Why read The Hard Hand of War?

Book cover of The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861 - 1865

Book description

The Hard Hand of War, first published in 1996, explores the Union army's policy of destructive attacks upon Southern property and civilian morale - how it evolved, what it was like in practice. From an initial policy of deliberate restraint, extending even to the active protection of Southerners' property and…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Hard Hand of War as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Candice Shy Hooper

Author

If Campbell’s book places Sherman and his strategy and tactics in the context of female Confederate resistance, Grimsley — one of the nation’s most innovative thinkers and writers of military history — places Sherman’s thinking and actions in the context of the evolution of the United States’ treatment of Confederate civilians.

The Lincoln administration policy in the beginning, notes Grimsley, was “to exempt white Southerners from the burdens of war.” But by 1864, a “hard war” policy, embracing attacks upon and/or confiscation of Southern civilians’ property, had become the guiding military policy of the United States.

Sherman’s inventive, carefully planned…

From Candice's list on William Tecumseh Sherman.