Scorched Earth Warfare Against Shenandoah Valley

Posted: 7/31/2014

Trigger

Just read “Violence, Chaos and the Expansion of Government Power in 1864/Gen. Grant's order to turn the Shenandoah Valley into a 'desert' signaled an unsettling new chapter in the Civil War.”

Previously, I was only aware of general Sherman’s March to the Sea.

About the strategic importance of the Shenandoah Valley at the time: “During the Civil War, Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was a vital resource to the Confederacy.  Not only did it serve as the Confederate “breadbasket”, it was an important transportation route.” (Source)

Salient Quotes

Selected quotes from the above article (Emphasis added):

1. “On July 15 Grant signed an order that the Shenandoah Valley should be made into a "desert" and "all provisions and stock should be removed, and the people notified to move out." His troops would "eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of the season will have to carry their provender with them."”
2. “[Gen. Philip Henry] Sheridan ordered his men to leave the valley a "barren waste" and boasted that when his operation was complete, the Shenandoah Valley "from Winchester to Staunton will have but little in it for man or beast."”
3. “Many who lived in the Shenandoah Valley, such as Mennonites, had opposed secession and refused to join the Confederate army, but their property was also looted and burned.”
4. “President Lincoln congratulated Sheridan in a letter on Oct. 22, 1864: "With great pleasure I tender to you and your brave army the thanks of the nation and my own personal admiration and gratitude for the month's operation in the Shenandoah Valley."”
5. “The devastation visited on the Southern economy and its civilian population by Sheridan, Sherman and other Northern commanders made the South's postwar recovery far slower than it might have been, multiplying the misery of white and black survivors. Historian Jim Downs's "Sick From Freedom" (2012) showed how chaos and illness during and after the war contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of freed slaves.”

Abraham Lincoln An Overrated President

The president of the U.S., a god fearing man, congratulates admiringly what would today likely be considered a war criminal. Here is a facsimile of the original letter of Abraham Lincoln to Gen. Sheridan of 10/22/1864.

I have blogged previously about the Lincoln and the American Civil War here, here, and here.

Black Americans Were Subjected To Unnecessary Misery

I did not know that the scorched earth warfare committed by Union soldiers acting on orders from President Abraham Lincoln down probably killed hundreds of thousands of freed slaves.