But if discordant now, Sherman words were sweet symphony to nearly all contemporary military leaders who felt very much as he did. Sherman's prose is more prolix passion than prescient prediction, but his exuberance is a time machine of sorts. Of course, it rarely is as we might wish it, and was not to be so for him and his ever-shrinking legions. My comment is not a call for return to the articles of war. Yet many today may forget the ultimate purpose of the military and how ineffective and, indeed, dangerous to liberty an undisciplined force is.
Armed forces are powerful, dangerous, and expensive mobs unless well-ordered.
Defiant soldiers will fail to vanquish enemies and threaten domestic stability. He referred to problems that Royalist and parliamentary commanders confronted with their rowdy forces during the English Civil War. We may well, however, relearn some old lessons at great cost in the 21 st century. Carnage on the digitized battlefield will be no prettier than blood-soaked Shiloh. Whether conventional, nuclear, asymmetrical, or whether against traditional powers or rogue states, war will always be the hell that Sherman said it was.