#hardhandofwar

William Sherman

The Hard Hand of War, Union military policy toward southern civilians 1861-1865, by Mark Grimsley. He writes about the Hard hand of war, which is the policies they had on the civilians in the south. On page 176-177 Grimsley writes that the two practictitioners of hard war were Philip H. Sheridan and William T. Sherman. On page 178 he sais that “Sheridan ordered the burning of all houses within a five-mile radius.” He did this because one of his generals was killed by guerrillas. Grimsley tells us that Sherman wanted the South to believe that their government could not protect them from him and the rest of the Union army. He thought that if they felt this way the civilians would realize it and want the Union to protect them. In one part on page 200 he writes that in Georgia, Sherman’s army had created at least 100,000,000 dollars in damage. This was to their property and military resources. Toward the end of the war Sherman was making his was up the coast to go to South and North Carolina. He knew that Lee was getting a lot of supplies from South Carolina and Sherman also wanted to punish them for starting the war. He destroyed everything in his path along the way attacking civilian property. Overall Grimsley feels that the way the Union Army treated the Southern civilians was harsh and did not follow Lincoln’s views on just keeping the Union together. I found it very surprising that they did such harsh things to the civilians as well, I did not think that they would destroy all of the civilians things just to try and end the war. Sherman felt the need to increase the harm he was creating towards them to help end the war.