The Union soldiers, writes Grimsley, were filled with a "deep sense of moral justice" (2), and generally implemented the Union policy by showing sympathy and compassion to the Southern civilians.
This policy of conciliation, however, ended with shocking Union defeats in Richmond in the summer of 1862, followed by the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which recognized the freedom of emancipated Southern slaves.
The changing political climates were thus reflected in a shift in Union policies towards civilians in the South. Most Northerners now believed that the Southerners were not going to be won over by kindness. Grimsley divides the post-conciliation period into two - a pragmatic phase and "hard war." During the pragmatic phase, Union commanders focused on military victories. Southern civilians were no longer seen as strategic pawns. However, official policy continued to separate Southerners into three categories - the overt secessionists, the neutral civilians and those who sympathized with the Union. .
Though official policy no longer involved conciliation, union military forces did not completely abandon political strategizing. There were thus different treatments for Southern civilians, based on the latter's sympathies.
The policy of "hard war" envisioned by Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman did not become the essential and systematic element of Union policy until 1864, when Grant was appointed general in chief.
This is the phase of the war that remains rooted in the Southern psyche. Once again, the Union forces placed a premium on civilian morale as a strategic target. The goal of raids on Southern property, says Grimsley, was not simply to hurt civilians. Instead, they were a part of a larger strategy of psychological warfare. Civilians realized that they could be hurt, and that the Confederate government was powerless to protect them.
Grimsley, however, does not shy away from depicting how Union forces overstepped the bonds of psychological warfare into criminal wartime behavior.
