Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861 1865

This volume fits into an emerging interpretation of the Civil War that questions its status as a total war and emphasizes instead the survival of political logic and control even in the midst of a sweeping struggle for the nation's future. Through comparisons with earlier European wars and through the testimony of Union soldiers and Southern civilians alike, he shows that Union soldiers exercised restraint even as they made war against the Confederate civilian population.