During the winter of 1864, Congress debated a bill that would commission Ulysses Grant the first American lieutenant general since George Washington. Then, on March 3, Henry Halleck telegraphed Grant twice – to tell him the commission had been signed by the president and to order him to Washington to take over direction of the war.
As he took charge, Grant was evolving a grand strategy for concluding the war. He had doubtless talked through this redesign with his most trusted and brightest lieutenant, William T. Sherman, as Sherman accompanied Grant on the first leg of his train trip east. Over time, however, generals on both sides came to realize that the war was too widespread geographically and too mobile, given river and coastal steamers and the railroad, to reach a simple climax in one place. In effect, both sides then settled down to a war of attrition, where the goal was to keep punishing the enemy, wearing him down gradually, expecting not a knockout blow but the eventual destruction of enemy men, material, and finally morale.
Both Grant and Sherman would wage war upon the South – a “war of attrition.” In this week’s Discussion Forum, you are to evaluate this type of warfare. Was it the most effective way to bring the war to an end, or – given the woeful condition of the South by 1864 – was it too barbaric?
This is a Position Paper, no need for works cited page.