Question

i think the march to the sea was used as a way of strategy to cripple the confederated war
(Reasoning)
Use your definition of
minimum wage to justify
why your claim (answer to
the question)

Answer 1

Yes — Sherman’s March to the Sea was deliberately strategic, aimed at destroying the Confederacy’s ability to continue the war. To show that, I’ll first give a working definition of “minimum wage” and then apply it by analogy.

Definition (working): minimum wage = the lowest level of income/resources a person or economy needs to meet basic subsistence requirements (food, shelter, transport, ability to work). If income/resources fall below that level, people cannot maintain productive labor or the institutions that depend on that labor.

Reasoning by analogy:
- War depends on an economic baseline, not just battles. Armies need food, clothing, transport, repair, and a functioning economy to pay, supply, and recruit soldiers. That baseline is the wartime equivalent of a “minimum wage” — the minimum flow of goods, services, and revenue necessary for a polity to sustain military operations.
- Sherman targeted the Southern baseline directly. His forces destroyed railroads, bridges, mills, crops, livestock, and warehouses and disrupted communications and tax collection. That wasn’t random vandalism; it was aimed at the Confederacy’s capacity to move supplies, provision armies, and generate revenue.
- By knocking the South’s economic output and supply lines below the subsistence/operational minimum, Sherman made it impossible for Confederate armies and civilian institutions to function effectively. Soldiers starved or lacked uniforms and ammunition, trains and wagons could not move supplies, and the government’s ability to pay and organize forces was crippled.
- The result was increased desertion, lowered morale, logistical collapse, and a shorter war — exactly the strategic effect of depriving an enemy of the economic “wage” they need to keep fighting.

Conclusion: Using the “minimum wage/subsistence baseline” concept shows why Sherman’s march was strategic: it aimed to reduce the Confederacy’s economic and logistical resources below the level required to sustain war, thereby crippling their war effort.