Excellent posting and comments.

I’ve just read Sherman’s Memoirs and did not detect any such genocidal inclinations towards Southerners. Sherman had served in Florida, South Carolina, and, after resigning his commission, in Lousiana and had many friends throughout the South.

He fully intended to “make Georgia howl” as a matter of policy but was careful to minimize civilian distress so long as they did not interfer in his mission. The memoirs contain his general orders to his troops. He even publicly hanged one of his own men convicted of rape.