Analysis Of Abraham Lincoln, John Pope And The Origins Of Total War

After reading Daniel Sutherland’s “Abraham Lincoln, John Pope and the Origins of Total War”, Sutherland describes how Sherman/Grant may have carried out a dominant plan in successfully ending the war, but that John Pope deserves the majority of the credit for originating it. One of Sutherland’s points he tries to get across to the reader is how the Lincoln’s 1862 summer is pushed towards making drastic, yet rushed decisions on the lasting conflict between the north and south over slavery. Because of this, Sutherland describes how Lincoln hires John Pope to direct an army to victory with a plan unlike any other, planning to strike hard and fast to end the conflict. However, Sutherland also describes how Pope’s plan and leadership backfires due to a poorly planned, aggressive evasion, leaving Sherman/Grant to take over Pope’s failed idea, which is then carried out and wins the war. For this, I believe that Sherman/Grant’s “idea“ to win the war is a bit unfair due to using Pope’s plan, however to a positive decent as the United States eventually benefits from the resolution. After reading the article’s entirety, I came to the …show more content…
In the article, it is claimed that Sherman/Grant used Pope’s original idea to win the war, but no original credit was given back to Pope. Personally, this is found to be a weakness in the article, mainly because of how Sherman/Grant are credited for Pope’s idea towards ending the war. I think of this to be a weakness mainly because of how Sherman/Grant carried out the war tactics successfully, rather than Pope. Plus, I think the weakness of the article leans towards giving Pope a chance towards fame for the original war idea, although he failed to lead correctly. Since Sherman/Grant picked up the plan, perfected it and won the war, the war duo deserve the credit, concluding why I think giving Pope a try at fame is a weakness that may lead to