Total War by Other Means

Just when it looks as though the Civil War has been done to death, scholars find ways to resuscitate it. Not long ago, “memory” studies became the hot ticket. They now constitute something of a subfield for the war. Environmental historians would like to duplicate that success, and judging from some recent work, they deserve a hearing.

The field has interested the general historical community for a good many years. Environmental History, first published in 1996, evolved from the much earlier Environmental Review, which debuted in 1976. Jack Temple Kirby, well known for his work on the rural South, goaded Civil War historians into tackling the environment in 2001, the same year that memory studies first grabbed our attention. Kirby’s thought-provoking essay, “The American Civil War: An Environmental View,” caused only a modest stir at the time, but environmental interpretations of the war have steadily gained traction.¹

Going beyond long-standing interest in how the war affected Southern agriculture, this new departure has explored aspects of the weather, ecology, deforestation, geology, wildlife, and disease. Two historians deeply involved in its development are Lisa M. Brady and Kate Megan Nelson. Both have published previously on the environment and the war, and while quite different in their interests and interpretive frameworks, their new books distinguish them as leading authorities in the nascent field.

Brady’s work comes closest to what might be called “traditional” Civil War history in that it explores the impact of Union military strategy on the environment. She begins with the well-known scenario of a stalled Union war effort in 1863. The Northern public and politicians were restless; Abraham Lincoln was worried. The president had already been forced to endorse the radical measure of emancipation, and he had been desperately shuffling generals in and out of his high command since mid-1861. Back then, the Federals had hoped to wage a “civilized” war that spared the South’s civilian population undue suffering and humiliation. By 1863, Lincoln had abandoned that dream. His generals would have to do something more than defeat rebel armies in the field. Victory required that they also crush the economic vitality of the Confederacy and the morale of its citizens.

In appraising the new strategy, Brady looks specifically at how Union policy “undermined the region’s most basic relationship to the natural world” (p. 23). This is not to say that there were eco-sensitive Union generals who thought in those terms. They were simply desperate to end the rebellion. As William T. Sherman put it, the North was fighting against “a determined foe and the obstacles of Nature” (p. 67). Consequently, according to Brady, the Federals found ways to “exert control over nature,” to “reshape the environment,” and to conquer “landscapes that had deep meanings for those involved in the conflict” (p. 23). She makes her case by describing three Union military operations: Ulysses S. Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, Philip D. Sheridan’s subjugation of the Shenandoah Valley, and Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas.

Nature initially defeated Grant, as one aborted engineering scheme after another failed to put his army in a position to storm the rebel citadel at Vicksburg. Besides that, the climate and swampy terrain, with their attendant illnesses, ravaged his men. When they finally crossed the Mississippi River in May 1863, Grant ordered them to live off the land. They must not abuse women and children, he warned, but everything else was fair game. Grant’s main concern was that, as they confiscated or destroyed food, forage, livestock, farming implements, and other property with potential military value, his men “’cripple the rebellion in every way.’” Their onslaught, as Brady describes it, resulted in “an attack against . . . the...