Commentary
Memorial Day emerged from America’s most deadly and destructive war: the Civil War.
Agreed, social, political, and moral divisions are wracking and weakening contemporary America. But no external or internal challenge quite compares to the Civil War—at least not yet.
Measured by soldiers and civilians killed in combat and by war’s derivative killers—starvation, disease, and exposure—the Civil War has no rival.
Physical, economic, and social destruction are more relative terms and comparing them in different historical eras is tricky.
The Union’s best generals, Grant and Sherman, targeted Confederate economic productivity. They knew the South’s ability to supply its armies prolonged the war. Sherman’s vow to “make Georgia howl” expressed the strategy succinctly….