The 1864 General Grant's Total War

In 1864 General Grant had devised a plan of a Total War strategy. This was to be the straw that broke the rebel camel’s back. For General Sherman’s part he was to cut a path from Atlanta to Savanah and then move into South Carolina. Total War would mean destroying anything of military value after taking what was needed to supply the Union army. After securing Atlanta for the Union General Sherman had orders to destroy Confederate General Hood’s army, “Sherman left a corps to hold Atlanta and pursued Hood with the rest of his army” (McPherson 808). Eventually Sherman got tired of chasing Hood and wanted to “ignore Hood and march through the heart of Georgia to the coast” (McPherson 808). “I could cut a swath through to the sea, he assured Grant, divide the Confederacy in two, and come up on
South Carolina took the brunt of the Total War philosophy, “Destroyed it was, through a corridor from south to north narrower than in Georgia but more intensely pillaged and burned” (McPherson 826). Grant’s Total War policy seemed to be working, with the Confederate war machine losing its ability to wage war more and more each day. By the time Sherman got through South Carolina Lee’s army was the only one left of any size or ability to react to the Union onslaught. When I think of Grant’s Total War philosophy, I am reminded of the many stories that came out during Viet Nam. The US used a scorched earth campaign in Viet Nam not unlike Grant’s total war. The US fire bombed large parts of the jungle and used defoliant agents to try and get rid of a major strategic benefit, the jungle itself, which the enemy used with great