Sherman's March to the Sea vs. Scorched Earth

RalofTyr

Banned
For instance, say the Georgian Home Guard applied the tactic of scorched Earth against Sherman's Union army as it marched to the sea.

Would the Home Guard be able to burn and destroy enough Southern supplies to prevent them from falling into the hands of Gen. Sherman's forces to change the tide of battle or at least, prevent Sherman from making his way to Savannah?
 
Not sure that would work with the Southern mindset of opposing federal imposition and protecting private property. If the soldiers actually were given, followed, and were able to follow this order, it might. It would certainly delay Sherman's advance until the Union logistics caught up with him. But it would also serve his purposes admirably. He will now know that wherever he goes, the Rebels will destroy irreplaceable war stocks, alienate their rural population and destroy their transport network, and he doesn't even have to do the work himself. Georgia isn't Russia, they don't have a Ural mountain chain to move behind.
 
Change direction....

If they devastate the crops in one direction, Sherman can simply change direction, and go another way--the south has a lot of farmland. Of course, if Sherman hasn't started carving his swath of destruction, and rebel generals start with a scorced earth policy, you might find a counter-rebellion cropping up...
 
If they devastate the crops in one direction, Sherman can simply change direction, and go another way--the south has a lot of farmland. Of course, if Sherman hasn't started carving his swath of destruction, and rebel generals start with a scorced earth policy, you might find a counter-rebellion cropping up...

Oh I don't know about that. Sherman was following the rail line from Tennessee for a reason.

That, said I'm mostly with you and carlton on this one.
 
Oh I don't know about that. Sherman was following the rail line from Tennessee for a reason.

That, said I'm mostly with you and carlton on this one.

That reason applies less with sixty-thousand of the cream of his army than twice that of a more lumbering force.

Personally I think the main problem with scorched earth is that it does Sherman's work for him - he doesn't need to make the interior of the south feel the hard hand of war if they're doing it even more thoroughly than he would have.
 
I'm sorry, but if the Russians are behind the Urals they've lost the war more than a CSA withouth Virginia, Georgia, NC, and SC.

I think they meant in the sense that the CSA doesn't have some major barrier they can move most of their industry/farmland behind and out of reach while they destroy the stuff in the immediate area their enemy will be able to grab.
 
Once Atlanta has fallen there is no barriers, natural or otherwise to stop Sherman until he reaches the Atlantic Ocean. No Confederate commander is going to destroy an entire state in a vain effort to stop an army that he knows cannot be stopped.
 
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