Which is more moral to destroy in war: men or property?

[Steve]

Even today, in the South, the name "William Tecumseh Sherman" is greeted with vile hatred and loathing. Nobody has forgiven his great March to the Sea, when he reached his great hand (the Army of the West) into the guts of the "Confederate States of America" and ripped them out. People act as if he was an evil, mean-spirited man who delighted in bringing misery to the people. Even I used to think this.

But now, with a new source in hand on the man, I wonder... was he that bad? Sherman's mentality was that it was better to destroy Southern property than get his men or Southerners killed. Grant was taking the old approach in Virginia, battering repeatedly up against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with his Army of the Potomac, which became a meat-grinder (the lifespan of a new recruit could be measured in weeks). Sherman's Army of the West, for all the material damage it did, killed relatively few people on either side.

Strange that the South "forgave" Grant, who butchered so many Southerners, but have hated Sherman since his march even though he didn't kill that many people.

It could be that Sherman's march mostly effected the obscenely wealthy, pseudo-aristocratic rich class of the Confederacy. The very same people who had instigated the War Between the States, and who for the most part were sending the South's poorer men to fight for their continued predominance in the regional power structure, and their continued wealth (earned on the whip-scarred backs of their helpless black slaves). Grant did little damage to their plantations, their slavocracy, but Sherman's March to the Sea liberated thousands of black slaves and burned entire plantations. He, quite simply, made the Southern "gentlemen" pay a price for the war they had instigated for the sake of their power and wealth, and brought the war from the Border States to the Deep South to show the secessionists what horror it is.


So, what do you think is better? Destroy and plunder property, the farms and the industries that feed and arm and clothe the frontline soldiers, and also bringing the war home to those who instigate it and support it, or limit war as Lee and his kind did, to a "Gentleman's War" between soldiers?

[Stormbringer]

So, what do you think is better? Destroy and plunder property, the farms and the industries that feed and arm and clothe the frontline soldiers, and also bringing the war home to those who instigate it and support it, or limit war as Lee and his kind did, to a "Gentleman's War" between soldiers?

I say take it to those that started it. Smash industry and agriculture. It's far better to cripple an enemy than to waste your men in needless battle.

[Iceberg]

My middle school history teacher hated Sherman... but Sherman's method of warfare definitely contributed a great deal to the collapse of the South's morale and its war effort, possibly (hell, probably) more so than the constant battle of Grant's Army of the Potomac.

[Master of Ossus]

Sun Tzu once wrote: A man in rage can be made to laugh. A man in the fit of passion can be restored to good cheer, but a city destroyed cannot be restored; and the dead cannot be brought back to life.

Thus we see that it is more morally correct to destroy property, which can always be replaced, then to destroy people. I think what the South is pissed about is that they're saying he ALSO destroyed people by forcing them to live without their property and things. I think that they should get bent.

[HemlockGrey]

Grant and Sherman were both good commanders, but Sherman's March was ultimately more effective than Grant's meatgrinder, though both were critical elements of the Northern victory.

I think, knock it all down. It's war.

[Mr Bean]

Sun Tzu Said
Therefore, a wise general will strive to feed off the enemy.

One bushel of the enemy's provisions is worth twenty of our own, one picul of fodder is worth twenty of our own. ?

Killing the enemy is a matter of arousing anger in men;

taking the enemy's wealth is a matter of reward.

Pure good military tatics in a war that happend to be in Americas back-yard but remeber, They where at War

War is when killing people is Acceptable

Exuse me if I place *People slight above Property

[Darth Yoshi]

I think that destroying property is better than killing people, since then the most would be demoralized at losing everything. Although it's better to plunder before destroying. That saves you the effort of having to grow supplies, or it gives you money to buy supplies.

[Raptor 597]

Most of thses hatreds came out of the plantation farmers getting put out on their asses. Property & people are 2 vital things, but whichever smashes their morale quicker goes higher on the kill list. Countries that value life give them a fe million casaulties they'll submit. Cripple an industry's system of exportation is crucial for destroying industry.

[Patrick Degan]

Both Ulyssees Grant and William Sherman directly brought about the downfall of the Confederacy in interconnected fashion.

Grant's campaign took the major field army of the South off the board altogether; pinning it into trenches and bleeding it to death through attrition, and in that way left Sherman very largely free to pursue the other end of the campaign. Furthermore, while he lost individual battles in his Wilderness Campaign of late 1864, he was very unlike his predecessors in command of the Army of the Potomoc in that his vision lay upon the overall campaign and not either the previous or next battle. Grant knew that he enjoyed overwhelming numerical and material superiority to the Army of Northern Virginia and could stand heavier losses than his opposite number, and kept to the advance to key objectives —and that also removed any option for Robert E. Lee to do anything but to try to stop Grant short of Richmond.

Sherman, as the historian Shelby Foote observed, was the first truly modern general in that he understood, instinctively, that the civilian home front backed the war effort, and striking at it directly would destroy the enemy's ability to sustain armies in the field. His March to the Sea directly starved the Army of Northern Virginia and accelerated the process Grant was already subjecting it to while keeping it neutralised and unable to interfere with Sherman's operations.

Grant's and Sherman's efforts dovetailed extraordinarily well in the overall strategy to destroy the Confederacy and shortened the war by a whole year. The combined campaign largely rendered any action by any other Southern field force inconsequential —particularly John Bell Hood's reckless sortie into Tennessee with his army which he subsequently wrecked at Franklin and Nashville.

Southern hatred for Sherman, and Phillip Sheridan (who burned the Shennendoah Valley), stems from the fact that the South went into the war believing that it would be conducted by martial tradition upon the field of honour. It was a brutal shock to Southern sensibilities to find themselves in a modern war instead, in which the only rules were those of pure utility and ruthless military pragmatism. They were not psychologically prepared for the realities of war in any way, shape, or form, and it traumatised the South in ways it still has not recovered from to this day.

[Nick]

The purpose of war is to eliminate the enemy's ability to wage war.

Obviously, the simplest (and most effective) way to achieve this is to just annihilate them (i.e. nuke them to hell). This approach has a few environmental drawbacks, and if the other side has nukes too, being the first to unlimber them is a bad plan if you are likely to be wiped out in return.

Some interesting target categories:
1. Enemy soldiers
2. Enemy military hardware/bases
3. Enemy industrial capacity/supply lines
4. Enemy civilians
5. Enemy civilian infrastructure
6. Enemy food sources/water supplies

Destroy enough of any one of those 6 targets, and the enemy will lose their ability to wage war. Waging war requires three things: political will, miltary hardware, and skilled people to operate that hardware.

1. Without soldiers, there is no-one to fight the war. Kill enough soldiers, and you won't have anyone left to fight.

2. Without hardware & bases, an army is useless. A machine gun post, well supplied with ammo, could mow down a horde of peasants armed with sticks.

3. Without industrial capacity, it is impossible to replenish hardware.

4. Without civilians, your industrial capacity suffers (as there is no-one to work the factories). In addition, there is no source of new recruits. Morale effects may go either way - your ruthlessness may harden the enemy's resolve to resist you at all costs (and I'm not so sure they'd be wrong to do so)

5. Without infrastructure, the civilians are going to be distracted just trying to survive. Instead of killing civilians, you distract them.

6. Without food or water, you are distracting both soldiers and civilians. They need food and water to survive - deny it, and they will lose the ability to fight or support the fighting.

So the question seems to be, once you have decided that war is necessary, what is the moral course of action in selecting your targets?

And obviously, that depends on how you see your moral responisibilities. Civilians and soldiers do differ in a significant respect - knowing that an enemy may one day try to kill you is one of the things you signed on for when you joined the army (and if some jackass tries to say 'but I never expected we'd actually go to war', this is when it is appropriate to point out 'then you should never have joined the army, you moron').

So, for mine, the question of 'which is more moral' will depend on the exact infrastructure we are considering. For example, suppose the proposed target is an enemy dam. This dam:
1. Provides power & water for a nearby industrial complex, which includes several munitions factories.
2. Provides power & water for a nearby city

Destroy the dam and all of those munitions factories are out of action. But so is the city - the selection of the target would cause massive collateral damage, even if the strike was executed flawlessly.

I don't think there can be a general rule 'it is more moral to destroy infrastructure than soldiers' - at least, nothing more than the general one of "avoid all unnecessary death - on any side, civilian or soldier". Yes, war is naturally going to be hell - but the toughest decision was already made when it was decided that war was necessary. The moral course then is to set out to achieve your military objectives while causing the minimum amount of harm. Firstly, by avoiding collateral damage affecting non-combatants, secondly by seeking to preserve the lives of your own forces, and then finally by avoiding unnecessary killing of the enemy.

Often, targeting certain types of infrastructure will have flow-on effects causing significant harm to non-combatants. It may be that, in certain circumstances, the only way to achieve your objective is to ambush and slaughter a large group of enemy forces. Moral choices are rarely easy - going to war certainly doesn't make them any simpler. The best bet is to have a solid moral foundation, and never take the 'rightness' of your actions for granted.

[Lagmonster]

Kill the people. War is an extreme form of debate: if you kill someone they cannot side against you. Frankly, it's just as easy to repopulate via a few generations of breeding as it is to rebuild a demolished building, but those buildings don't hold grudges and try to kill you farther down the line.

[BigStevo]

So, what do you think is better? Destroy and plunder property, the farms and the industries that feed and arm and clothe the frontline soldiers, and also bringing the war home to those who instigate it and support it, or limit war as Lee and his kind did, to a "Gentleman's War" between soldiers?

It is equally moral to destroy property and soldiers when in a war.

The destruction of property in war is essential at times to bring your enemy's war effort to a grinding halt; ala the Allied bombing campaign visited upon Germany during World War II. The downside to destroying the infrastructure of a nation is that the civilian population suffers greatly.

The destruction of soldiers in war is essential to bring one of the sides to their knees in a military fashion. You cannot win a war if your opponent's troops are knocking on your presidential door. Battles are where wars are won and lost, excepting in the case of the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, that was pointless slaughter (don't bother trying to argue otherwise, I defy you to find a single battle which changed the eventual outcome of the War). Downside of killing off all of your enemy's soldiers is that when the war ends your former opponent will fall into a severe economic depression while the society tries to replace those lost in the war.

All things considered destruction of property and destruction of soldiers are equally moral as the true losers in a war are the civilians who have to put up with the hardships of having to provide for the war, and recover afterwords.

[Darth Wong]

War is not moral.

Having said that, it is less IMMORAL to destroy property than to destroy human lives. A shattered city can be rebuilt. Homes can be rebuilt. Impoverished people may still survive. But a dead person is a life extinguished. All of his dreams, his loves, his hates, all gone. Forever.

[Nick]

War is not moral.

I suspect we use the term 'moral' slightly differently in this context. I would describe choosing the 'lesser of two evils' as a moral choice, even though the chosen course of action would be considered immoral in isolation.

However, I don't think we actually disagree in our perspective on war - it is an absolute last resort, to be chosen only when the alternatives (including inaction) are even worse.

Having said that, it is less IMMORAL to destroy property than to destroy human lives. A shattered city can be rebuilt. Homes can be rebuilt. Impoverished people may still survive. But a dead person is a life extinguished. All of his dreams, his loves, his hates, all gone. Forever.

*nods vigourously*

[Steve]

Then again, it was that great destruction in Georgia (And then the Carolinas) that freed so many slaves. And it actually convinced the Westerners (technically Midwesterners by our standards) of Sherman's army, who defaulted to "white > black" mentalities, that blacks were the equals of whites; one even referred to the black slaves in a letter as the betters of their masters! Amazing for people raised back then, and not just educated people but your average farmboy-farmer.

Keep in mind that without his corps of predominately black "pioneers" (soldiers who went ahead of the main line of advance and cleared paths), many being recently-liberated slaves, Sherman's army would probably have never finished it's March to the Sea as quickly as it did, or it's longer, harder followup; the march north through the Carolinas to burst into Lee's rear (Where Sherman repeated the destruction of his march through Georgia).

Not that Sherman was against killing the enemy; he said to numerous people, including his wife, that to have a lasting peace 300,000 Confederates must die, because there were just too many fanatics among the Southern cause who would never quit. Which is important because it prevented Sherman from getting a big head and not acknowledging the help he had from his comrades (Grant pinning down Lee and slaying the "300,000", Thomas's Army in Tennessee stopping the Confederates under Hood). His main goal was to go to the people who were supporting the war, the Southern matrons and the rich planters, and let them reap what they had sown.

I really recommend "Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny" by Victor Davis Hanson, it has changed a lot of my thinking about the Civil War and about Sherman. It also is good because it speaks of an ancient general who, despite the greatness of his deeds, is scarcely remembered by modern historians; I am of course referring to the great Theban Epaminondas, who led his Thebans and their Boeotian allies/federates into battle against the dreaded Spartans at Leuctra in 371BC and ripped apart their Similars, then the following year, in support of Sparta's former allies, marched into the Peloponnese with a grand army, sacked Laconia (even entering the suburbs of Sparta itself!) to embarrass the Spartan military in front of their families (much as Sherman did the Confederates), and liberated the Messenians after they had spent over two centuries under the Spartan heel as ill-treated Helots, then stood careful watch over them as they began building a city to protect themselves from Sparta.

And Mike, you say war is immoral. But would you not agree that sometimes, it can become a moral imperative to destroy a greater immorality, such as slavery, helotage, and all the crimes and horrors of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan circa 1940-45?

[Darth Wong]

And Mike, you say war is immoral. But would you not agree that sometimes, it can become a moral imperative to destroy a greater immorality, such as slavery, helotage, and all the crimes and horrors of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan circa 1940-45?

At best, war is necessary. It is never moral. I have noticed that a lot of people tend to argue that if you advocate doing something, you must think it is moral. That is not the case; people do things which violate their own moral codes all the time, if they feel they are necessary.

[Nick]

At best, war is necessary. It is never moral. I have noticed that a lot of people tend to argue that if you advocate doing something, you must think it is moral. That is not the case; people do things which violate their own moral codes all the time, if they feel they are necessary.

That's what I thought you meant. My own use of the word 'moral' extends to the concept of 'immoral in isolation, necessary in context' (similarly, I would sometimes describe failing to take such a course as being immoral, if inaction caused more harm than the identified necessary course of action).

However, in this border area ranging from 'moral', through 'immoral, but necessary' to 'immoral', I'd tend to clarify what I meant, since different people are likely to use the word 'moral' slightly differently in this context.

For example, you clearly distinguish the moral judgment ("Is this a good thing to do?") from the forced choice ("Is this something that must be done?"), whereas I tend to view the entire situation as a single moral judgment ("In the circumstances, is this the best course of action available?"). Consequently, what we mean by 'moral' and 'immoral' actions is going to differ slightly because of the way we construct the question.

But it's just a terminology issue - and so long as we recognise that the term has a couple of possible meanings (and ask for clarification if it is unclear which is meant) then it isn't a problem.

[Steve]

And Mike, you say war is immoral. But would you not agree that sometimes, it can become a moral imperative to destroy a greater immorality, such as slavery, helotage, and all the crimes and horrors of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan circa 1940-45?

At best, war is necessary. It is never moral. I have noticed that a lot of people tend to argue that if you advocate doing something, you must think it is moral. That is not the case; people do things which violate their own moral codes all the time, if they feel they are necessary.

Ah, good. I was hoping you would say that.