Though historians have pretty much closed the door on the Civil War being a “total” war, there are some new books that have exposed some of the more brutal and “savage” aspects of the war. Daniel E. Sutherland’s A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (Civil War America) and George S. Burkhardt’s Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War, are both nice contributions to Civil War scholarship.
Total War has been replaced by “hard war” thanks to Mark Grimsley’s excellent book, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and though I have argued that the American Civil War was as “total” a war as it could have been, most historians would not accept my analogy. I argued that the “By and large there were no ethnic or racial elements that motivated either side to kill civilians on any kind of significant scale. There were no ideological battles of annihilation. The Civil War could never have escalated to that.” (citation).
Now comes George S. Burkhardt’s book that argues, essentially, that there was a total war within the war, and one that was savage and brutal and was fueled by race, ideology, and hatred.
Burkhardt, in his Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War, argues that, Lincoln’s “emancipation” proclamation and the “enlistment of black soldiers…created the conditions that prompted Confederate atrocities against black civilians and soldiers, the resulting hard war set the stage for Southerners to refuse quarter or mercy to white Federal troops.” (p.2).
Though he apparently doesn’t know it, Burkhardt is arguing that a total war took place within the Civil War, and one where combatants and civilians both suffered indiscriminately. Not only does he make this case, he makes it fairly convincingly. According to Burkhardt, both sides not only pillaged and burnt homes, killed civilians, but they also committed countless war crimes by executing surrendered troops and killing the wounded. Many of these crimes went undocumented and could only be found via the letters and correspondences from those involved as well as civilian eye witness reports.
The aftermath of such fights as Milliken’s Bend, Olustee, Brice’s Cross Roads, as well as other well known battles: Pillow, Petersburg, Mobile, ect., saw Confederate and Federal troops hunted down, murdered, and sometimes tortured captives and not all of them apparent combatants. The most vengeful fighting took place when black soldiers were involved, and white officers sometimes paid the price with them. The vivid details of surrendered black soldiers and their white officers marched off the battlefield and executed, sometimes hanged, are at times shocking. By employing black soldiers and offering emancipation, Burkhardt argues, Lincoln and the Union guaranteed a brutal and bloody affair those last 24 months of the war.
Though Burkhardt’s book is well researched and finely written, I’m not sure ultimately that his thesis is proven completely. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, there were already signs that the war would become more personal and bloodied. In 1862 Arkansas, reports of Bushwhackers and Texas Rangers capturing straggling Federal troops and executing them was not unheard of. This in turn led to Federal reprisals.
Overall, Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil is an excellent book and I highly recommend it!
The Civil War was in many ways the first 20th century war. Sherman’s devastation of civilian areas, the indiscriminate bombardment during the siege of Vicksburg and trench warfare were very 20th century. It was a total war that affected soldiers and civilians.
All three of the things you list were in use long before the American Civil War. Contrary to popular Southern belief, the behavior of Sherman’s army was quite mild in comparison to what was visited on civilians in practically any previous war (granted, that would be cold comfort for those Southerners who lost their homes). Siege operations–the trench warfare you mention–was the dominant mode of warfare back in the 17th and 18th centuries, and did not begin in the 1860s. It was commonly accepted that if a besieged fortress or town refused to surrender, than the population could be “put to the sword” if the attacking force was victorious. Thus, targeting of civilians also did not begin in the ACW, and was comparatively mild in that conflict.
Without a doubt, the Civil War foreshadowed the 20th century total wars, especially the First and Second World Wars.