Grimsley, Mark. The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians 1861-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xii, 239.

Royster, Charles. The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans. New York: Vintage Books. 1991. Pp. xii, 515.

The American Civil War unleashed upon the American soil armies of a magnitude previously never experienced by Americans. Whether fighting for the Union or the Confederacy, these armies shared a common goal: to defeat an enemy perceived by much of the population as a threat to the Antebellum status quo. For supporters of the Confederacy, the aspect of their lives perceived to be threatened by the North was the institution of slavery. For supporters of the Union, the threat that the enemy represented was the dissolution of the Union, itself. The strong ideological basis held by the two warring camps precipitated a conflict in which not only the military and political leadership, but much of the civilian population felt a stake in the success of one side or another. This dispute over slavery and secession had become a war between people, a true civil war. The involvement of the entire population, combined with the strong ideological bases for motivation to wage war resulted in a degree of violence, heretofore unknown by Americans. Both Mark Grimsley's The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians 1861-1865 and Charles Royster's The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans examine the motivations which led the warring armies to adopt policies described as "hard," or "destructive" forms of warfare and the extent to which these policies were executed.

In his book, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians 1861-1865, Mark Grimsley traces the political and moral foundations behind the treatment of Southern civilians by Union forces over the course of the war, from the "conciliatory" policy of the early war towards the eventual "hard war" measures towards the end of the war. This examination of the changing nature of Union treatment of civilians is used to prove the thesis that the "hard war" policy, towards the end of the war, was not indiscriminate in its application of violence, but rather remained the deliberate and restricted application of violence to achieve a political goal. (Grimsley 2) The path that Grimsley uses to prove this thesis is by examining the political intentions by the Union policy makers and the realities faced by the military in the field. Grimsley refers to the initial plan for Union treatment of civilians as the "conciliatory" policy, in which Southern civilians were to be treated as citizens of the Union, without regard to secessionist position, in an effort to rekindle latent Unionist loyalties among secessionists and avoid alienating Southern unionists, who were perceived to be a significant proportion of the population. (Grimsley 19) Grimsley argues that with the failure of McClellan's peninsular campaign, and the consequential frustration that accompanied the belief that the war would not soon end, combined with the unfortunate experience of guerrilla tactics employed by some pro-Confederacy partisans, a push was made by Radical Republicans in congress and by field commanders, primarily in the Western Theater, to abandon conciliation in favor of measures which would seek to demonstrate to Secessionists the folly in endorsing secession while preventing the alienation of pro-Union Southerners. (Grimsley 95) The resulting "pragmatic" policy demanded that Union forces would differentiate between Southerners in varying degrees of support for the confederacy while implementing an increase in organized foraging. Grimsley describes the eventual escalation to "hard war" measures as a consequence, primarily, of the Union move towards emancipation, a move which proved to render unhealable the wounds between the North and the old slave holding elite in the South. (Grimsley 135) With no further possibility of a peaceful return to the Antebellum status quo, the protection of enemy property from Union foraging became irrelevant. Furthermore, the deliberate destruction of the South's infrastructure and agricultural capacity would hasten a Union victory because the supply base of the Confederate Army would be diminished, as would the resolve of Southern civilians to continue the struggle for independence. Grimsley argues that during this period of deliberate application of destruction, best represented by General Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas, that although crops and livestock were destroyed, the homes of Southerners were protected, and enough food protected so as to support the family who grew it. Grimsley argues that when wholesale destruction of property was performed, it was implemented so as to enact revenge for specific events, such as for beginning the war in the case of South Carolina. (Grimsley 200) In summation, Mark Grimsley's The Hard Hand of War addresses the issue of the destructiveness unleashed upon the South during the Civil War was a deliberate implementation of political policy, calculated so as to most efficiently provide for a Union victory.

In contrast to Grimsley's book, the argument made by Charles Royster in The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans is that the degree of violence in the Civil War, both on and off the battlefield, is a result of a strong desire on behalf of many Americans, Northerners and Southerners alike, to subject the enemy to violence and destruction as a means of enacting revenge and, therefore as a means towards national vindication. (Royster 39) Royster forwards this thesis by examining the careers of two figures who personify the move towards waging a destructive war, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson. For many Southerners, General Jackson's aggressive style of field command, characterized by his ruthless treatment of soldiers while on the march and his battlefield audacity and resolve, represented the ideal manner in which the war should have been waged. (Royster 73) Similarly, Royster argues that General Sherman's aggressive implementation of Union policy, particularly in the widespread destruction of Southern property in his Georgia and Carolina campaigns, embodied the desire by many Northerners to punish the South for starting the war. Royster examines the methods and motivations of the two Generals by focusing on a few key events in the lives of the Generals, namely the destruction of Columbia, South Carolina, the last days of General Jackson after the battle of Chancellorsville, General Sherman's resolve after the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and the Grand Review of the victorious Union armies after the war. In summation, Charles Royster's The Destructive War examines the extent to which aggression and destructiveness were characteristics of the war, embodied in the persons of Union General W. T. Sherman and Confederate General T. J. Jackson, which were supported by the American people, North and South.

Mark Grimsley's The Hard Hand of War and Charles Royster's The Destructive War both address the issue of the extent of destructiveness and the motivations behind this destructiveness in the American Civil War. Where these two historians diverge is in the approaches taken to describe the roots of violence or destructiveness as military policy or a mirror of society. Grimsley approaches the examination of destructiveness as a measure of military policy dictated by political and military factors, namely the pressures from Radical Republicans to change the scope of the war so as to threaten Secessionist resolve and the difficulties faced by troops in the field such as guerrilla warfare and insecure supply lines. By examining the evolution of Union policy in this way, Grimsley argues that the eventual use of a "hard war" strategy grew out of the initial decision by the Union leadership to wage a limited war, a strategy that had been quite popular with Democratic politicians and commanders, including Union theater commanders George B. McClellan and Don Carlos Buell, many of whom had political or economic ties to the South. The widespread support for a "conciliatory" policy, not only among Democrats but also among moderate Republicans, including Lincoln, suggests that the desire for a destructive war was not present in the early months of the war. This contrasts significantly with Royster's book, in which he maintains that a desire for widespread destruction was prevalent at the outset of the war, North and South. In regards to Southern sentiment concerning the nature of the war, Royster states that "[f]rom the beginnings of secession... many Southerners called for devastation of the North." (Royster 34) Similarly, Royster describes that"[a]s in the South, a popular call for destructive measures arose at once in the North." (Royster 79) This might have been a popular sentiment among civilians, however one cannot infer that patriotic calls for destruction of one's enemy translate into a desire to implement previously unknown degrees of military violence against one's former countrymen.

Mark Grimsley's The Hard Hand of War and Charles Royster's The Destructive War both employ extensive primary resources, such as memoirs, letters, military orders, and contemporary periodicals. Although both authors do, indeed, offer counter arguments, such as Grimsley's acknowledgement that the limitation of "hard war" often failed because of the willingness of soldiers to protect each other (Grimsley 195) and Royster's acknowledgment that during Sherman's campaign through the Carolina, "[i]nhabited houses were seldom destroyed," (Royster 342) both authors tend to limit their sources to those most likely to support their theses while excluding those most likely to detract from the strength of their theses. For example, the vast majority of the eyewitness accounts of Union protection of homes during Grimsley's descriptions of "hard war" are by Union soldiers. A greater percentage of accounts by Southerners whose houses were protected by Union soldiers, as compared to those by the Union soldiers themselves, would increase the potency of Grimsley's argument in refuting the widespread belief amongst amateur historians that Sherman's campaigns were replete with indiscriminate violence. Similarly, although his selection of letters and memoirs is more balanced, Royster's emphasis on contemporary newspapers as a gauge of civilian attitude risks interpreting alarmist headlines as societies wills. Overall, however, the use of sources by both historians demonstrate extensive research and attention to detail, the mark of any good researcher.

A major strength shared by both Mark Grimsley's The Hard Hand of War and Charles Royster's The Destructive War is clear and readable prosaic styles. Royster's book is composed in a very flowing, almost literary prose. The accounts of historical events are described much as events in a novel. His choice to give citations by page rather than by number allows the reader to traverse the text uninterrupted by visual discontinuities, such as footnotes and parenthetical documentation. Grimsley's book, in contrast to Royster's text, is composed with clear, concise statements, interspersed with numerous quotations. Grimsley's ability to communicate subject matter in clear terms makes the text very readable. In both cases the prosaic style, however different, proves to be a considerable strength.

The citizens and soldiers of the Civil War era experienced more violence and destruction than any prior generation in American history. The study of the nature of that destruction is an issue of great historical significance. In their examination of the destructive or "hard war" policies and attitudes during the Civil War, both Mark Grimsley in The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Towards Southern Civilians 1861-1865 and Charles Royster in The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans present strong arguments as to the nature of the implementation of destruction. Grimsley argues that Union military policy towards Southern civilians began as a conciliatory approach, but then evolved towards greater use of force until the application of "hard war" policies became the norm. Yet, even then, Grimsley argues, the use of violence and destruction was not indiscriminate, but rather directed and subject to criteria. Royster, on the other hand, argues that the desire to destroy the enemy was present in both camps from the beginning of the war. Both arguments approach the use of violence and destruction from a different perspective. While not entirely compatible, both are certainly quite valid as historical examinations of the American Civil War experience.

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