What was the aim of total war as practices by Union generals Grant and Sherman?

Answer 1

Basically the goal was to force the Confederacy into a War of Attrition. With more people and an industrial structure, if it came down to it, the Union could outlast the Confederacy. It was actually taken from Fabien's strategy to deal with Carthage.

Answer 2

Union generals Grant and Sheridan began conducting military operations in 1863 that have erroneously been termed "total war". The use of this term is not based on a clear definition of the term at all. Because the goals of the Union and Confederate forces were different, "total war" is often applied to the Union's type of warfare. This requires further explanation and leads back to the reason the South believed it could win the war against what its leaders already knew was a vastly larger group of armies the North had the ability to raise.Southern leaders and high level generals understood that to win its independence, it required a sound and effective defensive war. The South had no intention of destroying the Union. It did have the intention of destroying the North's will to continue the war.

In doing so, Confederate General Robert E. Lee fought conventional battles on the two major incursions into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lees main target was the armies the Union sent to oppose him. His soldiers did not seek to win battles by destroying the North's infrastructure.

Whatever criticisms that were and have been leveled against General Lee, none claim that he ordered the wantonly destruction of civilian property in Maryland or Pennsylvania. Lee has been criticized for "military and strategic errors". In any war, even the best of plans can fail.

On the other hand, even before anyone in the nation ever heard of US Grant, it became clear, even to General George B. McClellan, that the Union could only be successful by either destroying the Southern armies and also capturing major cities.

In doing this the South would be defeated because the North either forced an early surrender of the South, or it no longer had the ability to field major armies, based on losses of its soldiers. The South had to be defeated before the Union could claim victory and end the Southern rebellion.

The Union had every chance to have been successful in this but they failed to do so time and time again.

With that said, yes, total war meant the destruction of the Confederacy. This could have been done in the conventional methods of the times. Total, however, can be scaled or measured in more than one way.

The best way to describe the total war initiated mainly by Grant, Sherman and President Lincoln, is to first have a look at what total war actually is. To do this World War Two is the prime example.

There came a point in WW 2 that the Allies required the end of the Axis governments.

And, based on the potential technological advances by German scientists to create an atomic bomb, major force was required to end Axis power in any way possible.

The Allies did what Hitler and Tojo did, namely win by terror. The differences, however are major and need not be explained.

Hitler used terror in Europe and Tojo did the same in China and the Philippines.

The "Rape of Nanking" and the "Death March of Bataan" are prime examples of terror with an unjust cause. This is "Total War". For the Allies the Firestorm of Dresden and the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also total war with a good cause.

This type of total war was not Union strategy as 1863 began.

The new Union strategy of destroying supplies that could help Confederate armies remain fighting in the field is best described as a strategy of "exhaustion".

Certainly this was not conventional warfare, and Sherman's March to the Sea for example is still under dispute.

Grant's tactics in the 1864 Overland campaign were criticized not for the cruelty imposed on Lee's army, but criticized on the basis of the unnecessary losses of Union troops.

Lincoln came to the point of telling Grant that there could be no more Union frontal assaults that killed so many Union troops at Cold harbor or Spotsylvania.