By Dr. Nassir Ghaemi on October 09, 2008 in Mood Swings



William Sherman, the weather pattern behind "Gone with the wind", likely suffered from manic-depressive illness. I think that his insights into war (and peace) stem from his mental illness, in particular his manic creativity and his depressive realism. (Some research suggests that mildly depressed persons are more realistically accurate about their environment than completely non-depressed persons). In these features, Sherman differs from relatively sane individuals, like George W. Bush. This is why Sherman would never have invaded Iraq.

To make this claim, let's back up to acknolwedge Sherman's fame as an originator of the concept of "total war," the idea that war is not merely fought between armies, but between peoples, the shift from purely military to psychological and economic goals. As Sherman put it: "My aim was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us." In World War II, this approach was perhaps reflected, on the Allied side, in the bombing of Dresden, or even Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and on the Nazi side, through the institution of concentration camps for resistant civilians in captured territories. Sherman cannot personally be blamed; his methods in Georgia and the Carolinas were tame compared to what happened in the second World War. But the logic of his methods could be, and were, extended in those horrible directions.

It may have been Sherman's depressive realism that produced his total war innovation: he knew war was horrible, and he wanted to remove any pretense otherwise. In July 1864, outside Atlanta, he argued: "I propose to remove all the inhabitants of Atlanta.....If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking. If they want peace they and their relatives must stop war." And afterwards: "I had to go through Georgia and let them see what war means." The British military historian B. H. Liddell-Hart, who wrote a study of Sherman, captured the psychological insight behind Sherman's depressive realism: "War is an anarchical state of mind," the British historian wrote, "started by peoples, and ended by armies." Sherman had opposed war; he had wanted Southerners to stop making noise about secession, and northerners to stop seeking abolition of slavery. But once the two peoples started the war, Sherman the soldier saw the army's role as putting an end to it. And this meant, not defeating the Southern army, which had not started the war, but defeating the Southern people, which had done so.

Sherman knew it was painful, so he wanted to be fast about it. And within a year of fully putting his methods into practice, the war was over, as he had predicted, ended not by the capture of Richmond, but by the destruction of Georgia and the Carolinas. Just as quickly as Sherman had become the embodiment of the hard hand of war, he provided peace terms to Joseph Johnston, his long-time foe, that were so generous that Grant had to rescind them. Sherman the warrior now advocated peace, not punishment. He opposed Reconstruction and the military occupation of the South, and advocated the rapid return of the southern states into the union. In a 1865 speech, he famously said: "The only legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace."

Indeed, one might say that Sherman hated war, and that he only waged it harshly so that it would never be waged lightly. This message still has not sunk into the hearts of our military and political leaders: they accept that wars are clashes between peoples, not just armies, but they do not seem to appreciate something more important: The reality of total war means that war should not only be a last-resort, but, ideally, a never-resort.

Towards the end of his life, Sherman spent much of his time attending reunions of the Grand Army of the Republic, rarely turning down such invitations, and other social and political gatherings. He adamantly refused the Presidency, when offered on a plate repeatedly, sticking to his realistic assessment that he might be able to wage war well, but he was not very good at anything else. Though he could have spent most of his war afterlife defending all he had done throughout the war, or attacking his foes, or glorifying the whole experience, he instead tried to keep alive the harsh lessons of that horrible experience. The Sherman of peace is still poorly understood, however, and often misinterpreted through the prism of the Sherman of war. His famous comment "War is hell," for instance, was never actually stated thus, and gives the false impression that he approved of the harshness of war. In fact, the context and meaning are quite different. The comment derives from a speech in 1879 to the graduating cadets of the Michigan military academy: "There is many a boy here who looks on war as all glory," he said. "But boys, is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations to come."

This voice never reached the Bush White House. Bush is going, but on the campaing trail, his party's candidates still echo the glorification of war. Sherman was a Republican, but not this kind of Republican.

Now is the time for his voice to be heard anew.