William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes
We are forced to invade—we must keep the War South, till they are not only ruined, exhausted, but humbled in pride and spirit.
This concept of Total War turns out to be the only way to bring many conflicts to an end. Sherman was hated by generations of Southerners because he appeared to be vengeful to humble the Southern pride and spirit. But actually, Sherman was not personally vengeful at all and respected the South and understood its point of view more than most in the North. However, he was one of the first of the Western World’s military leaders to realize that with modern warfare and the then modern weapons, the only way to win a war was to persuade the enemy to stop fighting and if they refused, as the South kept doing, the only rational and humane course was to end the war as swiftly and totally as possible.
William Tecumseh Sherman, 1820-1891, General of the Army & Indian Peace Commissioner, Letter to Governor David Tod of Ohio, March 12, 1863
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Confederate General Wheeler had introduced a new tactic of mining the roads with improvised explosive devices which took their toll on Sherman’s troops. At the time, this was against the ruled of war. Sherman ordered a few Confederate prisoners to the front and required them to walk ahead of his troops and demine the roads. He then allowed some of the prisoners to return to General Wheeler with a note from Sherman, explaining that if the Confederates persisted in this unethical form of warfare he would march all of the Confederate prisoners in the front of the troops and force them do remove the explosives by hand regardless of the danger. Wheeler never planted land mines again.
Sherman, one of the most gifted generals of the Civil War. He hated the cruelty of war and the Civil War in particular as he had specifically warned his Southern friends ahead of time about what war would bring. See {585882}. Sherman was one of the first American military men to look at war without any of the romantic, patriotic, noble attributes that most others did.
William Tecumseh Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), receiving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States. British military theorist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".
