What best describes march to the sea?

Answer 1

US General Sherman's march to the sea was based on the belief held by his commanding officer General Grant that it was necessary to break the Confederacy's strategic, economic, & psychological capacity for warfare if the war was ever to end.

Sherman's tactics were to move east from Atlanta to the sea and employ a scorched earth policy as he went. He ordered his troops to burn all crops, kill all livestock, consume all supplies and to generally destroy all civilian infrastructure along their path.

This policy is considered "total war" and had the tacit approval of the newly elected President Lincoln.

If the South had used such tactics when General Lee on his march to Harrisburg Pennsylvania, he would have been condemned as a war criminal.

Lincoln was able to give his tacit approval for Grant & Sherman, in my opinion because Lincoln was already re-elected. It meant that the Union could not beat the Confederacy on the battlefield despite its huge numerical advantage.

This in my opinion was a cowardly method to win the war.