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Source:  Carroll, Andrew, ed. War Letters. New York: Washington Square Press, 2001.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman Defends Himself Against Those in the South Who Call Him a "Barbarian," Denounces Unsupportive Northerners, and, After Conquering Atlanta, Asserts That the "People of Georgia [Now] See We Are in Earnest"

War, to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, was neither romantic nor glorious. It was destructive beyond comprehension and relentlessly cruel. But few commanders waged war with more ferocity than Sherman himself. "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen," he contended, "and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let-up, no cave in till we are whipped-or they are. " Striking out from Chattanooga in early May 1864 with 100,000 men, Sherman was under orders from Grant to shatter Joseph E. Johnston's combined Confederate armies and seize Atlanta. Sherman vowed to "make Georgia howl," inflicting so much damage and suffering on the South the very spirit of the rebellion would be crushed entirely. "We can make war so terrible," Sherman declared, "and make them so sick of war that generations [will] pass away before they again appeal to it." Sherman emphasized often in his letters that he bore no personal animosity toward the South; indeed, having spent most of his adult life there, many of his oldest friends were Southerners. One of them, Annie Gilman Bowen-the only pro-Union member of a secessionist family-maintained a friendly correspondence with Sherman during the war. In the following letter to Bowen, Sherman laments how he is perceived by her relatives but, in his characteristically impassioned style, declares that the South is solely to blame for whatever terror is to come.

Head-Quarters, Military Division of the Mississippi,
In the field, near Marietta Geo. June 30 1864. 

Mrs. Annie Gilman Bowen,
Baltimore Md. 
Dear Madam,

Your welcome letter of June 18 came to me here amid the Sound of Battle, and as you say, little did I dream when I knew you playing as a school girl on Sullivan's Island beach, that I should control a vast army pointing like the swarm of Alaric towards the Plains of the South.

Why oh why is this? If I know my own heart it beats as warmly as ever towards those kind & generous families that greeted us with such warm hospitality in days long past but still present in memory, and to day were Frank and Mrs. Porcher, or Eliza Gilman, or Mary Lamb or Margaret Blake, the Barksdales, the Quashes, the Poyas, indeed any and all of our cherished circle-their children, or even their children's children to come to me as of old, the stern feelings of duty & conviction would melt as snow before the genial sun, and I believe I would strip my own children that they might be sheltered.

And yet they call me barbarian, vandal, a monster, and all the epithets that language can invent that are significant of malignity and hate. All I pretend to say on Earth as in Heaven, man must submit to some arbiter. He must not throw off his allegiance to his Govt. or his God without just reason & Cause. The South had no Cause, not even a pretext. Indeed by her unjustifiable course she has thrown away the proud history of the Past, and laid open her fair country to the tread of devastating war. She bantered & bullied us to the Conflict. Had we declined Battle, America would have sunk back coward & craven meriting the Contempt of all mankind. As a Nation we were forced to accept Battle, and that once begun it has gone on till the war has assumed proportions at which even we in the hurly burly sometimes stand aghast. I would not subjugate the South in the sense so offensively assumed, but I would make every citizen of the land obey the Common Law, submit to the Same that we do-no worse no better-our Equals & not our Superiors.

I know and you know that there were young men in our day, men no longer young but who control their fellows, who assumed to the Gentlemen of the South a Superiority of Courage & Manhood, and boastingly defied us of northern birth to arms. God knows how reluctantly we accepted the issue, but once the issue joined like in other ages, the Northern Races though slow to anger, once aroused are more terrible than the more inflammable of the South-Even yet my heart bleeds when I see the carnage of Battle, the desolations of homes, the bitter anguish of families, but the very moment the men of the South say that instead of appealing to War, they should have appealed to Reason to our Congress, to Our Courts, to Religion and to the Experiences of History then will I say Peace- Peace- Go back to your point of Error & resume your places as American Citizens with all their proud heritages.

Whether I shall live to see this period is problematical, but you may, and may tell your mother & sisters that I never forgot one kind look or greeting, or ever wished to efface its remembrance, but in putting on the armor of war, I did it that our Common country should not perish in infamy & dishonor.

I am married-have a wife and six children living in Lancaster Ohio. My career has been an eventful one, but I hope when the clouds of anger & passion are dispersed and Truth emerges bright & clear, you and all who knew me in early years will not blush that we were once close friends. Tell Eliza for me that I hope she may live to realize that the Doctrine of "Secession" is as monstrous in our Civil code, as Disobedience was in the Divine Law. And should the Fortunes of War ever bring your mother, or sisters, or any of our old clique under the Shelter of my authority I do not believe they will have cause to regret it.

Give my love to your Children,
& the assurances of my respect to your honored husband. Truly
W T. Sherman Maj. Genl.

Convinced that Joe Johnston's inability to halt Sherman's steady march toward Atlanta was a weakness of will, Jefferson Davis replaced Johnston with thirty-three-year-old john Bell Hood as commander of the Confederate army. Hood, who was crippled in the arm at Gettysburg and had lost a leg at Chickamauga, took the offensive and attacked the Union forces repeatedly outside of Atlanta in late July. After several failed assaults, costing 20,000 men, Hood withdrew his army behind the city's ramparts. Sherman had no desire to repeat previous Union disasters by storming entrenched positions only to have his soldiers wiped out in waves. So he cut off sup-ply routes to Atlanta and began a constant bombardment that would last a month. During the siege, Sherman received a letter from a friend named Silas Miller, who occasionally sent gifts and kept Sherman informed on political and social matters in Northern cities like New York, where riots had flared the previous year after a draft was announced. (Immigrants, unlike wealthier citizens, did not have the means to pay "commutation fees" of several hundred dollars or hire replacements to avoid enlistment, and they lashed out most vehemently against blacks, whom they blamed for the war. Mobs set fire to their homes, churches, and even an orphanage, and at least two black men were lynched.)  As the presidential campaign reached its final heads-the antiwar wing of the Democratic party-backing George McClellan and "negro-hugging worshippers" of Abraham Lincoln were at a fever pitch.  Sherman though displeased was not surprised.