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Old 04-06-2022, 08:33 AM
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Unhappy History: William Tecumseh Sherman Knew the Enduring Cruelty of War

History: William Tecumseh Sherman Knew the Enduring Cruelty of War
By: Mitchell G. Klingenberg - The Conversation & Military.com News - 04-03-22
Re: https://www.military.com/benefits/20...ty-of-war.html

Photo link: https://images03.military.com/sites/...?itok=A50avlWO
A Ukrainian serviceman walks next to a fighting vehicle, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.

This article first appeared in The Conversation.

It is doubtful the tragic devastation of the Russia-Ukraine War would surprise William Sherman were he alive today. The iconic U.S. Army soldier was a student of war at home and abroad.

Sherman, who lived from 1820 to 1891, concluded that war – what the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz defined as “an act of force to compel [an] enemy to do [one’s] will” – is a fixture of human nature.

“Neither you nor any set of men have a right to say that your labors are lost,” Sherman told graduates of the Michigan Military Academy in 1879, “for wars have been, are now, and ever will be as long as man is man.”

Sherman also understood from experience – what he regarded as “the best of all possible schools” – that “war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.”

In December 1860, Sherman served as superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning, now Louisiana State University. After numerous professional setbacks in civilian life, Sherman had found his vocation: instructing cadets in the military art. Reared by foster parents, Sherman was also preparing a home of his own for his wife and children, whom he hoped to move from Ohio to Louisiana.

But war came when southern states seceded from the Union and when insurrectionists shelled Fort Sumter in April 1861.

Civil War
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sherman re-entered the U.S. Army as a colonel of infantry. He secured command of a brigade in the field, and led his unit well at the Battle of Bull Run, despite the victory for Confederate forces. From Bull Run, Sherman rose in rank until he commanded vast Union armies on campaign.

Through it all, Sherman witnessed war’s devastation. But contrary to popular myth, he was not indifferent to it or cruel himself. When Sherman captured Atlanta in September 1864, he insisted that civilians be evacuated from the city and offered assistance. City council members protested, deploring the hardships an evacuation would entail.

In his reply to the mayor of Atlanta, Sherman noted horrific losses civilians elsewhere had endured throughout the war, many of which were suffered at the hands of Confederate soldiers and resulted from Confederate policy. He cited the hypocrisy of the council’s appeal:

“I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of Rebel Soldiers left on our hands and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition … to carry on war into Kentucky & Tennessee, & desolate the homes of hundreds & thousands of good People who only asked to live in Peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.”

After they evacuated Atlanta’s inhabitants, Sherman’s columns marched to the sea, captured Savannah, and established a new base of operations on the eastern seaboard. The campaign became infamous in the post-war South for atrocities Sherman and his men were alleged to have committed against civilians, but claims of war crimes are exaggerated. In fact, Sherman restrained his troops from committing greater depredations.

The cruelty of war:

The historical omnipresence and cruel nature of war are facts even seasoned international relations experts now confront anew. The truth that “war is hell” – as Sherman probably declared to veterans in 1880 – is no less true in 2022 than it was in 1864.

Newfangled concepts of “hybrid,” “gray-zone” and other theories of contemporary warfare – in which lethal violence is less pronounced – are proving flawed in theory and in fact. War on the ground still devastates troops, civilians and homes, and determines the destinies of nations. None feel these realities more severely than the Ukrainians, whose homes, hospitals, cities and villages Russian military forces are reducing to ashes through indiscriminate and lethal firepower.

The loss of any home was a terrible fact of war with which Sherman empathized. Writing in 1862 to his daughter, Minnie, from Memphis, Tennessee, Sherman described the cruel nature of war with poignancy: “I have been forced,” he wrote,

“To turn ‘families’ out of their houses and homes and force them to go to a strange land because of their hostility, and I have today been compelled to order soldiers to lay hands on women to force them to leave their homes to go join their husbands in hostile camps. Think of this, and how cruel men become in war when even your papa has to do such acts.”

“Pray every night,” Sherman continued, “that this war may end; not that you want me home, but that our whole people may not become robbers and murderers.” It is a prayer, one suspects, uttered by many scores of Ukrainian and Russian children.

‘A more perfect peace’

Because Sherman grasped war’s inherent violence, he labored to end the Civil War swiftly. Sherman did not delight in human suffering. He did not revel in destroying enemy property. In fact, Sherman was a moralist whose use of state-sanctioned violence flowed from ethical and humanitarian concerns.

Sherman believed that it was more ethical to destroy enemy infrastructure and materiel than to kill human beings. Just as he grasped war’s cruelty, Sherman understood the need to wage war with overwhelming force, all with the purpose to end hostilities as quickly as circumstances might permit.

Deeper knowledge of William Sherman and of armed conflict will better equip leaders in the West to confront the true nature of future war. Then, when war invariably comes, Americans will be better prepared to secure the “more perfect peace” for which Sherman hoped – and which he believed was war’s true “object.”

about: Mitchell G. Klingenberg is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Instructor of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the United States Army War College.
Also; This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Personal note: Going back in our history is was obvious that waring
comes at a cost - and loss of personnel during those times and even
today. Can add up to some tremedous losses on both sides. Not just
the lands - but the structures on them as well.
-
You would think our past wars would require a great deal more
consideration prior to having another - and/or its entry. Yet even
with todays weapons of destruction - it's evident that this waring
process can and will - result in heavy loss of life - and its destruction
of those cities - that will cease to exist - as well as its people.
-
To further add - todays weapons would no dobut be nuclear to -
which - it will result in a toxic poison going into both the air and
lands - thereby; poisoning the grounds to a point where food
can no longer grown.

Any surviors of nuclear war will have been be exposed to radioactive
releases - contaminating both the person - the wildlife & the all
surrounding grounds as well.
-
We've heard it said - That there are no winner's in war's.
Moreso - now - when they are now nuclear. The contamination
would kill all plants and animals - and starvation will result.
You can not live in a radioactive area for a long period of time.
__________________
Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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