General William T. Sherman's Controversy Before The Civil War

It was well believed until Jackson’s forces began unloading rounds on the Union army stopping McDowell’s forces from advancing, holding the line like “a stone wall.” As the new Union recruits witnessed battle for the first time and felt the lack of preparation, they were quick to retreat back to Washington DC. The Southern victory and the tens of thousands of lives lost proved to the Union that this war was not going to be easily won.

In the twenty-seven day excursion to Savannah, Sherman's March engaged in very few battles. Even though many building were burned in the towns that Sherman's army passed, the special foraging parties would due the most damage. Before leaving Atlanta, Sherman or “Uncle Billy” as his men would call him, had wrote “Special Field Order No.120,” it outlined the rules for the foraging parties to abide by. The orders were very specific, as to how much food could be taken, what structures could be burned, and etiquette with the civilian population, there was a single sentence that the foragers felt gave them opportunity. That was: “The Army will forage liberally on the country during the march.” Many soldiers believed Sherman issued the order with the intent of being the reverse.

The Civil War, composed of the Union run by numerous generals replacing one another, and the Confederacy lead by Robert E. Lee, was and still is one of the most gruesome wars in American History, and the Battle of Gettysburg is considered by most as an incredible turning point of the war. This is due to how the Union brought down the Confederacy’s winning streak, and gave the Confederacy a huge blow to their manpower, supplies, and overall strength to win (Battle of Gettysburg, 1). Robert E. Lee, though a great general throughout the Civil War, was a failure during the Battle Gettysburg because he was not able to get his men to their jobs done in time. Another reason he was a failure was because of his plan to attack again on July 3rd which

“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.” That is what William T. Sherman believed in, if the people wanted war, then they could have war. William T. Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served in many battles/wars one of which was the Civil War. He was said to have played an important part in the Civil War.

The entire truly tragic sense of the Lost Cause was that the South’s men knew their cause was lost, they knew there was really no way they could possibly win, and yet they fought on with tremendous bravery and dedication. The Civil War was such a poignant and even heart-wrenching time (Bowman, 2006, p.756). Despite the long-held notion that the South had all of the better generals, it really had only one good Army commander and that was General Lee. The rest were second-raters, at best (Donald, 1996, pp. 9-21). The North, on the other hand, had the good fortune of bringing along and nurturing people like Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, Philip Sheridan, George Thomas, and others.

Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman observed to a Southern friend that, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail." While Sherman 's statement proved to be correct, its flaw is in its assumption of a decided victory for the North and failure to account for the long years of difficult fighting it took the Union to secure victory. Unquestionably, the war was won and lost on the battlefield, but there were many factors that swayed the war effort in favor of the North and impeded the South 's ability to stage a successful campaign.

General Ulysses S. Grant was a brilliant strategist and seemed to be able to plan out movements in advance. The people of the North thought the tremendous casualties to be horrendous. But Grant knew that the South’s casualties to be much more than the North’s. Grant did have the support and trust of the North though and his record did well to deserve that support. His commanders trusted his completely. Grant’s idea of “Total War” was to break down the infrastructure of the South. The Siege of Petersburg which lasted almost years, then the capture of Richmond is among the battles Grant engaged in while south of the James

delayed a major attack during this battle in order to give General Sherman to win this battle.

SHERMAN, William Tecumseh (1820-91). Ranked second only to General Ulysses S. Grant as the greatest Northern commander in the American Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was a master of modern warfare. Like Grant, Sherman was born in Ohio when it was a frontier state. He was named Tecumseh for the Shawnee Indian chief who had terrorized that region a few years earlier.

Union officer William Tecumseh Sherman observed to a Southern friend that, "In all history, no nation of mere agriculturists ever made successful war against a nation of mechanics. . . .You are bound to fail." While Sherman's statement proved to be correct, its flaw is in its assumption of a decided victory for the North and failure to account for the long years of difficult fighting it took the Union to secure victory. Unquestionably, the war was won and lost on the battlefield, but there were many factors that swayed the war effort in favor of the North and impeded the South's ability to stage a successful campaign.

Scorched farms, slaughtered livestock, uprooted railway lines and cities set on fire was not typical battle strategy previously seen on American soil. However, the Civil War was dragging on and General William Tecumseh Sherman was determined to finally end the fighting. The circumstances that initiated the war created a figurative and literal divide unlike America had ever seen. The American Civil War took heavy tolls on the Union and Confederate States of America. Desperate to end the bloodshed, President Abraham Lincoln trusted Ulysses S. Grant control of the Army and Grant authorized Sherman the freedom to do whatever necessary to bring conclusion to the conflict (Davis 22). In the military mind of Sherman, the end justified the means and this belief is well documented throughout his 1864 and 1865 campaign through Georgia, concluding in Goldsboro, North Carolina (Phillips 11). Sherman despised war and the fact that America had entered into a civil war in the first place. However, Sherman knew the conflict was unavoidable (Meiers 26). He made the decision to follow his allegiance to the Union and eventually became the general to lead the Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee into the heart of Georgia (Moody 22). During this event the wrath of general Sherman would be implanted in the South’s memories. By the use of unorthodox

Union general William T. Sherman led nearly 60,000 men on a 285 mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864. Sherman’s motive behind this march was to intimidate Georgia’s civilians into renouncing their loyalty to the Confederate cause. While Sherman’s men did not eradicate any of the towns they passed, they stole livestock, food, and burned the houses and barns of the individuals who tried to fight back. The Union was “not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people,” Sherman explicated; as a result, they needed to “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”. (history.com)

The Civil war was a make or break war for America and it was essential that the Union stayed whole. William T. Sherman understood the possibility that if the South won that the United States would no longer exist. He took action and went to the extremes necessary to ensure the union stayed whole. The south portrays William T. Sherman as a villain of the Civil War because of his harsh tactics, but without his willingness to go to such extremes the war would not have ended the same way. William T. Sherman saved the Union because he recognizes that the Civil War would be impossible to win without strident tactics, exceptional battle strategies, and unrelenting determination which would bring the war to a conclusion.

I bet you know about the Civil War, but do you know about the people who led the armies during the Civil War? Well I am going to tell you about one of the generals was one of the major parts of the Civil War and in a way not a big part.Braxton Bragg, a leader, student, soldier, and a general. He was a Confederate leader. Although he won a very important war for the Confederate side of the Civil War, he was overall an ineffective general. There is many different ways he was a good general and a bad one. He was not to bright of a general. One time he order a soldier to get a gun from a fallen soldier as they was retreating because that gun was government property.He soldiers lost all respect for him, he could of won a war that they had secured,

Here are three reasons why sherman's march needed to happen. First, someone needed a tactic to end the war. It was its third year in the civil war and people didn't want it to go on any longer so with Sherman's ¨Total War¨ tactic it did just that and ended the war in 1865. Without it who knows how much longer the Civil war would of lasted.