William Tecumseh Sherman suffered a nervous breakdown early in the Civil War and was called insane by the press. He then conducted the March to the Sea — a campaign of deliberate destruction across Georgia that broke the Confederacy’s will to fight and invented the concept of total war that would define every major conflict of the twentieth century. The “crazy” general turned out to be the most strategically visionary military mind America ever produced.

This episode traces Sherman from his Ohio childhood through the breakdown, the partnership with Grant, the March to the Sea, and the “War is hell” philosophy that anticipated modern warfare by fifty years.

• Sherman’s early career failures, the nervous breakdown, and the “insane” press coverage
• The partnership with Grant and the Western Theater campaigns that turned the war
• The March to the Sea — systematic destruction designed to break civilian morale and end the war faster
• The invention of total war and Sherman’s prophetic understanding of what modern conflict would become