Unit 4 Essay: The War of Attrition
Post date: Nov 14, 2012 7:13:6 PM
Unit Essay: The War of Attrition
In order to get credit for this project, you must write an essay on the following topic:
The War of Attrition
Attrition is the military strategy in which a belligerent side attempts to win a war by wearing down its enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and materiel. Historians often describe 1864 as a war of attrition against the South. Indeed, 1864 was such a heavy year of fighting in the Civil War that one Union soldier remarked that he felt he was constantly, "Walking through the valley of the shadow of death." This was the year that the Grant and his trusted Lieutenant William Sherman proceeded to break the back of the South through a total war of brutal attrition. Consider some of the campaigns and battles of 1864, and write a well-developed essay of no less than 600 words explaining how the North waged a war of attrition against the South in 1864.
Some helpful links for this essay:
The Wilderness (Overland) Campaign
General William Tecumseh Sherman, an early advocate of "Total War"
