Impressive and passionate article. Please keep posting Brecher's war nerd articles.

I like the way Brecher contextualizes his arguments by showing how Sherman saw them:

From way before the war, when Sherman was a professor at a military academy in Louisiana, his attitude toward the South’s Planter culture was like a fond uncle watching his idiot nephew stumbling into a fast car, planning to drive drunk into the nearest tree.

Note: the commentators on the original NYT article that Brecher is demolishing say much the same thing as Brecher here, but without the indignation.