Background
In the Autumn of 1864, following the fall of Atlanta,
Union Major General William T. Sherman deliberated with General Grant of what
to do next. Lieutenant General Hood, the commander of the inferior-strength Confederate
army opposing Sherman, moved westward to threaten the long Union supply train
stretching from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Sherman proposed to sever his own
supply chain, move east to the sea, and force Hood to follow him. Subsidiary to
the main effort of the Atlanta campaign, that of capturing rail-lines, vital to
the logistics supporting Confederate armies, was the desire of Sherman to wreak
devastation throughout the heart of the South, previously untouched by war. Sherman’s
March to the Sea, as it had been popularly known was so devastating, that
either through myth or reality, the mere mention of Sherman’s name will invite
epithets in parts of Georgia to this day.
War Crime?
Central to this legend is the prevalent Southern assertion
that Sherman’s march was a war crime. Through the lens of today’s International
Criminal Court, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and counterinsurgency warfare
of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to cry “war crime” is an easy escape from a careful,
rational consideration of Sherman’s 1864 and the realities of the war.
This author maintains that though Sherman’s campaign through
the South brought with it pain and suffering to civilians, it was in absolutely
no understanding a war crime. This essay will explore the history of laws
governing the conduct of war, It will explain the contemporary context and
governing authorities understood in 1864, and will illuminate the actions taken
in that campaign in light of the aforementioned considerations.
A Brief History of the Laws of Warfare
It is important to consider the history of the laws of
warfare as they have certainly morphed and changed along with the development
of humanity. Additionally important to distinguish of course, is the definition
of a war crime. Is a war crime something that is a moral constant, unchanged
across the continuum of human history, regardless of established law? Is a war
crime something that runs afoul of contemporary international standards, or
understandings? And in its most narrow of understandings, is a war crime
something that violates a combatant nation’s own established laws of warfare?
The Bible informs us of ancient laws that God gave to
the Hebrews governing their warfare. The books detailing the history of ancient
Israel is rife with specific dictates governing how God wished war to be
conducted. In certain occasions, every living thing to include animals was to
be killed and the entire city razed to the ground. In other circumstances, only
the men were to be killed, the rest of the people enslaved, and the captured
cities dwelt in and the booty shared. The Koran also tells of similar stories
governing who was to be killed, who was to be enslaved, and who was to be set
free.
With the rise of Islam also arose the clash between
Muslim East and the Western adherents of the Christian faith. Political and
material goals of war were clothed with the garb of the respective religions in
order to popularize the struggles. The concept of holy war arose with this
clash of civilizations. Virtually any atrocity was allowable because it was
sanctioned by God or Allah himself. Those who perished in battle were assured
of eternal life as a reward for faithfulness to the cause.
Similarly, with the schisms created by the Protestant
Reformation in Europe, battles were intensified due to the religious nature. Additionally,
in places like France, due to the large population of Protestant Huguenots, the
conflicts took the form of brutal civil wars.
With the rise of secularism spurred on by the
enlightenment, wars within Europe took a turn for a more civilized form. Military
Historian and Theorist, Martin van Creveld says:
Thus our modern
ideas concerning the difference between combatants and non-combatants only date
back to the second half of the seventeenth century. It was in this period that
war began to be looked on as the business of states acting through their chosen
instruments. … People who are not members of the armed forces … are not
supposed to take up arms, fight, or resist in any way. In return, their persons
are not supposed to be violated by an invading army.[1]
The romantic vision of warfare held by many Americans in
the first months of the American Civil War was molded by the wars modeled by
enlightened European potentates in which very gentlemanly rules of conflict
were followed. Extremely limited engagements were made upon battlefields the
singular results of which would more often than not spur the loser to sue for
terms of peace from the victor.
Today, the U.S. does not allow foreign countries to have
jurisdiction over the individual war-fighters when it comes to matters of war
crimes. The U.S. applies its own laws to their combatants. The issue of
privately contracted security forces providing services to U.S. diplomats in
Iraq during the height of the insurgency in the mid 2000’s highlighted a recent
clash in interpretations of war crimes and jurisdiction. The U.S. maintained
jurisprudence over these American citizen contractors while the so-called
sovereign Iraqi government attempted to extradite some of these contractors for
what their jurors deemed as homicides. This persistent ambiguity about war
crimes makes it challenging to define what constitutes a war crime today, let
alone looking back 150 through the distorting perspectives of World Wars I and
II, Vietnam, and other insurgency warfare.
In all history laws governing warfare were very
utilitarian. The laws were made to protect one’s own interests. It was
considered prudent to spare the life of a captive in the hope that the enemy
would reciprocate. Law governing warfare is at its base paradoxical. Much of
law is written to encode morality. The very concept of war is morally
reprehensible… a necessary evil. The fact that humans have developed laws to
govern how war is conducted virtually defines these laws as contemporary
understandings… almost as treaties.
The Laws Governing War in 1864
Though the United States was not party to any
international law governing land warfare, it did use foreign law in
consideration of how to conduct itself on an international scale. One of the
sticking points in 1861 was how to regard the Southern rebellion. The South
knew its greatest hope of independence lay in international diplomatic
recognition and the protections it could receive through the subsidiary trade
relationships. To counter that, Lincoln maintained the whole affair was an
internal rebellion… yet enacted a blockade of shipping to Southern ports, an
act that the international community interpreted through their courts as an act
of war between two belligerent nation-states.[2]
Similarly, Lincoln, in order to protect Union soldiers, treated surrendering
Confederate soldiers as prisoners of war.
The issuance of the emancipation proclamation and use of
Negro soldiers in the Union Army, created new problems of law. Routinely, Negro
soldiers captured by the Confederates would be enslaved or sometimes summarily
executed. To further enforce the legitimacy of the proclamation and to promise
retaliation of servitude against Southern prisoners, Lincoln issued General
Order Number 100, the Lieber Code.[3]
The code was the first issuance of laws governing the conduct of war. Within
the code were quite a few articles that legally governed Sherman’s campaign.
Article 21 stated that “the citizen or native of a
hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile
state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of the war,” while
Article 22 promised as much protection to the unarmed civilian “as the
exigencies of war will admit.”[4]
Article 24 acknowledged that “the private individual of the hostile country is
destined to suffer every privation of liberty and protection” and that “protection
was, and still is with uncivilized people, the exception.”[5]
And Sherman doubtless followed Article 29 to its fullest intent in that “The
more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are
brief.”[6]
While the Lieber code seemingly authorizes the
destruction of property and equipment that could be used to support the war
efforts of the enemy, the Code strictly forbade the destruction of private
dwellings and religious places. Article 37 reads: “The United States
acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and
morality; strictly private property; the persons of the inhabitants, especially
those of women: and the sacredness of domestic relations. Offenses to the
contrary shall be rigorously punished.”[7]
Finally, the Lieber code completely and unequivocally
forbade random violence, looting and destruction in the harshest terms:
All wanton
violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of
property not commanded by the authorized officer, all robbery, all pillage or
sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming,
or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death, or
such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the
offense. A soldier, officer or private, in the act of committing such violence,
and disobeying a superior ordering him to abstain from it, may be lawfully
killed on the spot by such superior.
Sherman’s March
With the Lieber code then legally governing Sherman’s
actions, how did his and his army’s actions compare? In the first place,
Sherman officially abided by the code to the fullest measure. In all of his
correspondence and orders, Sherman took great pains to give clear instructions
to his corps commanders to set limitations of their individual destruction.
In no way did Sherman practice a deliberate campaign of
wanton destruction throughout the South. In locations where Sherman had very much
supervision and spent a great deal of concentration on dispensing destruction,
the devastation was brutal, but precise. In Atlanta, dwellings, churches, and
other places of public venue were guarded by soldiers, while the business
district was completely razed.[8]
And, while Sherman strictly forbade unwarranted
destruction of private property, he did allow reprisals commensurate with the
level of guerilla hostility in the regions passed through. Sherman said, “In districts
… where the army is unmolested no destruction of … property should be
permitted, but should guerrillas or bushwackers molest our march, or should the
inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local
hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or
less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.”[9]
Another point of misery caused by the decision of
Sherman to cut his supply trains was the foraging off of the land in order to
feed the Army. The practice of foraging to supply oneself was well established
during Napoleon’s time. Clausewitz spends Chapter 14 of Book 6 discussing the
methods of foraging off of the local economy during campaigns.[10]
Sherman instructed his corps commanders to forage off local farms to provide
for themselves. No limits were set aside from ensuring the residents maintained
enough for self-sustenance and progressive discriminations between rich and
poor.[11]
Like Lincoln, Sherman himself was struck with compassion
for the individuality of suffering. He would sometimes sit by the fire at night
after a Southern woman had pleaded with him to protect her livestock from the
foragers in the Union Army and “musingly say – ‘I’ll have to harden my heart to
these things. That poor woman today – how could I help her. There’s no help for
it. … Jeff Davis is responsible for all this.’ But in the morning before
starting, he would sometimes see that a supply of provisions was left at the
house.”[12]
One cannot discuss Sherman’s March without pausing to
consider the destruction of Columbia in comparison to Georgia. It is a
certainty that Columbia was by, and large razed, along with many residences and
private property. There exists no record of Sherman or any of his commanders
under him authorizing or directing this devastation. Most of Sherman’s
detractors point to the statement Sherman made in Savannah in the winter of
1864 while planning his march to the north into South Carolina, the first
secessionist state, “the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to
wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel
that she deserves all that seems in store for her.”[13]
Liddell Hart claims logic dictates that the burning of
Columbia was not deliberate policy, but a tragic convergence of factors. The
Confederates abandoning Columbia lit the very large cotton supply ablaze almost
as the Union vanguard entered the city. Many a Columbian who had not fled
attempted to placate the Federals with free dispensations of whiskey. With
poorly supervised drunken soldiers and a fire being further spread by a very
blustery night, it is not difficult to imagine several of them getting out of
control and further ‘encouraging’ the flames.[14]
Hart’s ultimate defense is that “generals who plan to burn a city are unlikely
to take up their quarters in the middle of it.”[15]
While Sherman in no ways condoned or even permitted
unnecessary destruction, it certainly occurred, both in Columbia and elsewhere.
But it was most certainly not a condoned practice or even prevalent. “Power can
be assumed, as well as entrusted, and in men trained to forage without limit
the distinction between forage and pillage is easily obscured. And the pillager
disappointed of detachable loot easily finds vent for his feelings in the
destruction of fixtures, when the simple conjunction of a barn and a match can
relieve them ‘brilliantly’ at little risk of discovery.”[16]
Conclusion
Sherman’s campaign following Atlanta was above all,
brilliant and vital in ending the war. While the focus of the political leaders
of the day focused on Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, the effect that
Sherman had on the will to fight of the Southern Confederacy cannot be
underestimated. We may not know for certain how many of the deserters from the
various Confederate armies were primarily influenced by their concern for their
families’ well-being due to Sherman’s march, but if must have been substantial.
“I think our
campaign of the last month, as well as every step I take from this point northward,
is as much a direct attack upon Lee’s army as though we were operating within
the sound of his artillery. … we are not only fighting hostile armies but a
hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand
of war as well as their organized armies.”[17]
While this “hard hand of war” is not pleasant to contemplate for those on the
losing side of the conflict, from multiple points of view, Sherman’s campaign
can in no wise be considered a crime of war.
References
Doswald-Beck, Louise.
“The Civilian in the Crossfire,” Journal
of Peace Research 24, no. 3 (September 1987): 251-262. http://www.jstor.org/stable/424365
Ecelbarger, Gary. The Day Dixie Died: The Battle of Atlanta.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010.
“General Orders No. 100:
The Lieber Code.” The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp
[accessed January 11, 2013].
McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Sherman, William T. Memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman. New
York: Penguin Books, 2000.
van Creveld, Martin. “The
Clausewitzian Universe and the Law of War,” Journal
of Contemporary History 26, no. 3/4 (September 1991): 403-429. http://www.jstor.org/stable/260653
von Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976.
Witt, John Fabian. Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American
History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.
[1]
Martin van Creveld, “The Clausewitzian Universe and the law of War” Journal of Contemporary History 26, no.
3/4 (September 1991): 412, 413
[2] James
McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The
Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 386, 387.
[3]
John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The
Laws of War in American History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012), 248.
[4]
“General Orders No. 100: The Lieber Code,” The Avalon Project, Yale Law School,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp
[accessed January 11, 2013].
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Ibid.
[8] B.
H. Liddell Hart, Sherman: Soldier,
Realist, American, (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1993), 335.
[9] Ibid.,
333.
[10] Carl
von Clausewitz, On War, (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1976).
[11]
Hart, 333.
[12] Ibid.,,
339.
[13]
Ibid., 358.
[14]
Ibid., 366-368.
[15]
Ibid., 367-368.
[16] Ibid.,
333-334.
[17] Ibid.,
358.
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