What General was largely responsible for the physical and economic ruin of southern citys during civil war?

Question

General Scott
General Sherman
General Lee
General Pickett

Answer 1

Of course, the canned answer is General Sherman. But he actually only was responsible for this "total war" result in one region. And from another point of view, one might argue that it was General LEE whose choices, and esp. whose military successes, prolonged the war till it led to this result.

The eminent Civil War historian, James McPherson, makes this point in his book, *Drawn with the Sword*:

"Without Lee the Confederacy might have died in 1862. But slavery would have survived; the South would have suffered only limited death and destruction. Lee's victories prolonged the war until it destroyed slavery, the plantation economy, the wealth and infrastructure of the region, and virtually everything else the Confederacy stood for. That was the profound irony of Lee's military genius."

Answer 2

commonly used Sherman replaced into somewhat responsible for the actual and fiscal smash of many southern cities in the course of the Civil warfare, because of his march in the course of the middle of Georgia to Savannah. His troops took what they needed and deliberately destroyed something else that ought to probably be used by the enemy. Horses and farm animals were taken or destroyed. plants that were no longer seized for nutrients were burned. Factories, railroads, warehouses, and public homes were destroyed. Sherman's purpose replaced into for his troops to interrupt something that can be of military earnings to the Confederacy, yet on occasion they resorted to wild looting.

Answer 3

Sherman gets the credit.

I'd still give Grant a close second. His western campaigns gave the Union the Mississippi, and that wrecked a few cities along the way. That, combined with his Virginia campaigns, give him a close second to Sherman.

Answer 4

General William T. Sherman, "The Scourge of the South"

Answer 5

Sherman during his march to the sea.

Answer 6

Good ole Sherman and his dreaded carpetbaggers. He also gave plantations to newly-freed blacks, which relieved them from debt-inducing sharecropping.

Answer 7

sherman but he wanted a lenient reconstruction policy