Reply #4: Okay, I'm gonna veer way off the B-ball topic here.......

[akarnitz]

I've got a lot of respect for Sherman. I think he was lousy as a tactical general. He was promoted up to Commander of the West, imho, because of the attachments he and his brother(Sen. John Sherman, R-OH)made both at the front with Grant and in Washington with the War Department. General Sherman turned out to be a hell of a strategist, however.

I do believe he made a more famous "War is hell..." quote during the war to justify to the citizens of Georgia that this war was of their making; that if they were to attempt another rebellion they might want to think about the consequences.

This type of warfare, total warfare, was of Sherman's making. The last major war the western world had seen was the Austro-Sardinian War, a war fought using the same grand strategies, and in the same numbers as the Napoleonic Wars, using those same tactics. A magnificetly numerous amount of troops were casualties at Magenta and Solferino, but the impact upon the civilians in Italy was very light.
Sherman decided that the only way to end ALL conflict with the secessionists was to cripple the infrastructure for generations to come, to stifle the economy of the region. And, by God, it worked! Tearing up the railroads, torching barns, confiscating livestock...it worked. I don't believe Sherman's plans contained any malice(with the exception of the burning of Columbia, SC, the birthplace of the secession movement). I think he wanted to end this bloody conflict forever.

I'm afraid it's a lesson lost to today's chickenhawks. Cable news sexes up war too much; not enough people have ever felt what impact war might on their daily lives. The only way to re-learn Sherman's lesson is with pain.