What was the Sherman's scorched earth policy and what did it hope to accompl

Question: What was the Sherman's scorched earth policy and what did it hope to accomplish!?
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Sherman's sorched earth policy was to bring a total war of attrition on the South as a whole; the people and the land, as opposed to simply engaging opposing armies!. Through such harsh tactics, Sherman believes that it would accelerate the war's conclusion by quickly bringing the Confederate infrastructure to its knees!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

~If you read about the March to the Sea, you will learn that Sherman actually used quite a bit of restraint!. His goal was to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible and with the least amount of destruction and loss of life as possible!. He got his marching orders from Grant and Lincoln!. When ordered to engage in "hard war" as he called it, he did so!.

Before Lincoln finally found a General-in-Chief who actually wanted to win the war and who had the guts, determination and ability to fight (Hiram US Grant) the federals were going nowhere fast!. Battles were won or lost (usually lost) and the armies moved on to meet and fight again!. Sentiment to continue prosecuting the war was rapidly waning in the north and Lincoln's prospects for re-election were growing more dismal with each defeat!. George McClellan was gaining ground in the polls and if he won the 1864 election, it was entirely possible that the war would have been concluded with the CSA being recognized as a sister nation!. [The CSA was an alliance of independent nations, but that's another topic wntirely!.]

When Grant was elevated, he took charge of the Eastern theater!. George Meade was still the field commander of the Army of the Potomac but Grant rode along to make sure Meade did his job!. If Meade had followed Halleck's and Lincoln's orders at Gettysburg, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia would have been trapped on the muddy banks of the flooded Potomac with no place to run and likely would have surrendered in July 1863!. Tens of thousands of lives were lost and unnecessary destruction and havoc suffered because Meade didn't follow up on his advantage and did not follow orders!. It wasn't going to happen again!. Grant's orders to Meade were simple!. "Where goes Lee, there will you follow"!. That was the strategy of the Overland and Wilderness Campaigns from the time Grant crossed the Rappahannock until Lee surrendered at Appomattox
Courthouse!.

His orders to Sherman were equally simple!. "Attack, attack, attack!." The war in the west was more significant than that in the east and victory in the Western Theater was critical to overall victory!. Sherman was ordered to bring about that victory and to do it in such a way that it would end the war, not just move an opposing army from one battlefield to the next!.

Sherman wasn't going to just chase Hood's and Johnston's armies!. He was going to make sure that neither they, nor anyone else, could rise in his rear!. Armies of the war had to forage and scavenge for food!. By burning the fields, Sherman removed not only the forage from possible pursuing troops but also cash crops that could have been sold to finance the war and food crops that could have been delivered to the Confederate army!. He also destroyed any military targets such as arms depots, warehouse, railway stations and factories as well as government buildings!. Shooting opposing soldiers wins battles but destroying the will and wherewithal to fight wins wars!. Destroying the infrastructure and dotting the countryside with "Sherman's neckties" was designed to defeat the south, not destroy it!.

As long as the war continued, so did the warfare!. However, Sherman's standing order was that there was to be no destruction except on order of an officer and no such order would be given unless the area in question resisted the federal troops or was otherwise actively belligerent!. Sometimes those orders were disobeyed but that was not Sherman's doing!.

Sherman is falsely maligned!. When he evacuated, Hood ordered that anything in Atlanta that might benefit the federals when they arrived be burned!. Atlanta had been partially burned before Sherman even got there!. When Sherman left, he ordered the warehouses, factories, government buildings and like buildings that Hood had missed to be burned!. Some of the troops got out of hand and started fires indiscriminately and some of the fires got out of control!. The destruction of Atlanta was far more than Sherman either ordered or envisioned!. The same holds for Columbia!.

Before the March to the Sea, Sherman met with old friends who had joined the CSA side and pleaded with them to surrender!. They interceded with the Governor Grant of Georgia and told him that the CSA defeat was inevitable but that Sherman would spare Georgia if Georgia surrendered, renounced the CSA and swore loyalty to the USA!. They warned him that Sherman was going to employ scorched earth tactics and the Georgia would be devastated if surrender was not forthcoming!. Georgia refused and the campaign continued!.

Sherman was brilliant at logistics and strategy!. His Georgia/Carolina campaign was the first campaign of "modern" warfare!. It has been studied by strategist ever since!. Sir Basil Liddel Hart, often called the greatest military strategist of the 20th century, credits his study of Sherman for his own success!. Other acolytes include George Patton, Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian!. Wehrmact blitzkreig tactics were based on the Sherman example!. Why!? Because it is effective!.Www@QuestionHome@Com