Gabriel Elefteriu
“War is Hell”, William Tecumseh Sherman said in 1879, looking back on his years campaigning against the Confederacy during America’s Civil War. Sherman, that most notorious of Union generals, already knew in the second half of the 19th century just how much brutality and effort it takes to subdue a peer enemy in the industrial age.
His famed 1864 scorched-earth-style “March to the Sea,” reminiscent of medieval chevauchées, cut a large swathe of sheer destruction through Georgia on the way to the port city of Savannah. It dealt a major (some say critical) blow to the Confederate economy, logistics and war-making potential, quite apart from its significance in strictly military-operational terms.
Sherman’s forces devastated all infrastructure (civilian and military) in its path, transport networks, industrial facilities, and pretty much anything else with economic value that was possible to burn or blow up.
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