Jomini contended that the violence between two enemy armies on the battlefield had few limitations but that civilians away from the fighting should not be included. “Absolute war,” in his opinion, should remain an action reserved for belligerents, and he made no mention of expanding such a strategy to the civilian population. Jomini held that there was a definite wall between warring armies and the common population. His comments about guerrillas implied condemnation of their style of warfare.

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Sherman agreed with Jomini that noncombatants should be treated differently than soldiers. After the First Battle of Bull Run, Sherman wrote to his wife about the depredations that some of his command had committed: “If he [a private] thinks [it’s] right he takes the oats [and] corn, and even burns the house of his enemy,” he wrote angrily. “No goths or vandals ever had less respect for the lives [and] property of friends and foes.”

Sherman thought these types of infractions were detrimental to the Union cause. When he became commander of the Department of the Cumberland later that year, he compensated Kentucky’s civilians for all property the Federals secured from them for military use. He thought this was the best way to keep border state civilians from straying to the Confederate side. A Northern newspaper declared that Sherman’s policy had “produced a marked change in favor of the Union cause.”

In July 1862, Sherman wrote to Halleck about an incident involving a group of guerrillas attacking a forage train. He believed that they were a band of local citizens from the nearby settlement of La Grange, Tennessee, so he ordered the capture of twenty-five of the “most prominent” men from La Grange, then sent them to Columbus, Tennessee, as prisoners. “I am satisfied we have no other remedy for this ambush firing than to hold the neighborhood fully responsible, though the punishment may fall on the wrong parties,” he concluded.

Sherman had no way of knowing exactly who was responsible for the attack, but he insisted that the local people knew the guilty parties. If they refused to assist in the apprehension of the culprits, then they would suffer the consequences.

The following month, because of the irregularity of Union supply shipments to the Western forces and the Confederate cavalry’s destruction of supply lines and storage facilities, the Federal government began to endorse foraging to offset the resulting shortage in provisions. General-in-Chief Halleck issued orders to Grant that read: “As soon as the corn gets fit for forage get all the supplies you can from the rebels in Mississippi. It is time they should feel the presence of war on our side.”

That same month, the War Department issued General Orders 107 and 108, upholding the idea that if private property was seized in an “orderly manner” and not “pillaged,” its confiscation “for the subsistence, transportation, and other uses of the army” was officially acceptable. The Union army had allowed this type of action before 1862.

Sherman did not like the idea put forth by General Orders 107 and 108. Believing that liberal foraging would lead the men down the path toward outright pillaging, he issued an order that the “demoralizing and disgraceful practice of pillaging must cease else the country will rise on us and justly shoot us down like dogs and wild beasts.” He insisted that while his command was on the move in enemy territory, the cavalry must capture and punish any stragglers engaged in destructive activity.

That same month, however, Sherman became concerned about guerrilla cavalry, as they were constantly attacking his supply lines and destroying Union provisions. They attacked isolated Federal garrisons and scattered their soldiers. When a larger force moved out to meet the bandits, the partisans dispersed in all directions, mingling with the populace.

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