Was The Civil War A Total War?

The Civil War is one of the most well-known wars in American history, and there has been some controversy among historians regarding certain aspects as well, including whether the Civil War was a total war. When looking at how all of the events played out in the Civil War, it was not a total war but looked as though it was because it represented a shift toward more modern war tactics and weapons for the United States. The more modern weapons led to more destruction in America, while the fighting led to more modern war tactics being implemented. Additionally, there were never proper moves toward totality on the American government’s side. One reason the Civil War seemed to be a total war was the use of more modern weapons. The weapons used in

There were orders given to the Union army later in the war to take any supplies from towns they went through but to leave the people behind. While yes, that would cause the city to suffer, typically, with total war, the civilians would not even be saved because it would call for total destruction. This is once again a tactic that is used in wars today. One crucial fact that should be considered in the amount of damage done during the war is that it was primarily fought in the South, and when Confederate troops attempted to push into the North, they were pushed out and kept south. This was a strategy that the Union used in order to preserve their lands. Due to this, the damage was concentrated in the southern states, leading to worse destruction. Additionally, the reading “Daily Life During the Siege of Vicksburg” talks about the Siege of Vicksburg from a Unionist’s point of view. The events described in it are once again things anyone close to a war area would hear or see in today’s world, such as being near a shell going off while in a kitchen. The Siege of Vicksburg, while gruesome, is not much different than what we have seen in wars after the Civil

These are all examples of how the Civil War shifted toward more modern war tactics. At the beginning of the war, Lincoln and other government officials were calling for the reunification of the United States and continuously called for an end to the war. Many historians claim that Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were the ones who incorporated total war into modern warfare and how that requires unconditional surrender, but as Mark Neely points out, Lincoln wrote down on three occasions his terms for peace, which proves that unconditional surrender was not a factor in the Civil War. Additionally, Lincoln maintained a more limited stance on the war for the first couple of years. While his stance did change (along with other federal officials), it did not go as far as total war because this did not result in complete destruction at the time. In the reading “Lincoln’s Grasp of War,” there is a quote from historian Mark Grimsley where he talks about how the Union army treated the western border states as if they were enemy territory. In a way, that region was enemy territory, considering they never took sides and still kept their