Of the western-influenced Union Generals, Sherman was the harshest in inflicting total war. Among other things, Halleck wrote to Grant telling him to seize the property of Confederate supporters and to “handle that class without gloves.” Sherman and the Heights of Total War There they extended the scope of military activities. In the summer of 1862, two of them, Pope and Halleck, were brought east.
Far from Washington, those commanders got away with more. The violence and lawlessness pushed Union generals to retaliate against civilians and their property. East Moves Westįrom early in the war, the fighting in the west had been less restrained. Also, in placing the rights of slaves above those of owners, they believed the Union was precipitating a slave rebellion. To the Confederates, it was an attack on their property. In September, Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that if the Southern states did not cease their fight, then all slaves in the Confederacy would be free with effect from January 1, 1863. In July 1862, Congress declared that any Confederate-owned slaves joining the Union would be emancipated. They realized they had to face the controversial issue of emancipation – but only in the rebelling Southern states. Meanwhile, the Union government had given up on protecting the rights of slave owners. He became convinced that only complete pursuit of war could defeat them. They threw back the Union forces and marched north.Īt Shiloh, the Confederates almost beat General Grant. Jackson and Lee in Virginia Bragg and Smith in Tennessee. Then came Confederate counter-offensives. Over the previous winter and spring, the Union had repeated successes.
Battle of Shiloh, by Thure de Thulstrup 1862ġ862 was a tipping point. Lincoln, looking to avoid reprisals, relieved Frémont of his command but a precedent had been set. Confederate guerrillas were executed, their supporters property seized, and their slaves freed.
Frémont, the Union Army’s commander in the West, placed the state under martial law. It had been caught up in the violence between slave owners and abolitionists before the war and had become brutalized by guerrilla conflict and banditry. Portrait of Frémont, by Charles Loring Elliott, 1857. To free them was to violate their assets. However, to some, slaves were regarded as property by their owners and in the laws of the slave states. They believed strong measures were needed to achieve it. Many in the Union sought a more vigorous approach. The Napoleonic wars were an earlier example of the doctrine of “total war” Frémont in Missouri A limited force was to be used to reunite the ruptured nations. Union President Abraham Lincoln looked upon it as putting down a domestic insurrection. The Confederate President Jefferson Davis said, “all we ask is to be let alone.”
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