day, destroying virtually everything in its path--crops, homes, barns, railroad tracks, etc. This method of warfare, in which civilians' property, not just the opposing army, is attacked, is known as total war. Sherman declared that "We are fighting not only a hostile army, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war."