Correspondence with the City Leaders of Atlanta, Georgia
September 11–12, 1864

A Union general responds to pleas to spare a city

"We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey."

Late in the summer of 1864, the leaders of the Union Army made a change in their military plans. Before this time, they had concentrated on finding enemy troops and beating them on the field of battle. But they gradually concluded that this approach did not go far enough to bring a timely end to the war. Instead, they decided to adopt a strategy of "total war." This strategy involved confiscating (seizing) or destroying private property belonging to Southern...