Total War in the American Civil War: Sherman and Sheridan
This paper argues that the Western concept of total war best exemplifies the military strategy of the American Civil War. Focusing on General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea and General Philip Sheridan's scorched-earth campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, the paper examines how Union commanders deliberately extended warfare to the civilian sphere — destroying infrastructure, crops, and property — in order to break Confederate morale and end the rebellion. The paper also contrasts total war with other tactics present in the conflict, including guerrilla warfare and trench warfare at Petersburg, ultimately concluding that total war was the decisive strategic innovation of the war.
- Introduction: Total War as the Defining Strategy: Thesis: total war defined Union victory in the Civil War
- Trench Warfare and the Limits of Conventional Tactics: Petersburg and conventional tactics proved indecisive
- Sheridan's Scorched-Earth Campaign in the Shenandoah Valley: Sheridan burned the Valley to starve Confederate forces
- Sherman's March to the Sea: Sherman's march destroyed Southern infrastructure and morale
- The Destruction and Its Consequences: Economic and psychological cost of Sherman's campaign
- Conclusion: Why Total War Best Exemplifies the Civil War: Total war was the decisive and defining Union strategy
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What makes this paper effective
- The thesis is stated clearly in the opening paragraph and supported throughout with specific military examples, giving the argument a tight, focused structure.
- Direct quotation from primary sources — including Sherman's own words from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies — grounds the argument in historical evidence rather than generalization.
- The paper effectively contrasts total war with other Civil War tactics (trench warfare, guerrilla warfare), showing why total war was distinctive and decisive rather than just describing it in isolation.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates argumentative comparison: it introduces competing tactical approaches (trench warfare at Petersburg, guerrilla warfare) and systematically sets them aside to elevate its central claim. This move — acknowledging alternative examples before explaining why they are less representative — is a classic technique for building a persuasive historical argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a thesis statement, then uses two middle sections to develop parallel case studies (Sheridan and Sherman), including logistical detail and strategic rationale for each campaign. A penultimate section quantifies the economic damage of Sherman's march. The conclusion revisits the thesis by tying both campaigns to a broader Union mindset and places the strategy in longer historical context, from ancient Rome to twentieth-century warfare.
Introduction: Total War as the Defining Strategy
The Western concept of total war best exemplifies warfare in the American Civil War because it was this definitive tactic that helped the Union completely crush any remaining hopes of Confederate victory. Two generals effected a policy of total war against the South: General Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley and General William Tecumseh Sherman in his March to the Sea campaign from Atlanta to Savannah, leaving devastation and ruin in his wake. Both military tactics were designed not only to cut off supply routes to Southern armies but also to undermine the morale of Southern civilians and destroy their very capacity to survive without surrendering.
Sherman himself stated his belief that the Union was fighting "a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war" — in other words, Sherman believed the war had to be taken into the civilian sphere (Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies 798). It was an attitude of total war that would come to dominate modern warfare in the years to come, and it was this attitude that the North ultimately came to rely upon in order to defeat the Southern cause.
Trench Warfare and the Limits of Conventional Tactics
It took the Union Army three years to realize that in order to preserve the Union, a new military tactic would need to be employed. Up to that point, the typical style of warfare used by the Army was that of Grant's bold charge-and-seize brigades or the guerrilla warfare of the Confederates. In fact, despite fortifications, planning, and design, much of the fighting in the war was so indecisive that it eventually devolved into trench warfare. Trench warfare was seen during the Petersburg Campaign, which lasted nearly a year from June 1864 to April 1865.
Petersburg was not really an example of "formal siege warfare," as there was no surrounding of Lee's forces or blocking of his escape. In short, "Lee was never trapped at Petersburg," and so the warfare that took place was more properly trench warfare, in which soldiers are protected in long trenches from enemy fire ("Ten Facts about the Petersburg Campaign"). Trench warfare was common at both Petersburg and Vicksburg, but for the style of warfare that best exemplifies the spirit of the American Civil War, one has to look elsewhere. What really exemplified the Civil War was the willingness of Union generals to do whatever was necessary to crush the rebellion — a willingness that eventually led to total war.
Works Cited
Foote, Shelby. The Civil War. NY: Random House, 1958. Print.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Vol. XLIV. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901. Print.
"Ten Facts about the Petersburg Campaign." CivilWar.org. 22 Feb. 2015. Web.
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