Around the final stages of the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman used a tactic called “total war.” Total War is a type of war where nothing is off limits. This strategy allowed General Sherman to harm civilians and destroy everything in his path. Total War was used against the Confederacy by demolishing anything that would have been useful to the South. The Confederacy was already in a bad spot at this time of the war, but using this tactic made the South more vulnerable. I am not for this strategy, however I think it was reasonable for the Union to adopt this policy. It was reasonable for the Union to do this because they had to do what they could to make the Confederacy surrender as fast as they
For example, after encountering the troops that Grant had sent forth, Lee blocked the Union advance on the Totopotomoy Creek. Grant realized how strong the defenses were and organized another move around. Grant’s army would have to bring the Army of Northern Virginia into the open and kill them all. Grant had the idea that all the union armies would move in a pattern on all fronts. This was to put many and merciless military troops onto the confederacy and to prevent the confederates to reinforce one another. Grant’s believed that if Lee’s army failed, Richmond would fall by default and the war would end. This strategy was from hard and desperate fighting and soldiers were not at their best because this plan made incredible demands on one average soldier, and the decision about making the attack was from invalid assumptions about what the enemy was capable of and poor
It can be said that the South began the Civil War from a winning position. They had declared their independence, formed their own country and government, and they needed only to keep what they already had. But this was a monumental task as the government was required to protect every inch of land within the Confederacy. As a new country, the Confederacy needed to demonstrate the ability to defend its own territory from external threat. Without this ability, the Confederacy could never receive the international recognition and support it needed to survive. Aside from this reason, the South also needed to protect the institution of slavery from outside interference. If the Northern armies took control of a particular Southern area, the Confederates felt that they would free all the slaves, thus destroying the entire structure of society and its economic value. Because of this, Jefferson Davis was forced to devise a flawed war strategy which attempted to preserve the entire Confederacy at the cost of concentrating his forces.
During the Civil War, several strategies were applied by the warring groups. The Anaconda Plan was one of them; it was a strategic plan that was used by the union with the aim of defeating the Confederacy at the onset of the American Civil War. The plan's primary goal was to defeat the rebellion by employing methods such as blocking the southern ports as well as controlling river Mississippi. By so doing, the South would be cut off and isolated from the rest of the world (Schroeder, 2017). General Winfield Scott substantially developed the Anaconda Plan after the Confederate attack which took place at Fort Sumter. The plan played a substantial role as it helped in ending the Civil War with fewer casualties from the warring groups. In fact,
The Civil War took many tolls on the U.S., but the part that was mostly affected was the South. Not only did the South lose its pride, it lost its economy. At the end of the war, the Southern General Robert E. Lee said, “There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” This shows that Lee lost his pride, his hope, his love in the Confederates. The textbook also says that the South lost many buildings and structures in the Civil War. General Sherman created a bold plan; a "march to the sea." This meant that the Union forces would plow through anything in their way. This meant burned houses, destroyed fields, and destruction all around. This soon came to be known as "total war." This
James Madison is trying to ask congress to declare war on the United Kingdom. Before June 16, 1812 the British ships raised a blockade against the US. The causes of on June 1, 1812 is that Great Britain was locked in a long and bitter conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. They attempted to cut off all trade from reaching the enemy. Both sides attempted to block all of the United States from trading.
The most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War (1861-65). Began in Atlanta on November 15,1864. Union General William T. Sherman abandoned his supply line and marched across Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean to prove the Confederate population that its government not protect the people from invaders. He believed that by marching an army across the state he would demonstrate to the world that the Union had a power the Confederacy could not resist. After Sherman’s forces captured Atlanta on September 2,1864, Sherman spent several weeks making preparations for a change of base to the cost. Sherman’s March to the
“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.
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.
William Sherman seemed kind of obsessed with the idea of defeating the Confederacy. He seemed even more focused on the removal of the inhabitants of Atlanta, but then again, it was what the correspondences between him and General Hood and James Calhoun were about. Nevertheless, he was very focused on the removal of the population and he gives very adequate reasons for doing so. As a reader, it's never really certain whether Sherman had a "side" on the issue of slavery because as far as I could tell, you can only really tell his main concern is the preserving of the Union (much like Lincoln's). This is extremely evident because his intentions for the city of Atlanta were to utilize the city for fortification and to take advantage of it to help win the war. So I guess in a way his view of the war is similar to that of Lincoln's because of the fact that they both have no apparent decision on the existence of slavery. However, on the other hand, if you have to assume anything, it would be that Sherman was one of the people, that Lincoln referred to, who wanted to preserve the Union
According with the article “Lifestyles during civil war” the people were excited about the use of total war because they were fighting for what they believed that was good. They thought that with the use of total war their lives their lives would return to normality. We can see a cartoon where a man and a woman are observing a peaceful city with the phase “After total war can come total living” this means that the people actually believed that using the total war was good because after that everything was going to be
There were several reasons for the defeat of the Confederacy which included no industrial base, (Donald 1996, p. 99) inadequate transportation net (Donald, 1996, p. 99), and bickering among the generals (McPherson & Hogue, 2009, p. 365) etc., but the overriding factor was that the Confederacy never became a nation (Donald, 1996, p. 100). That is, they seceded because the Southern states believed they had the right as independent States to do so (Donald, 1996, p. 7). The South lost because they never stopped believing this. No state could depend on any other for full support of the war. The Governor of Georgia specifically prohibited his troops from fighting outside the state for many months. Many governors set limits on how many
The use of propaganda in wartime was not a common thing, but when it came to resources it did. Societies have used and lived with propaganda from the earliest civilizations like Ancient Greece. World War I marked a turning point for state use of propaganda both in war and during peace. One reason was That World War I was the first “Total War.” In the US many Americans were towards the use of propaganda because they needed supplies and men. So propaganda persuaded the audience with ethos or their emotions just so people can get or do what they want.
Both the Union and the Confederacy had good military leaders who used and/or invented promising war tactics. The North used a strategy known as the Anaconda Plan. This is where the Union Forces would surround the Confederacy, cut its trade, divide it into two at the Mississippi River, and squeeze it to death. At first the Anaconda Plan was ridiculed, because both sides were originally stuck on old fashion tactics of using mass troops to attack a certain point. When both sides found the new technology in weaponry, made this old strategy suicide the Anaconda Plan was implemented. New technology caused old war tactics to change. Another strategy, I personally like to call “The Jaw” was demonstrated by the brilliant Robert. E. Lee from the South. One war tactic used by Ulysses S. Grant from the North in The Siege of Vicksburg changed the way war was fought from then on. It was called Total War. Total War involves not only war against the opponent’s soldiers but war against their civilians and economic system, in hopes of breaking their moral and in hopes that they give up the thought of winning because victory is just not worth the losses, so defeat may be welcomed. The combination of the ancient technique of total war, which
Hello and welcome to a special edition of Historical Explorers, I'm your host Char and today we commemorate 140 years since British Queen, Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.
Additionally, after Lincoln’s yearning to abolish slavery through his Emancipation Proclamation, and succeeding, Lincoln started to focus on his most important priority, to win the Civil War. Although Lincoln hated the deaths and destructions that war brought, he believed that this was the only solution to preserve the Union. This pacifist was the leader of the bloodiest war in American history with more than 45,000 total people being missing, wounded, captured, and killed. Furthermore, Lincoln was the foundation of the Union’s victorious military strategy and led the north to triumph. Lincoln’s strategy was a type that was based on destroying the opposing forces instead of conquering their territory. Also, he conducted the Union armies to attack the enemy on all fronts. These strategies would surely catch the opponents off guard and ultimately give the Union a win on their battle record. Similarly to playing lacrosse,