As one
example, Hanson writes compellingly of General Sherman and the American way
of war. In an article written on 25 September he writes:
Often Sherman's type of war is misunderstood and said to be itself
terrorist or inhumane. In that regard, contrasts can be made between
Robert E. Lee and Sherman. The former, who wrecked his army by sending
thousands on frontal charges against an entrenched enemy and whose family
owned slaves, enjoys the reputation of a reluctant, humane knight who
battled for a cause—states' rights and the sanctity of Southern soil—other
than slavery. The latter, who was careful to save his soldiers from
annihilation and who freed thousands of slaves in Georgia, is too often
seen as a murderous warrior who fought for a cause—federalism and the
punishment of treason—other than freedom.
Lee crafted the wrong offensive strategy for an outmanned and outproduced
South that led to horrendous casualties. Yet Sherman's marches drew
naturally on the materiel and human surpluses of the North and so cracked
the core of the Confederacy with few killed on either side. Lee wrongly
thought the Union soldier would not fight as well as the Confederate;
Sherman rightly guessed that the destruction of Southern property would
topple the entire Confederacy. The one ordered thousands to their deaths
when the cause was clearly lost; the other destroyed millions of dollars
of property to hasten the end of bloodshed. Yet Sherman—who fought on the
winning side, who promised in the abstract death and terror, who was
unkempt, garrulous, and blunt—is usually criticized. Lee—who embodies the
Lost Cause, who wrote of honor and sacrifice, and who was dapper, genteel,
and mannered—is canonized.
The lesson? By attacking the infrastructure of our enemies and thereby
saving lives in the long run, we must, as Machiavelli warned, expect not
to be lauded, but rather caricatured and even despised as cruel. Sherman
also had a keen sense of sociology. In his view, the rich and landowning
class of the South had instigated hostilities; yet more often the poor
free whites of the Confederacy, who did not own slaves, were dying. In
Sherman's view it was far more humane to attack the property of those
responsible for the conflict than to end the lives of those who were not.
Only that way could the entire population learn the wages of supporting a
reckless but impotent Confederate government.
Henry Hitchcock, an officer on Sherman's staff, summed up his general's
use of psychological warfare.
Not we but their “leaders” and their own moral and physical cowardice
three years ago are responsible. This Union and its Government must be
sustained, at any and every cost; to sustain it, we must war upon and
destroy the organized rebel forces,—must cut off their supplies, destroy
their communications, and show their white slaves (these people say
themselves that they are so) their utter inability to resist the power
of the U.S. To do this implies and requires these very sufferings, and
having thus only the choice of evils—war now so terrible and successful
that none can dream of rebellion hereafter, or everlasting war with all
these evils magnified a hundred fold hereafter—we have no other course
to take.
What can we learn in the present age from General Sherman about the waging
of war? The real morality in war hinges not on damage wrought but rather
concerns the moral imperative to reduce the number of dead and so end the
killing as quickly as possible. To accomplish that goal an army must
attack in overwhelming strength and be imbued with a clear moral sense.
The presence of sixty-two thousand infantrymen in the heart of the South
shocked the citizenry of the Confederacy and prevented various forces
under Generals Bragg, Wheeler, and Hardee from offering any defense. Yet
the Army of the West wrought such cruel material damage because it
believed its cause was just—the South had prompted the war and owned
slaves while midwesterners were ending it and freeing the unfree.
In the present context, General Sherman would advise our military planners
to use crushing force against our enemies in the Middle East, targeted
especially against those who started the war, the personal assets of the
terrorists, and the government and military infrastructure of the Taliban
and Iraq. And he would urge that we must wage such a full-fledged war
constantly with the refrain that an attacked United States was seeking to
end terrorism and to overturn the political hierarchy of those guilty
illegitimate governments. Cheering in the streets of Arab capitals and
posters of bin Laden will disappear only when the ignorant understand the
terrible costs of supporting the murderers of Americans. Only with a
spiritual element to our battle can a humane society stomach the sheer
devastation its army unleashes. “There
is a soul to an army,” Sherman wrote,
“as well as to the individual man, and
no general can accomplish the full work of his army unless he commands the
soul of his men, as well as their bodies and legs.”
