“To the Mattresses”: The Union Assault on Southern Households as Battle Strategy

During the Civil War, the Union army rarely waged war on individual civilians. With few exceptions, military leaders had little interest in targeting specific individuals and making them feel the “hard hand of war.” At the same time, however, many Union leaders recognized that their enemy was a collection of households, so they designed military tactics to undermine these households. William Tecumseh Sherman, who particularly focused on the Confederate household, in 1864 called the war a “fearful family quarrel.” His actions in Memphis as well as those during the Georgia and Carolinas campaigns demonstrate his commitment to undermining Southern households and disciplining his wayward Southern “family.” Yet, the assault on households extended throughout the Union war effort and to many other commanders. Sherman’s brother-in-law and foster brother, Thomas J. Ewing’s actions in Missouri followed the same logic as did Philip Sheridan’s tactics in the Shenandoah Valley. Ulysses S. Grant, too, saw the value in targeting Confederate households to win the war.

            This essay explores several widely used tactics to demonstrate how attacking households was interwoven into the Union’s military strategy. Union commanders realized that if they could destabilize and destroy enemy households, the Confederacy would inevitably collapse. This logic, for example, explains the Union commanders’ evictions of civilians from towns, emancipation of enslaved African Americans, destruction of railroads and agricultural fields, and invasion and burning of civilian homes. These measures struck at the Confederate economy, but more importantly, created instability and disrupted households, the basis of the South’s political structure and economy.  In addition, Union commanders articulated their belief that a war on households could undermine the political legitimacy of the Confederacy, foster political dissent, weaken morale, and force Confederate leaders to allocate military resources to the homefront rather than expect resources to only go in the other direction.