A general in the Civil War he served under Grant, but was the commander in the western theater of war. A skillful tactician, he employed the strategy known as "total war". Doing this, his armies would march through the south burning everything they could and even inflicting casualties on the civilian population. He crippled the Confederacy by killing their people and burning their resources which forced their ultimate surrender. His effort of total war has been used in every major war since.