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Katharine Isabelle

Katharine Isobel Murray (born November 2, 1981), known professionally as Katharine Isabelle, is a Canadian actress. She has been described as a scream queen due to her roles in various horror films. She started her acting career in 1989, playing a small role in the television series MacGyver. She gained fame for the role of Ginger Fitzgerald in the films Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning.

In 2014 Katharine Isabelle was awarded the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actress for her role as Mary Mason in the Canadian body horror film American Mary.

Early life
Katharine Isabelle Murray was born on November 2, 1981, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her parents are Graeme Murray, a production designer who has won two Emmy Awards for work on The X-Files, and Gail Johnson Murray, a writer and producer. Her paternal grandparents and maternal grandfather are from Scotland. Her paternal half-brother is Joshua Murray, a director and former actor.

Career
Isabelle has been credited under several stage names during the course of her career.

She began her acting career at the age of eight as Katie Murray, playing an episodic role in the television series MacGyver in 1989. Then she continued to act in small episodic roles in television series and films such as: Cold Front, Immediate Family, The Last Winter, Burning Bridges, Children of the Dust, Salt Water Moose, and Married to a Stranger.

Isabelle has worked with her half-brother Joshua Murray in Cold Front and The Last Winter. In 1998, she worked with her father Graeme Murray on an episode of The X-Files titled "Schizogeny".

In 1998, she played Lindsay Clark in the film Disturbing Behavior, where Katie Holmes, James Marsden, and Nick Stahl were her film partners.

She first found fame with the role of Ginger Fitzgerald in the film Ginger Snaps, directed by John Fawcett; actress Emily Perkins became her co-star in the film as Brigitte Fitzgerald. Casting took place in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Isabelle auditioned on the same day as Perkins at their agency in Vancouver, reading to one another off-camera. Screenwriter Karen Walton said that they were exactly as she had pictured the characters when their taped auditions had arrived. The film tells how during the filming of an amateur horror film, the two sisters find themselves being hunted by a monster. One of the sisters is bitten, but her wounds heal incredibly fast leaving the sisters suspicious of what it is that's hunting them.

What Culture said:

"Obsessed with death and morbidity, and afraid of adulthood, Ginger Fitzgerald, portrayed by Katharine Isabelle of American Mary fame, only gets worse when she's bitten by a lycanthrope and the transformation into a wolf begins. She gradually becomes aggressive and over-sexualised, loses her relationship with her sister, grows pointy teeth and sprouts hair in really weird places. She even grows a tail that she actually attempts to cut off. It takes a big set of cojones to try to cut off any body part. Ultimately though, the film is interesting because it examines the dichotomy between Ginger's humanity and her animalistic side."

Jessica Roakes of The Toast also mentions the metaphorical nature of the character saying "Ginger’s body has betrayed her by menstruating. This is a key tenet of the body-horror genre — the monstrous comes not just from the outside, but from within the human body, from infection or perversion or unwanted biological functions. In Ginger’s case, it is her metamorphosis from girl to woman that renders her monstrous."

The actress also portrayed the character in the sequel Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) and the prequel Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning.

Two years later, Isabelle appeared in the film Insomnia. In this detective thriller directed by Christopher Nolan, the actress played along with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. In 2012, Isabelle starred in the horror film twins Jen and Sylvia Soska American Mary. American Mary premiered at the London FrightFest Film Festival on August 27, 2012. It received a limited theatrical run in the U.S. on May 31, 2013, and became available on video on demand on May 16, 2013. This role brought her many awards at various horror film festivals, including the "Fangoria Chainsaw Awards".

In 2008, Isabelle received the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for her role in The Englishman's Boy. She later reunited with Perkins in Another Cinderella Story where they played the daughters of Jane Lynch's character.

Cooperation with the gothic sisters continued in 2014 when Isabelle played a major role in their 2006 horror sequel, See No Evil 2. Later, she played a major role in the thriller Primate. In 2015, the film 88 starred Isabelle, after she played a cameo role in the film The Girl in the Photographs.

Also, she played a small role in the short film Iteration 1 and one of the main roles in the action film Countdown in 2016. In 2019, Isabelle was cast as Vera Stone in the Netflix horror-drama series, The Order.

Personal life
Despite acting in a large number of gory films and television productions, Isabelle is uneasy with the sight of real blood.

In 2003, Isabelle almost died from a viral infection, which caused one of her lungs to collapse, as well as kidney failure. She fell into a coma and had to be put on a ventilator. Isabelle made this revelation in 2020, on her Instagram account.

title: Katharine Isabelle


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Mauthausen concentration camp

Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly 20 km east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three Gusen concentration camps in and around the village of St. Georgen/Gusen, just a few kilometres from Mauthausen, held a significant proportion of prisoners within the camp complex, at times exceeding the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp.

The Mauthausen main camp operated from 8 August 1938, several months after the German annexation of Austria, to 5 May 1945, when it was liberated by the United States Army. Starting with the camp at Mauthausen, the number of subcamps expanded over time. In January 1945, the camps contained roughly 85,000 inmates.

As at other Nazi concentration camps, the inmates at Mauthausen and its subcamps were forced to work as slave labour, under conditions that caused many deaths. Mauthausen and its subcamps included quarries, munitions factories, mines, arms factories and plants assembling Me 262 fighter aircraft. The conditions at Mauthausen were even more severe than at most other Nazi concentration camps. Half of the 190,000 inmates died at Mauthausen or its subcamps.

Mauthausen was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated by the Allies. The Mauthausen main camp is now a museum.

Establishment of the main camp

On 9 August 1938, prisoners from Dachau concentration camp near Munich were sent to the town of Mauthausen in Austria, to begin building a new slave labour camp. The site was chosen because of the nearby granite quarry and its proximity to Linz. Although the camp was controlled by the German state from the beginning, it was founded by a private company as an economic enterprise.

The owner of the Wiener-Graben quarry (the Marbacher-Bruch and Bettelberg quarries) was a DEST Company: an acronym for Deutsche Erd– und Steinwerke GmbH. The company was led by Oswald Pohl, who was a high-ranking official of the Schutzstaffel (SS). It rented the quarries from the City of Vienna in 1938 and started the construction of the Mauthausen camp. A year later, the company ordered the construction of the first camp at Gusen.

The granite mined in the quarries had previously been used to pave the streets of Vienna, but Nazi authorities envisioned a complete reconstruction of major German towns in accordance with the plans of Albert Speer and other proponents of Nazi architecture, for which large quantities of granite were needed. The money to fund the construction of the Mauthausen camp was gathered from a variety of sources, including commercial loans from Dresdner Bank and Prague-based Böhmische Escompte-Bank; the so-called Reinhardt's fund (meaning money stolen from the inmates of the concentration camps themselves); and from the German Red Cross.

Mauthausen initially served as a strictly-run prison camp for common criminals, prostitutes, and other categories of "Incorrigible Law Offenders". On 8 May 1939 it was converted to a labour camp for political prisoners.

Gusen
The three Gusen concentration camps held a significant proportion of prisoners within the Mauthausen-Gusen complex. For most of its history, this exceeded the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp itself.

DEST began purchasing land at Sankt Georgen an der Gusen in May 1938. During 1938 and 1939, inmates of the nearby Mauthausen makeshift camp marched daily to the granite quarries at St Georgen/Gusen, which were more productive and more important for DEST than the Wienergraben Quarry. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the as-yet unfinished Mauthausen camp became overcrowded with prisoners. The number of inmates rose from 1,080 in late 1938 to over 3,000 a year later. At about that time, the construction of a new camp "for the Poles" began in Gusen (Langenstein) about 4.5 km away after an order by the SS(Schutzstaffel) in December 1939. The new camp (later named Gusen I) became operational in May 1940. The first inmates were put in the first two huts (No. 7 and 8) on 17 April 1940, while the first transport of prisoners – mostly from the camps in Dachau and Sachsenhausen – arrived just over a month later, on 25 May.

Like nearby Mauthausen, the Gusen camps also rented inmates out to various local businesses as slave labour. In October 1941, several huts were separated from the Gusen subcamp by barbed wire and turned into a separate Prisoner of War Labour Camp (Kriegsgefangenenarbeitslager). This camp had many prisoners of war, mostly Red Army officers. By 1942 the production capacity of Mauthausen and the Gusen camps had reached its peak. The Gusen site was expanded to include the central depot of the SS, where various goods seized from occupied territories were sorted and then dispatched to Germany. Local quarries and businesses were in constant need of a new source of labour as more and more Austrians were drafted into the Wehrmacht.

In March 1944, the former SS depot was converted to a new subcamp named Gusen II, which served as an improvised concentration camp until the end of the war. Gusen II contained 12,000 to 17,000 inmates, deprived of even the most basic facilities. In December 1944, Gusen III was opened in nearby Lungitz. Here, parts of a factory infrastructure were converted into the third Gusen camp. The increasing number of subcamps could not keep up with the rising number of inmates, which led to overcrowding of the huts in Mauthausen and its subcamps. From late 1940 to 1944, the number of inmates per bed rose from two to four.

Subcamps
As production in Mauthausen and its subcamps constantly increased, so too did the number of detainees and subcamps. Initially the camps at Gusen and Mauthausen mostly served the local quarries, from 1942 onwards they began to be included in the German war machine. To accommodate the ever-growing number of slave workers, additional subcamps (Außenlager) of Mauthausen were built.

By the end of the war, the list included 101 camps (including 49 major subcamps) which covered most of modern Austria, from Mittersill south of Salzburg to Schwechat east of Vienna and from Passau on the prewar Austro-German border to the Loibl Pass on the border with Yugoslavia. The subcamps were divided into several categories, depending on their main function: Produktionslager for factory workers, Baulager for construction, Aufräumlager for cleaning the rubble in Allied-bombed towns, and Kleinlager (small camps) where the inmates worked specifically for the SS.

Business enterprise

The production output of Mauthausen and its subcamps exceeded that of each of the five other large slave labour centres: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen, Marburg and Natzweiler-Struthof, in terms of both production quota and profits. The list of companies using slave labour from Mauthausen and its subcamps was long, and included both national corporations and small, local firms and communities. Some parts of the quarries were converted into a Mauser machine pistol assembly plant.

In 1943, an underground factory for the Steyr-Daimler-Puch company was built in Gusen. Altogether, 45 larger companies took part in making Mauthausen and its subcamps one of the most profitable concentration camps of Nazi Germany, with more than in profits in 1944 alone (EUR  in 2024). The companies using slave labourers from Mauthausen included:
 * DEST cartel (producing bricks and quarrying stone for German state construction projects)
 * Accumulatoren-Fabrik AFA (the main producer of batteries for German U-boats)
 * Bayer (the main German producer of medicines and medications)
 * Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau (constructing mines and quarries)
 * Linz-based Eisenwerke Oberdonau (the largest World War II steel supplier for the German Panzer tanks)
 * Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark (aeroplane engine manufacturer)
 * Nibelungenwerk (the largest tank factory in Nazi Germany)
 * Otto Eberhard Patronenfabrik (munitions works)
 * Heinkel and Messerschmitt (Heinkel-Sud facilities in Floridsdorf, Vienna-Schwechat and Zwölfaxing, and other aeroplane factories, also a V-2 rocket factory)

 * Österreichische Sauerwerks (arms producer)
 * Rax-Werke (machinery and V-2 rockets)
 * Steyr-Daimler-Puch (arms and vehicles)
 * Hochtief (construction of tunnels in the Loibl Pass)

Prisoners were also rented out as slave labour to work on local farms, road construction, reinforcing and repairing the banks of the Danube, constructing large residential areas in Sankt Georgen, and excavating archaeological sites in Spielberg. When the Allied strategic bombing campaign started to target the German war industry, German planners decided to move production to underground facilities that were impenetrable to enemy aerial bombardment. In Gusen I, the prisoners were ordered to build several large tunnels beneath the hills surrounding the camp (code-named Kellerbau). By the end of World War II the prisoners had dug 29400 m2 to house a small-arms factory.

In January 1944, similar tunnels were also built beneath the village of Sankt Georgen by the inmates of Gusen II subcamp (code-named Bergkristall). They dug roughly 50000 m2 so the Messerschmitt company could build an assembly plant to produce the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2 rockets. In addition to planes, some 7000 m2 of Gusen II tunnels served as factories for various war materials. In late 1944, roughly 11,000 of the Gusen I and II inmates were working in underground facilities. An additional 6,500 worked on expanding the underground network of tunnels and halls.

In 1945, the Me 262 works was already finished and the Germans were able to assemble 1,250 planes a month. This was the second largest plane factory in Germany after the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, which was also underground.

Weapons research
In January 2015, a "panel of archaeologists, historians and other experts" ruled out the earlier claims of an Austrian filmmaker that a bunker underneath the camp was connected to the German nuclear weapon project. The panel indicated that stairs uncovered during an excavation prompted by the allegations led to an SS shooting range.

Extermination

The political function of the camp continued in parallel with its economic role. Until at least 1942, it was used for the imprisonment and murder of the Nazis' political and ideological enemies, real and imagined. Initially, the camp did not have a gas chamber of its own and the so-called Muselmänner, or prisoners who were too sick to work, after being maltreated, under-nourished or exhausted, were then transferred to other concentration camps for extermination (mostly to the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, which was 40.7 km away), or killed by lethal injection and cremated in the local crematorium. The growing number of prisoners made this system too expensive and from 1940, Mauthausen was one of the few camps in the West to use a gas chamber on a regular basis. In the beginning, an improvised mobile gas chamber – a van with the exhaust pipe connected to the inside – shuttled between Mauthausen and Gusen. It was capable of killing about 120 prisoners at a time when it was completed.

Inmates
Until early 1940, the largest group of inmates consisted of German, Austrian and Czechoslovak socialists, communists, homosexuals, anarchists and people of Romani origin. Other groups of people to be persecuted solely on religious grounds were the Sectarians, as they were dubbed by the Nazi regime, meaning Bible Students, or as they are called today, Jehovah's Witnesses. The reason for their imprisonment was their rejection of giving the loyalty oath to Hitler and their refusal to participate in any kind of military service.

In early 1940, many Poles were transferred to the Mauthausen–Gusen complex. The first groups were mostly composed of artists, scientists, Boy Scouts, teachers, and university professors, who were arrested during Intelligenzaktion and the course of the AB Action. Camp Gusen II was called by Germans Vernichtungslager für die polnische Intelligenz ("Extermination camp for the Polish intelligentsia").

Later in the war, new arrivals were from every category of the "unwanted", but educated people and so-called political prisoners constituted the largest part of all inmates until the end of the war. During World War II, large groups of Spanish Republicans were also transferred to Mauthausen and its subcamps. Most of them were former Republican soldiers or activists who had fled to France after Franco's victory and then were captured by German forces after the defeat of France in 1940 or handed over to the Germans by the Vichy authorities. The largest of these groups arrived at Gusen in January 1941.

In early 1941, almost all the Poles and Spaniards, except for a small group of specialists working in the quarry's stone mill, were transferred from Mauthausen to Gusen. Following the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in 1941, the camps started to receive a large number of Soviet POWs. Most of them were kept in huts separated from the rest of the camp. The Soviet prisoners of war were a major part of the first groups to be gassed in the newly built gas chamber in early 1942. In 1944, a large group of Hungarian and Dutch Jews, about 8,000 people altogether, was also transferred to the camp. Much like all the other large groups of prisoners that were transferred to Mauthausen and its subcamps, most of them either died as a result of the hard labour and poor conditions, or were deliberately killed.

After the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and the outbreak of the partisan resistance in summer of the same year, many people suspected of aiding the Yugoslav resistance were sent to the Mauthausen camp, mostly from areas under direct German occupation, namely northern Slovenia and Serbia. An estimated 1,500 Slovenes died in Mauthausen.

Throughout the years of World War II, the Mauthausen and its subcamps received new prisoners in smaller transports daily, mostly from other concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. Most of the prisoners at the subcamps of Mauthausen had been kept in a number of different detention sites before they arrived. The most notable of such centres for Mauthausen and its subcamps were the camps at Dachau and Auschwitz. The first transports from Auschwitz arrived in February 1942. The second transport in June of that year was much larger and numbered some 1,200 prisoners. Similar groups were sent from Auschwitz to Gusen and Mauthausen in April and November 1943, and then in January and February 1944. Finally, after Adolf Eichmann visited Mauthausen in May of that year, Mauthausen received the first group of roughly 8,000 Hungarian Jews from Auschwitz; the first group to be evacuated from that camp before the Soviet advance. Initially, the groups evacuated from Auschwitz consisted of qualified workers for the ever-growing industry of Mauthausen and its subcamps, but as the evacuation proceeded other categories of people were also transported to Mauthausen, Gusen, Vienna or Melk.

Over time, Auschwitz had to almost stop accepting new prisoners and most were directed to Mauthausen instead. The last group – roughly 10,000 prisoners – was evacuated in the last wave in January 1945, only a few weeks before the Soviet liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. Among them was a large group of civilians arrested by the Germans after the failure of the Warsaw uprising, but by the liberation not more than 500 of them were still alive. Altogether, during the final months of the war, 23,364 prisoners from other concentration camps arrived at the camp complex. Many more perished from exhaustion during death marches, or in railway wagons, where the prisoners were confined at sub-zero temperatures for several days before their arrival, without adequate food or water. Prisoner transports were considered less important than other important services, and could be kept on sidings for days as other trains passed.

Many of those who survived the journey died before they could be registered, whilst others were given the camp numbers of prisoners who had already been killed. Most were then accommodated in the camps or in the newly established tent camp (Zeltlager) just outside the Mauthausen subcamp, where roughly 2,000 people were forced into tents intended for not more than 800 inmates, and then starved to death.

As in all other Nazi concentration camps, not all the prisoners were equal. Their treatment depended largely on the category assigned to each inmate, as well as their nationality and rank within the system. The so-called kapos, or prisoners who had been recruited by their captors to police their fellow prisoners, were given more food and higher pay in the form of concentration camp coupons which could be exchanged for cigarettes in the canteen, as well as a separate room inside most barracks. On Himmler's order of June 1941, a brothel was opened in the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps in 1942. The Kapos formed the main part of the so-called Prominents (Prominenz), or prisoners who were given a much better treatment than the average inmate.

Women and children in Mauthausen
Although the Mauthausen camp complex was mostly a labour camp for men, a women's camp was opened in Mauthausen, in September 1944, with the first transport of female prisoners from Auschwitz. Eventually, more women and children came to Mauthausen from Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, Gross-Rosen, and Buchenwald. Along with the female prisoners came some female guards; twenty are known to have served in the Mauthausen camp, and sixty in the whole camp complex.

Female guards also staffed the Mauthausen subcamps at Hirtenberg, Lenzing (the main women's subcamp in Austria), and Sankt Lambrecht. The Chief Overseers at Mauthausen were firstly Margarete Freinberger, and then Jane Bernigau. Almost all the female Overseers who served in Mauthausen were recruited from Austrian cities and towns between September and November 1944. In early April 1945, at least 2,500 more female prisoners came from the female subcamps at Amstetten, St. Lambrecht, Hirtenberg, and the Flossenbürg subcamp at Freiberg. According to Daniel Patrick Brown, Hildegard Lächert also served at Mauthausen.

The available Mauthausen inmate statistics from the spring of 1943, shows that there were 2,400 prisoners below the age of 20, which was 12.8% of the 18,655 population. By late March 1945, the number of juvenile prisoners in Mauthausen increased to 15,048, which was 19.1% of the 78,547 Mauthausen inmates. The number of imprisoned children increased 6.2 times, whereas the total number of adult prisoners during the same period multiplied by a factor of only four.

These numbers reflected the increasing use of Polish, Czech, Soviet, and Balkan teenagers as slave labour as the war continued. Statistics showing the composition of juvenile inmates shortly before their liberation reveal the following major child/prisoner sub-groups: 5,809 foreign civilian labourers, 5,055 political prisoners, 3,654 Jews, and 330 Russian POWs. There were also 23 Romani children, 20 so-called "anti-social elements", six Spaniards, and three Jehovah's Witnesses.

Treatment of inmates and methodology of crime
Mauthausen was one of the most brutal and severe of the Nazi concentration camps. The inmates suffered not only from malnutrition, overcrowded huts and constant abuse and beatings by the guards and kapos, but also from exceptionally hard labour.

The work in the quarries – often in unbearable heat or in temperatures as low as -30 C – led to exceptionally high mortality rates. The food rations were limited, and during the 1940–1942 period, an average inmate weighed 40 kg. It is estimated that the average energy content of food rations dropped from about 1750 Cal a day during the 1940–1942 period, to between 1150 and 1,460 Cal a day during the next period. In 1945 the energy content was even lower and did not exceed 600 to 1,000 Cal a day – less than a third of the energy needed by an average worker in heavy industry. The reduced rations led to the starvation of thousands of inmates.

The rock quarry in Mauthausen was at the base of the "Stairs of Death". Prisoners were forced to carry roughly-hewn blocks of stone – often weighing as much as 50 kg – up the 186 stairs, one prisoner behind the other. As a result, many exhausted prisoners collapsed in front of the other prisoners in the line, and then fell on top of the other prisoners, creating a domino effect; the first prisoner falling onto the next, and so on, all the way down the stairs. In the quarry, prisoners were forced to carry the boulders from morning until night, whipped by Nazi guards.

The inmates of Mauthausen, Gusen I, and Gusen II had access to a separate part of the camp for the sick – the so-called Krankenlager. Despite the fact that (roughly) 100 medics from among the inmates were working there, they were not given any medication and could offer only basic first aid. Thus the hospital camp – as it was called by the German authorities – was, in fact, a "hospital" only in name.

Such brutality was not accidental. Former prisoner Edward Mosberg said: "If you stopped for a moment, the SS either shot you or pushed you off the cliff to your death." The SS guards would often force prisoners – exhausted from hours of hard labour without sufficient food and water – to race up the stairs carrying blocks of stone. Those who survived the ordeal would often be placed in a line-up at the edge of a cliff known as "The Parachutists Wall" (Fallschirmspringerwand). At gunpoint, each prisoner would have the option of being shot or pushing the prisoner in front of him off the cliff. Other common methods of extermination of prisoners who were either sick, unfit for further labour or as a means of collective responsibility or after escape attempts included beating the prisoners to death by the SS guards and Kapos, starving to death in bunkers, hangings and mass shootings.

At times the guards or Kapos would either deliberately throw the prisoners on the 380-volt electric barbed wire fence, or force them outside the boundaries of the camp and then shoot them on the pretence that they were attempting to escape. Another method of extermination were icy showers – some 3,000 inmates died of hypothermia after having been forced to take an icy cold shower and then left outside in cold weather. A large number of inmates were drowned in barrels of water at Gusen II.

The Nazis also performed pseudo-scientific experiments on the prisoners. Among the doctors to organise them were Sigbert Ramsauer, Karl Josef Gross, Eduard Krebsbach and Aribert Heim. Heim was dubbed "Doctor Death" by the inmates; he was in Gusen for seven weeks, which was enough to carry out his experiments.

Hans Maršálek estimated that an average life expectancy of newly arrived prisoners in Gusen varied from six months between 1940 and 1942, to less than three months in early 1945. Paradoxically, with the growth of forced labour industry in various subcamps of Mauthausen, the situation of some of the prisoners improved significantly. While the food rations were increasingly limited every month, the heavy industry necessitated skilled specialists rather than unqualified workers and the brutality of the camp's SS and Kapos was limited. While the prisoners were still beaten on a daily basis and the Muselmänner were still exterminated, from early 1943 on some of the factory workers were allowed to receive food parcels from their families (mostly Poles and Frenchmen). This allowed many of them not only to evade the risk of starvation, but also to help other prisoners who had no relatives outside the camps – or who were not allowed to receive parcels.

In February 1945, the camp was the site of Nazi war crime Mühlviertler Hasenjagd ("hare hunt") where around 500 escaped prisoners (mostly Soviet officers) were mercilessly hunted down and murdered by SS, local law enforcement and civilians.

Death toll
The Germans destroyed much of the camp's files and evidence and often allocated newly arrived prisoners the camp numbers of those who had already been killed, so the exact death toll of Mauthausen and its subcamps is impossible to calculate. The matter is further complicated due to some of the inmates of Gusen being murdered in Mauthausen, and at least 3,423 were sent to Hartheim Castle, 40.7 km away. Overall, more than 90,000 of the 190,000 people deported to Mauthausen died there or in one of its subcamps.

Staff
SS Captain Albert Sauer presided over the initial establishment of the camp on 1 August 1938 and remained camp commandant until 17 February 1939. Franz Ziereis assumed control as commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945. The infamous Death's- Head Unit or SS-Totenkopfverbände charged with guarding the camp perimeter in addition to work detachments was headed by Georg Bachmayer, a captain in the SS. Further records of camp leadership were destroyed by Nazi officials in effort to cover up war atrocities and those involved.

Several Norwegian Waffen SS volunteers worked as guards or as instructors for prisoners from Nordic countries, according to senior researcher Terje Emberland at the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities.

Liberation and postwar heritage

During the final months before liberation, the camp's commander Franz Ziereis prepared for its defence against a possible Soviet offensive. The remaining prisoners were rushed to build a line of granite anti-tank obstacles to the east of Mauthausen. The inmates unable to cope with the hard labour and malnutrition were exterminated in large numbers to free space for newly arrived evacuation transports from other camps, including most of the subcamps of Mauthausen located in eastern Austria. In the final months of the war, the main source of dietary energy, the parcels of food sent through the International Red Cross, stopped and food rations became catastrophically low. The prisoners transferred to the "Hospital Subcamp" received one piece of bread per 20 inmates and roughly half a litre of weed soup a day. This made some of the prisoners, previously engaged in various types of resistance activity, begin to prepare plans to defend the camp in case of an SS attempt to exterminate all the remaining inmates.

On 3 May the SS and other guards started to prepare for evacuation of the camp. The following day, the guards of Mauthausen were replaced with unarmed Volkssturm soldiers and an improvised unit formed of elderly police officers and firefighters evacuated from Vienna. The police officer in charge of the unit accepted the "inmate self-government" as the camp's highest authority and Martin Gerken, until then the highest-ranking kapo prisoner in the Gusen's administration (in the rank of Lagerälteste, or the Camp's Elder), became the new de facto commander. He attempted to create an International Prisoner Committee that would become a provisional governing body of the camp until it was liberated by one of the approaching armies, but he was openly accused of co-operation with the SS and the plan failed.

All work in the subcamps of Mauthausen stopped and the inmates focused on preparations for their liberation – or defence of the camps against a possible assault by the SS divisions concentrated in the area. The remnants of several German divisions indeed assaulted the Mauthausen subcamp, but were repelled by the prisoners who took over the camp. Of the main subcamps of Mauthausen, only Gusen III was to be evacuated. On 1 May the inmates were rushed on a death march towards Sankt Georgen, but were ordered to return to the camp after several hours. The operation was repeated the following day, but called off soon afterwards. The following day, the SS guards deserted the camp, leaving the prisoners to their fate.

On 5 May 1945 the camp at Mauthausen was approached by a squad of US Army soldiers of the 41st Reconnaissance Squadron of the US 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army. The reconnaissance squad was led by Staff Sergeant Albert J. Kosiek. His troop disarmed the policemen and left the camp. By the time of its liberation, most of the guards in Mauthausen had fled; around 30 of those who remained were killed by the prisoners. A number of SS men had their heads impaled with stakes, while others were beheaded with their own knives. A similar number were killed in Gusen II. By 6 May all the remaining subcamps of Mauthausen, with the exception of the two camps in the Loibl Pass, were also liberated by American forces.

Among the inmates liberated from the camp was Lieutenant Jack Taylor, an officer of the Office of Strategic Services. He had managed to survive with the help of several prisoners and was later a key witness at the Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials carried out by the Dachau International Military Tribunal. Another of the camp's survivors was Simon Wiesenthal, an engineer who spent the rest of his life hunting Nazi war criminals. Future Medal of Honor recipient Tibor "Ted" Rubin was imprisoned there as a young teenager; a Hungarian Jew, he vowed to join the US Army upon his liberation and later did just that, distinguishing himself in the Korean War as a corporal in the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

Francesc Boix, a photographer and veteran of the Spanish Civil War, was imprisoned at the camp for four years. During his time working in the photography lab of the camp, he smuggled 3,000 negatives out of the camp and later used this photographic evidence to testify at the Nuremberg trials.

Following the capitulation of Germany, Mauthausen fell within the Soviet sector of occupation of Austria. Initially, the Soviet authorities used parts of the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps as barracks for the Red Army. At the same time, the underground factories were being dismantled and sent to the USSR as a war reparations. After that, between 1946 and 1947, the camps were unguarded and many furnishings and facilities of the camp were dismantled, both by the Red Army and by the local population. In the early summer of 1947, the Soviet forces had blown up the tunnels and were then withdrawn from the area, while the camp was turned over to Austrian civilian authorities.

Memorials
Mauthausen was declared a national memorial site in 1949. Bruno Kreisky, the Chancellor of Austria, officially opened the Mauthausen Museum on 3 May 1975, 30 years after the camp's liberation. A visitor centre was inaugurated in 2003, designed by the architects Herwig Mayer, Christoph Schwarz, and Karl Peyrer-Heimstätt, covering an area of 2845 m2.

The Mauthausen site remains largely intact, but much of what constituted the subcamps of Gusen I, II and III is now covered by residential areas built after the war.

A memorial to Mauthausen stands amongst the various memorials to concentration camps in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The "Mauthausen Trilogy", also known as "The Ballad of Mauthausen" is a cycle of four arias with lyrics based on poems written by Greek poet Iakovos Kambanellis, a Mauthausen concentration camp survivor, and music written by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis.

Documentaries, films and music

 * The Quality of Mercy (1994). Austrian film written, directed and produced by Andreas Gruber.
 * Joe Zawinul, Mauthausen - Vom großen Sterben hören (2000). Memorial music.
 * Mauthausen–Gusen: La memòria] (2008) (in Valencian) by Rosa Brines and Daniel Rodríguez. An 18-minute documentary about the republican Spaniards deported to Mauthausen and Gusen. It includes testimonies from survivors.
 * The Photographer of Mauthausen (2018). Based on real events, Francisco Boix is the Spanish photographer and inmate of Mauthausen who saved thousands of pieces of photographic evidence of the horrors committed inside the Austrian concentration camp's walls.
 * Resistance at Mauthausen (2021). A 51-minute documentary by Barbara Necek about the resistance by republican Spanish prisoners, focusing particularly on Francisco Boix who preserved thousands of photographs of conditions inside the camp.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mauthausen concentration camp


text:
U of M

U of M is an abbreviation that can refer to any of several universities:

In the United States

 * University of Maine
 * University of Maryland
 * University of Massachusetts
 * University of Memphis
 * University of Miami
 * University of Michigan
 * University of Minnesota
 * University of Mississippi
 * University of Montana

In other countries

 * University of Melbourne, Australia
 * Universidad de Mendoza, Argentina
 * University of Manitoba, Canada
 * University of Montreal, Canada
 * State University of Malang, Indonesia
 * University of Mashhad, Iran
 * University of Macau, Macau
 * University of Malaya, Malaysia
 * University of Malta, Malta
 * University of Mauritius, Mauritius
 * Maputo University, Mozambique
 * Maastricht University, Netherlands
 * University of Manila, Philippines
 * University of Mindanao, Philippines
 * Universidade do Minho, Portugal
 * University of Murcia, Spain
 * University of Manchester, UK

title: U of M


text:
Emily Perkins

Emily Jean Perkins (born May 4, 1977) is a Canadian former actress, known for her roles as Crystal Braywood in the TV series Hiccups, young Beverly Marsh in Stephen King's It, and Brigitte Fitzgerald in Ginger Snaps. Since the late 1980s, she has appeared in various films and television series.

Early life
Perkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her father is Sicilian and her mother is of Scottish and English ancestry.

Career
As a child actress, she appeared in three made-for-television films: Small Sacrifices, Anything to Survive, and Stephen King's It.

In 1998, Perkins took a supporting role in the Canadian TV crime-drama series Da Vinci's Inquest as Carmen in the episode "The Most Dangerous Time". She returned to the series in 2001 to take a recurring, supporting role as the prostitute Sue Lewis for a further 34 episodes, a role which earned her a Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance in 2003.

In 2000, Perkins starred in the film Ginger Snaps as Brigitte Fitzgerald opposite of Katharine Isabelle as Ginger Fitzgerald. In 2004, she starred in two back-to-back films, a sequel titled Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, and a prequel titled Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning. Her role in Ginger Snaps gained her Best Actress award at the Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema in 2001. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is Perkins' largest role in a film. In 2004 the horror magazine Fangoria awarded Perkins their Chainsaw Award for her work in GS2: Unleashed.

Perkins had supporting roles in She's the Man, Another Cinderella Story (where she reunited with Isabelle), and a small role as a receptionist in Juno. She stars in the thriller Blood: A Butcher's Tale.

In 2009 and 2011, she appeared as "superfan" Becky Rosen in the CW TV series Supernatural. She reprised her role in 2019 for the 15th and final season of the show.

Starting in March 2010, Perkins played the regular role of Crystal Braywood in the Canadian TV comedy series Hiccups. After two seasons the show was cancelled.

Personal life
She is married to Belgian Canadian academic Ernest Mathijs, who has written about cult films, including her roles in the Ginger Snaps series.

title: Emily Perkins


text:
Neodymium magnet

A neodymium magnet (also known as NdFeB, NIB or Neo magnet) is a permanent magnet made from an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron to form the Nd2Fe14B tetragonal crystalline structure. They are the most widely used type of rare-earth magnet.

Developed independently in 1984 by General Motors and in 1970s by Sumitomo Special Metals, neodymium magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnet available commercially. They have replaced other types of magnets in many applications in modern products that require strong permanent magnets, such as electric motors in cordless tools, hard disk drives and magnetic fasteners.

NdFeB magnets can be classified as sintered or bonded, depending on the manufacturing process used.

History
General Motors (GM) and Sumitomo Special Metals independently discovered the Nd2Fe14B compound almost simultaneously in 1984. The research was initially driven by the high raw materials cost of samarium-cobalt permanent magnets (SmCo), which had been developed earlier. GM focused on the development of melt-spun nanocrystalline Nd2Fe14B magnets, while Sumitomo developed full-density sintered Nd2Fe14B magnets.

GM commercialized its inventions of isotropic Neo powder, bonded neo magnets, and the related production processes by founding Magnequench in 1986 (Magnequench has since become part of Neo Materials Technology, Inc., which later merged into Molycorp). The company supplied melt-spun Nd2Fe14B powder to bonded magnet manufacturers. The Sumitomo facility became part of the Hitachi Corporation, and has manufactured but also licensed other companies to produce sintered Nd2Fe14B magnets. Hitachi has held more than 600 patents covering neodymium magnets.

Chinese manufacturers have become a dominant force in neodymium magnet production, based on their control of much of the world's rare-earth mines.

The United States Department of Energy has identified a need to find substitutes for rare-earth metals in permanent magnet technology and has funded such research. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has sponsored a Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT) program, to develop alternative materials. In 2011, ARPA-E awarded 31.6 million dollars to fund Rare-Earth Substitute projects. Because of its role in permanent magnets used for wind turbines, it has been argued that neodymium will be one of the main objects of geopolitical competition in a world running on renewable energy. This perspective has been criticized for failing to recognize that most wind turbines do not use permanent magnets and for underestimating the power of economic incentives for expanded production.

Magnetic properties
In its pure form, neodymium has magnetic properties—specifically, it is antiferromagnetic, but only at low temperatures, below 19 K. However, some compounds of neodymium with transition metals such as iron are ferromagnetic, with Curie temperatures well above room temperature. These are used to make neodymium magnets.

The strength of neodymium magnets is the result of several factors. The most important is that the tetragonal Nd2Fe14B crystal structure has exceptionally high uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy (HA ≈ 7T – magnetic field strength H in units of A/m versus magnetic moment in A·m2). This means a crystal of the material preferentially magnetizes along a specific crystal axis but is very difficult to magnetize in other directions. Like other magnets, the neodymium magnet alloy is composed of microcrystalline grains which are aligned in a powerful magnetic field during manufacture so their magnetic axes all point in the same direction. The resistance of the crystal lattice to turning its direction of magnetization gives the compound a very high coercivity, or resistance to being demagnetized.

The neodymium atom can have a large magnetic dipole moment because it has 4 unpaired electrons in its electron structure as opposed to (on average) 3 in iron. In a magnet it is the unpaired electrons, aligned so that their spin is in the same direction, which generate the magnetic field. This gives the Nd2Fe14B compound a high saturation magnetization (Js ≈ 1.6T or 16kG) and a remanent magnetization of typically 1.3 teslas. Therefore, as the maximum energy density is proportional to Js2, this magnetic phase has the potential for storing large amounts of magnetic energy (BHmax ≈ 512kJ/m3 or 64MG·Oe).

This magnetic energy value is about 18 times greater than "ordinary" ferrite magnets by volume and 12 times by mass. This magnetic energy property is higher in NdFeB alloys than in samarium cobalt (SmCo) magnets, which were the first type of rare-earth magnet to be commercialized. In practice, the magnetic properties of neodymium magnets depend on the alloy composition, microstructure, and manufacturing technique employed.

The Nd2Fe14B crystal structure can be described as alternating layers of iron atoms and a neodymium-boron compound. The diamagnetic boron atoms do not contribute directly to the magnetism but improve cohesion by strong covalent bonding. The relatively low rare earth content (12% by volume, 26.7% by mass) and the relative abundance of neodymium and iron compared with samarium and cobalt makes neodymium magnets lower in price than the other major rare-earth magnet family, samarium–cobalt magnets.

Although they have higher remanence and much higher coercivity and energy product, neodymium magnets have lower Curie temperature than many other types of magnets. Special neodymium magnet alloys that include terbium and dysprosium have been developed that have higher Curie temperature, allowing them to tolerate higher temperatures.

Corrosion

Sintered Nd2Fe14B tends to be vulnerable to corrosion, especially along grain boundaries of a sintered magnet. This type of corrosion can cause serious deterioration, including crumbling of a magnet into a powder of small magnetic particles, or spalling of a surface layer.

This vulnerability is addressed in many commercial products by adding a protective coating to prevent exposure to the atmosphere. Nickel, nickel-copper-nickel and zinc platings are the standard methods, although plating with other metals, or polymer and lacquer protective coatings, are also in use.

Temperature sensitivity
Neodymium has a negative coefficient, meaning the coercivity along with the magnetic energy density (BHmax) decreases as temperature increases. Neodymium-iron-boron magnets have high coercivity at room temperature, but as the temperature rises above 100 C, the coercivity decreases drastically until the Curie temperature (around 320 C). This fall in coercivity limits the efficiency of the magnet under high-temperature conditions, such as in wind turbines and hybrid vehicle motors. Dysprosium (Dy) or terbium (Tb) is added to curb the fall in performance from temperature changes. This addition makes the magnets more costly to produce.

Grades
Neodymium magnets are graded according to their maximum energy product, which relates to the magnetic flux output per unit volume. Higher values indicate stronger magnets. For sintered NdFeB magnets, there is a widely recognized international classification. Their values range from N28 up to N55 with a theoretical maximum at N64. The first letter N before the values is short for neodymium, meaning sintered NdFeB magnets. Letters following the values indicate intrinsic coercivity and maximum operating temperatures (positively correlated with the Curie temperature), which range from default (up to 80 C) to TH (230 C).

Grades of sintered NdFeB magnets:

 * N27 – N55
 * N30M – N50M
 * N30H – N50H
 * N30SH – N48SH
 * N28UH – N42UH
 * N28EH – N40EH
 * N28TH – N35TH
 * N33VH/AH

Production
There are two principal neodymium magnet manufacturing methods:

 * Classical powder metallurgy or sintered magnet process
 * Sintered Nd-magnets are prepared by the raw materials being melted in a furnace, cast into a mold and cooled to form ingots. The ingots are pulverized and milled; the powder is then sintered into dense blocks. The blocks are then heat-treated, cut to shape, surface treated and magnetized.
 * Rapid solidification or bonded magnet process
 * Bonded Nd-magnets are prepared by melt spinning a thin ribbon of the NdFeB alloy. The ribbon contains randomly oriented Nd2Fe14B nano-scale grains. This ribbon is then pulverized into particles, mixed with a polymer, and either compression- or injection-molded into bonded magnets.

Bonded neo Nd-Fe-B powder is bound in a matrix of a thermoplastic polymer to form the magnets. The magnetic alloy material is formed by splat quenching onto a water-cooled drum. This metal ribbon is crushed to a powder and then heat-treated to improve its coercivity. The powder is mixed with a polymer to form a mouldable putty, similar to a glass-filled polymer. This is pelletised for storage and can later be shaped by injection moulding. An external magnetic field is applied during the moulding process, orienting the field of the completed magnet.

In 2015, Nitto Denko Corporation of Japan announced their development of a new method of sintering neodymium magnet material. The method exploits an "organic/inorganic hybrid technology" to form a clay-like mixture that can be fashioned into various shapes for sintering. It is said to be possible to control a non-uniform orientation of the magnetic field in the sintered material to locally concentrate the field, for instance to improve the performance of electric motors. Mass production is planned for 2017.

As of 2012, 50,000tons of neodymium magnets are produced officially each year in China, and 80,000tons in a "company-by-company" build-up done in 2013. China produces more than 95% of rare earth elements and produces about 76% of the world's total rare-earth magnets, as well as most of the world's neodymium.

Existing magnet applications

Neodymium magnets have replaced alnico and ferrite magnets in many of the myriad applications in modern technology where strong permanent magnets are required, because their greater strength allows the use of smaller, lighter magnets for a given application. Some examples are:

 * Head actuators for computer hard disks
 * Mechanical e-cigarette firing switches
 * Locks for doors
 * Loudspeakers and headphones
 * Mobile phones
 * Magnetic bearings and couplings
 * Benchtop NMR spectrometers
 * Electric motors
 * Cordless tools
 * Servomotors
 * Lifting and compressor motors
 * Synchronous motors
 * Spindle and stepper motors
 * Electrical power steering
 * Drive motors for hybrid and electric vehicles. The electric motors of each Toyota Prius require 1 kg of neodymium.
 * Actuators

 * Electric generators for wind turbines (only those with permanent magnet excitation)
 * Retail media case decouplers
 * In process industries, powerful neodymium magnets are used to catch foreign bodies and protect product and processes
 * Identifying precious metals in various objects (cutlery, coins, jewelry etc.)

New applications

The greater strength of neodymium magnets has inspired new applications in areas where magnets were not used before, such as magnetic jewelry clasps, keeping up foil insulation, children's magnetic building sets (and other neodymium magnet toys) and as part of the closing mechanism of modern sport parachute equipment. They are the main metal in the formerly popular desk-toy magnets, "Buckyballs" and "Buckycubes", though some U.S. retailers have chosen not to sell them because of child-safety concerns, and they have been banned in Canada for the same reason. While a similar ban has been lifted in the United States in 2016, the minimum age requirement advised by the CPSC is now 14, and there are now new warning label requirements.

The strength and magnetic field homogeneity on neodymium magnets has also opened new applications in the medical field with the introduction of open magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners used to image the body in radiology departments as an alternative to superconducting magnets that use a coil of superconducting wire to produce the magnetic field.

Neodymium magnets are used as a surgically placed anti-reflux system which is a band of magnets surgically implanted around the lower esophageal sphincter to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). They have also been implanted in the fingertips in order to provide sensory perception of magnetic fields, though this is an experimental procedure only popular among biohackers and grinders.

Neodymium is used as a magnetic crane which is a lifting device that lifts objects by magnetic force. These cranes lift ferrous materials like steel plates, pipes, and scrap metal using the persistent magnetic field of the permanent magnets without requiring a continuous power supply. Magnetic cranes are used in scrap yards, shipyards, warehouses, and manufacturing plants.

Hazards
The greater forces exerted by rare-earth magnets create hazards that may not occur with other types of magnet. Neodymium magnets larger than a few cubic centimeters are strong enough to cause injuries to body parts pinched between two magnets, or a magnet and a ferrous metal surface, even causing broken bones.

Magnets that get too near each other can strike each other with enough force to chip and shatter the brittle magnets, and the flying chips can cause various injuries, especially eye injuries. There have even been cases where young children who have swallowed several magnets have had sections of the digestive tract pinched between two magnets, causing injury or death. Also this could be a serious health risk if working with machines that have magnets in or attached to them.

The stronger magnetic fields can be hazardous to mechanical and electronic devices, as they can erase magnetic media such as floppy disks and credit cards, and magnetize watches and the shadow masks of CRT type monitors at a greater distance than other types of magnet. In some cases, chipped magnets can act as a fire hazard as they come together, sending sparks flying as if they were a lighter flint, because some neodymium magnets contain ferrocerium.

title: Neodymium magnet


text:
Sherman's March to the Sea

Sherman's March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah campaign or simply Sherman's March) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by William Tecumseh Sherman, major general of the Union Army. The campaign began on November 15 with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a "scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. The operation debilitated the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. Sherman's decision to operate deep within enemy territory without supply lines was unusual for its time, and the campaign is regarded by some historians as an early example of modern warfare or total war.

Following the March to the Sea, Sherman's army headed north for the Carolinas campaign. The portion of this march through South Carolina was even more destructive than the Savannah campaign, since Sherman and his men harbored much ill-will for that state's part in bringing on the start of the Civil War; the following portion, through North Carolina, was less so.

Etymology
The March to the Sea owes its common name to a poem written by S. H. M. Byers in late 1864. Byers was a Union prisoner of war held at Camp Sorghum, near Columbia, South Carolina. During his imprisonment, Byers wrote a poem about the Savannah campaign which he titled "Sherman's March to the Sea", which was set to music by fellow prisoner W. O. Rockwell.

When Byers was freed by the Union Capture of Columbia, he approached General Sherman and handed him a scrap of paper. On it was Byers' poem. Reading the paper later in the day, Sherman was so moved by Byers' poem that he promoted Byers to his staff where the two became lifelong friends. The poem would go on to lend its name to Sherman's campaign, and a version set to music became an instant hit with Sherman's Army and later the public.

Military situation
Sherman's "March to the Sea" followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. He and the Union Army's commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would come to an end only if the Confederacy's strategic capacity for warfare could be decisively broken. Sherman therefore planned an operation that has been compared to the modern principles of scorched earth warfare. Although his formal orders specified control over destruction of infrastructure in areas in which his army was unmolested by guerrilla activity, he recognized that supplying an army through liberal foraging would have a destructive effect on the morale of the civilian population it encountered in its wide sweep through the state.

The second objective of the campaign was more traditional. Grant's armies in Virginia continued in a stalemate against Robert E. Lee's army, besieged in Petersburg, Virginia. By encroaching into the rear of Lee's positions, Sherman could increase pressure on Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and keep Confederate reinforcements from reaching him.

The campaign was designed by Grant and Sherman to be similar to Grant's innovative and successful Vicksburg campaign and Sherman's Meridian campaign, in that Sherman's armies would reduce their need for traditional supply lines by "living off the land" after consuming their 20 days of rations. Foragers, known as "bummers", would provide food seized from local farms for the army while they destroyed the railroads and the manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure of Georgia. In planning for the march, Sherman used livestock and crop production data from the 1860 census to lead his troops through areas where he believed they would be able to forage most effectively. The twisted and broken railroad rails that the troops heated over fires, wrapped around tree trunks and left behind became known as "Sherman's neckties".

Orders
As the army would be out of touch with the North throughout the campaign, Sherman gave explicit orders, Sherman's Special Field Orders, No. 120, regarding the conduct of the campaign. The following is an excerpt from those orders:

"... IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten days' provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock in sight of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be intrusted the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.

V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.

VII. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along, but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one and that his first duty is to see to them who bear arms..."

Union

Sherman, commanding the Military Division of the Mississippi, did not employ his entire army group in the campaign. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood was threatening Chattanooga, and Sherman detached two armies under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to deal with Hood in the Franklin–Nashville campaign. Thomas would go on to defeat Hood, leaving Sherman's main army effectively unopposed.

When Sherman had prepared his forces for the Atlanta Campaign, which immediately preceded the March to the Sea, he took rigorous steps to ensure that only the most physically fit men were accepted, that every man in the army could march for long distances and would fight without reservations. Sherman wanted only the "best fighting material." Doctors performed in-depth examinations to weed out the weak and those suffering from disease, and because of this 1% of the men were left behind. Eighty percent of the remaining soldiers were long-time veterans of campaigns in both the Western theatre, primarily, and the Eastern, a minority.

Sherman had ruthlessly cut to the bone the supplies carried, intending as he did for the army to live off the land as much as possible. Each division and brigade had a supply train, but the size of the train was strictly limited. Each regiment had one wagon and one ambulance, and each company had one pack mule for the baggage of its officers; the number of tents carried was curtailed. The staffs of the various headquarters were ruthlessly restricted, and much clerical work was done by permanent offices in the rear.

This was the process by which the 62,000 men (55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 2,000 artillerymen manning 64 guns) Sherman commanded were assembled, and would leave Atlanta for Savannah. They were divided into two columns for the march:
 * The right wing was the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, consisting of two corps:
 * XV Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus, with the divisions of Brig. Gens. Charles R. Woods, William B. Hazen, John E. Smith, and John M. Corse.
 * XVII Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Frank Blair, Jr., with the divisions of Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Mower and Brig. Gens. Mortimer D. Leggett and Giles A. Smith.
 * The left wing was the Army of Georgia, commanded by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, also with two corps:
 * XIV Corps, commanded by Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, with the divisions of Brig. Gens. William P. Carlin, James D. Morgan, and Absalom Baird.
 * XX Corps, commanded by Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams, with the divisions of Brig. Gens. Nathaniel J. Jackson, John W. Geary, and William T. Ward.
 * A cavalry division under Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick operated in support of the two wings, and reported directly to Sherman.

In 1929, British military historian B. H. Liddell Hart described the men of Sherman's army as "probably the finest army of military 'workmen' the modern world has seen. An army of individuals trained in the school of experience to look after their own food and health, to march far and fast with the least fatigue, to fight with the least exposure, above all, to act swiftly and to work thoroughly." After his surrender to Sherman, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston said of Sherman's men that "there has been no such army since the days of Julius Caesar."

Confederate
The Confederate opposition from Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee's Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida was meager. Hood had taken the bulk of forces in Georgia on his campaign to Tennessee in hopes of diverting Sherman to pursue him. Considering Sherman's military priorities, however, this tactical maneuver by his enemy to get out of his force's path was welcomed to the point of remarking, "If he will go to the Ohio River, I'll give him rations." There were about 13,000 men remaining at Lovejoy's Station, south of Atlanta. Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith's Georgia militia had about 3,050 soldiers, most of whom were boys and elderly men. The Cavalry Corps of Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, reinforced by a brigade under Brig. Gen. William H. Jackson, had approximately 10,000 troopers. During the campaign, the Confederate War Department brought in additional men from Florida and the Carolinas, but they never were able to increase their effective force beyond 13,000.

March
Both U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant had serious reservations about Sherman's plans. Still, Grant trusted Sherman's assessment and on November 2, 1864, he sent Sherman a telegram stating simply, "Go as you propose." The 300 mi march began on November 15. Sherman recounted in his memoirs the scene when he left at 7 am the following day:

"... We rode out of Atlanta by the Decatur road, filled by the marching troops and wagons of the Fourteenth Corps; and reaching the hill, just outside of the old rebel works, we naturally paused to look back upon the scenes of our past battles. We stood upon the very ground whereon was fought the bloody battle of July 22d, and could see the copse of wood where McPherson fell. Behind us lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city. Away off in the distance, on the McDonough road, was the rear of Howard's column, the gun-barrels glistening in the sun, the white-topped wagons stretching away to the south; and right before us the Fourteenth Corps, marching steadily and rapidly, with a cheery look and swinging pace, that made light of the thousand miles that lay between us and Richmond. Some band, by accident, struck up the anthem of 'John Brown's Body'; the men caught up the strain, and never before or since have I heard the chorus of 'Glory, glory, hallelujah!' done with more spirit, or in better harmony of time and place."

Sherman's personal escort on the march was the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, a unit made up entirely of Southerners who remained loyal to the Union.

The two wings of the army attempted to confuse and deceive the enemy about their destinations; the Confederates could not tell from the initial movements whether Sherman would march on Macon, Augusta, or Savannah. Howard's wing, led by Kilpatrick's cavalry, marched south along the railroad to Lovejoy's Station, which caused the defenders there to conduct a fighting retreat to Macon. The cavalry captured two Confederate guns at Lovejoy's Station, and then two more and 50 prisoners at Bear Creek Station. Howard's infantry marched through Jonesboro to Gordon, southwest of the state capital, Milledgeville. Slocum's wing, accompanied by Sherman, moved to the east, in the direction of Augusta. They destroyed the bridge across the Oconee River and then turned south.

The first real resistance was felt by Howard's right wing at the Battle of Griswoldville on November 22. Confederate Maj. Gen. Wheeler's cavalry struck Brig. Gen. Kilpatrick's, killing one, wounding two and capturing 18. The infantry brigade of Brig. Gen. Charles C. Walcutt arrived to stabilize the defense, and the division of Georgia militia launched several hours of badly coordinated attacks, eventually retreating with about 1,100 casualties (of which about 600 were prisoners), versus the Union's 100.

At the same time, Slocum's left wing approached the state capital at Milledgeville, prompting the hasty departure of Governor Joseph Brown and the state legislature. On November 23, Slocum's troops captured the city and held a mock legislative session in the capitol building, jokingly voting Georgia back into the Union.

Several small actions followed. Wheeler and some infantry struck in a rearguard action at Ball's Ferry on November 24 and November 25. While Howard's wing was delayed near Ball's Bluff, the 1st Alabama Cavalry (a Federal regiment) engaged Confederate pickets. Overnight, Union engineers constructed a bridge 2 mi away from the bluff across the Oconee River, and 200 soldiers crossed to flank the Confederate position. On November 25–26 at Sandersville, Wheeler struck at Slocum's advance guard. Kilpatrick was ordered to make a feint toward Augusta before destroying the railroad bridge at Brier Creek and moving to liberate the Camp Lawton prisoner of war camp at Millen. Kilpatrick slipped by the defensive line that Wheeler had placed near Brier Creek, but on the night of November 26 Wheeler attacked and drove the 8th Indiana and 2nd Kentucky Cavalry away from their camps at Sylvan Grove. Kilpatrick abandoned his plans to destroy the railroad bridge and he also learned that the prisoners had been moved from Camp Lawton, so he rejoined the army at Louisville. At the Battle of Buck Head Creek on November 28, Kilpatrick was surprised and nearly captured, but the 5th Ohio Cavalry halted Wheeler's advance, and Wheeler was later stopped decisively by Union barricades at Reynolds's Plantation. On December 4, Kilpatrick's cavalry routed Wheeler's at the Battle of Waynesboro.

More Union troops entered the campaign from an unlikely direction. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster dispatched 5,500 men and 10 guns under Brig. Gen. John P. Hatch from Hilton Head, hoping to assist Sherman's arrival near Savannah by securing the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. At the Battle of Honey Hill on November 30, Hatch fought a vigorous battle against G.W. Smith's 1,500 Georgia militiamen, 3 mi south of Grahamville Station, South Carolina. Smith's militia fought off the Union attacks, and Hatch withdrew after suffering about 650 casualties, versus Smith's 50.

Sherman's armies reached the outskirts of Savannah on December 10 but found that Hardee had entrenched 10,000 men in favorable fighting positions, and his soldiers had flooded the surrounding rice fields, leaving only narrow causeways available to approach the city. Sherman was blocked from linking up with the U.S. Navy as he had planned, so he dispatched cavalry to Fort McAllister, guarding the Ogeechee River, in hopes of unblocking his route and obtaining supplies awaiting him on the Navy ships. On December 13, William B. Hazen's division of Howard's wing stormed the fort in the Battle of Fort McAllister and captured it within 15 minutes. Some of the 134 Union casualties were caused by torpedoes, a name for crude land mines that were used only rarely in the war.

Now that Sherman had contact with the Navy fleet under Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, he was able to obtain the supplies and siege artillery he required to invest Savannah. On December 17, he sent a message to Hardee in the city:

"I have already received guns that can cast heavy and destructive shot as far as the heart of your city; also, I have for some days held and controlled every avenue by which the people and garrison of Savannah can be supplied, and I am therefore justified in demanding the surrender of the city of Savannah, and its dependent forts, and shall wait a reasonable time for your answer, before opening with heavy ordnance. Should you entertain the proposition, I am prepared to grant liberal terms to the inhabitants and garrison; but should I be forced to resort to assault, or the slower and surer process of starvation, I shall then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army—burning to avenge the national wrong which they attach to Savannah and other large cities which have been so prominent in dragging our country into civil war."

Hardee decided not to surrender but to escape. Historian Barrett assesses that Sherman could have stopped Hardee, but failed to because he was hesitant to overcommit his forces. On December 20, Hardee led his men across the Savannah River on a makeshift pontoon bridge. The next morning, Savannah Mayor Richard Dennis Arnold, with a delegation of aldermen and ladies of the city, rode out (until they were unhorsed by fleeing Confederate cavalrymen) to offer a proposition: The city would surrender and offer no resistance, in exchange for General Geary's promise to protect the city's citizens and their property. Geary telegraphed Sherman, who advised him to accept the offer. Arnold presented him with the key to the city, and Sherman's men, led by Geary's division of the XX Corps, occupied the city the same day.

Aftermath
Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." On December 26, the president replied in a letter:

"Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained,' I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is yours; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce. And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages, but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole – Hood's army – it brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army, officers and men."

The March attracted a huge number of refugees, to whom Sherman assigned land with his Special Field Orders No. 15. These orders have been depicted in popular culture as the origin of the "40 acres and a mule" promise.

The Army's stay in Savannah was generally without incident. The Army was on its best behavior, in part because anyone caught doing "unsoldier-like deeds" was to be summarily executed. As the Army recuperated, Sherman quickly tackled a variety of local problems. He organized relief for the flood of refugees that had inundated the city. Sherman further arranged for 50,000 bushels of captured rice to be sold in the North to raise money to feed Savannah. While the local high society turned its nose up at the Union Army, refusing to be seen at social events with Union officers present, Sherman was ironically focused on protecting them. Sherman received numerous letters from the very Confederate officers he was fighting against, requesting that Sherman ensure the protection of their families. Sherman dutifully complied with the letters of protection he received, from both North and South, regardless of social standing.

From Savannah, after a month-long delay for rest, Sherman marched north in the spring in the Carolinas Campaign, intending to complete his turning movement and combine his armies with Grant's against Robert E. Lee. Sherman's next major action was the capture of Columbia, the strategically important capital of South Carolina. After a successful two-month campaign, Sherman accepted the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and his forces in North Carolina on April 26, 1865.

Sherman's scorched earth policies have always been highly controversial, and Sherman's memory has long been reviled by many Southerners. Slaves' opinions varied concerning the actions of Sherman and his army. Some who welcomed him as a liberator chose to follow his armies. Jacqueline Campbell has written, on the other hand, that some slaves looked upon the Union army's ransacking and invasive actions with disdain. They often felt betrayed, as they "suffered along with their owners, complicating their decision of whether to flee with or from Union troops", although that is now seen as a post synopsis of Confederate nationalism. A Confederate officer estimated that 10,000 liberated slaves followed Sherman's army, and hundreds died of "hunger, disease, or exposure" along the way.

The March to the Sea was devastating to Georgia and the Confederacy. Sherman himself estimated that the campaign had inflicted $100million (equivalent to $million in ) in destruction, about one fifth of which "inured to our advantage" while the "remainder is simple waste and destruction". The Army wrecked 300 mi of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones cited the significant damage wrought to railroads and Southern logistics in the campaign and stated that "Sherman's raid succeeded in 'knocking the Confederate war effort to pieces'." David J. Eicher wrote that "Sherman had accomplished an amazing task. He had defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war."

According to a 2022 American Economic Journal study which sought to measure the medium- and long-term economic impact of Sherman's March, "the capital destruction induced by the March led to a large contraction in agricultural investment, farming asset prices, and manufacturing activity. Elements of the decline in agriculture persisted through 1920".

Legacy

Union soldiers sang many songs during the March, but it is one written afterward that has come to symbolize the campaign: "Marching Through Georgia", written by Henry Clay Work in 1865. Sung from the point of view of a Union soldier, the lyrics detail the freeing of slaves and punishing the Confederacy for starting the war. Sherman came to dislike the song, in part because he was never one to rejoice over a fallen foe, and in part because it was played at almost every public appearance that he attended. It was widely popular among US soldiers of 20th-century wars.

Hundreds of African Americans drowned trying to cross in Ebenezer Creek north of Savannah while attempting to follow Sherman's Army in its March to the Sea. In 2011, a historical marker was erected there by the Georgia Historical Society to commemorate the African Americans who had risked so much for freedom.

There has been disagreement among historians on whether Sherman's March constituted total war. In the years following World War II, several writers  argued that the total war tactics used during World War II were comparable to the tactics used during Sherman's March. Subsequent historians have objected to the comparison, arguing that Sherman's tactics were not as severe or indiscriminate. Some historians refer to Sherman's tactics as "hard war" to emphasize the distinction between Sherman's tactics and those used during World War II.

The "hard war" doctrine in Civil War historiography initially derived from Sherman's correspondence during the interim ten days between his March to the Sea and Carolinas campaign. He first distinguished between "this war" and "European wars in particular": Union soldiers were "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies." Sherman acknowledged that "the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her." Sherman purportedly reassured southern Unionists in Georgia that he planned on applying the "hard hand of war" to the Carolinas in less than a week. He further claimed that "the invariable reply was, 'Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.' I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we will spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville."

One example of an outspoken exponent of the "hard war" classification was W. Todd Groce, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Georgia Historical Society. In his publications, Groce focused on the March to the Sea, contending that "it lacked the wholesale destruction of human life that characterized World War II" and that "Sherman’s primary targets — foodstuffs and industrial, government and military property — were carefully chosen to create the desired effect, and never included mass killing of civilians." Groce premised his arguments on the notion that Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 120 (1864), which prohibited Union soldiers from entering Confederate dwellings and encouraged Union soldiers to appropriate Confederate horses, mules, and wagons only from "the rich", had successfully mitigated the effects of the previous year's Lieber Code. Groce summarized the latter code, signed into law by Lincoln on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, as authorizing the Union "Army to destroy civilian property, starve noncombatants, shell towns, keep enemy civilians in besieged cities, free slaves and summarily execute guerrillas if such measures were deemed necessary to winning the war and defending the country."

The sole exception to Groce's focus on the March to the Sea was evidence for his contention that Sherman fought "to bring rebels back into the Union, not to annihilate them." Groce rested this corollary conclusion on a vignette from the Carolinas campaign. According to Groce, Sherman "told one South Carolina woman that he was ransacking her plantation so that her soldier husband would come home and Grant would not have to kill him in the trenches at Petersburg."

In a 2014 review essay, historian Daniel E. Sutherland observed that "scholars who insist that 'total' wars must be defined by saturation bombing or the callous dismissal of dead civilians as collateral damage often seem eager to sanitize the American Civil War by making it appear less uncivil than it was in fact. They might consider, as Brady and Nelson [authors of two 2012 studies] have done, that absolute destruction and dislocation can take many forms and must ultimately be defined by the victims of war." The historiographical debates between scorched earth "hard war" proponents and "total war" mainstays threatened to overshadow studies on the ecological devastation wrought by, for example, the Valley Campaigns of 1864, or Union soldier violations of the " 'spatial and corporeal privacy' of Confederate women" during the Carolinas campaign. Unverified estimates indicate that nine Confederate civilians died every 72 hours during Sherman's 37-day March to the Sea. Historians still consider this number comparatively low. There was, however, a "shift to hard war" in the ensuing Carolinas campaign, with mounting Confederate civilian fatalities matching a surge in the number of confirmed sexual assaults on Confederate women by male Union soldiers.

During the South Carolina stage of the so-called "March North from the Sea", historian Lisa Tendrich Frank maintained, Union soldiers had "earned a reputation for being 'rather loose on the handle.' " Sherman responded to the South Carolina increase in sexual assaults by punishing "the rape of white women, whose race and class provided some privileges and protections" in North Carolina. The records of Sherman's punitive actions in North Carolina revealed that punishments were commensurate with the conditions of Confederate rape victims, as well as the number of sexual assaults by a given perpetrator. For instance, one soldier " 'did by physical force and violence commit rape upon the person of one Miss Letitia Craft' in North Carolina", but the case was pending because the soldier may have been involved in the gang or serial rape of two additional Confederate women. As the Carolinas campaign continued, the racial contours of Sherman's disciplinary efforts shifted the targets of sexual assault from Confederate women to freedwomen because his men "rarely suffered consequences for their sexual assaults on African American women."

Consequentialism and the Ovidian-Machiavellian aphorism, "the end justifies the means", played roles in Union military strategy. According to Sutherland, Union generals believed that, "however destructive Union military policy proved to be, the ends of repairing the Union and abolishing slavery justified the means. Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman all said as much." Historians who attempted to classify the Civil War as a "total war" or scorched-earth "hard war" confounded their own conceptual frameworks for the persistence of this consequentialist bellum, a thinly-veiled justification for racially-motivated hate crimes that largely spared Confederate noncombatants. During the Reconstruction era and post-bellum American Indian Wars, Civil War "relics lost the horror of their creation" and the war itself "acquired a nostalgic glow" for federal regiments and cavalry, even as "former Confederates exploited, and sometimes exaggerated, the destruction to enhance the power of their Lost Cause rhetoric."

Conversely, for scholars who advanced an indiscriminate consequentialism against noncombatants, especially Confederate ones, as key to expediting abolition and winning the war, "why should we not simply acknowledge the circumstances, rather than be embarrassed by them or try to cloak them in euphemisms?" In a 2017 book review, Sutherland added that "a more profitable approach to understanding why the war was fought with increasingly destructive force--and not just by Sherman--may be to recognize the fact that both armies waged, in Jefferson Davis's words, a 'savage war,' and accept it on those terms." Sutherland had previously argued that both sides invoked a comparative ethno-racial "Indian savagery" in explanations for "the need for ruthlessness."

Historians Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh and Williamson Murray likewise contended that "Sherman, and Grant, for that matter, were looking backward, not forward." Sherman studied the history of European warfare, "not to mention the actions of Americans fighting the Indians in North America." Sherman's soldiers torched expansive acreage owned by planters as well as entire civilian neighborhoods. Sherman's army "undoubtedly would have tossed [all] such owners into the fire", but a number of planters already decamped. The remaining civilians could, in many instances, "leave before their houses were torched." These "hard war" practices "were relatively rare in Georgia, but became more prevalent when Sherman's army reached South Carolina."

More recently, historians have begun to research the extent to which Sherman's Special Orders No. 120 mitigated the effects of the Lieber Code during the March to the Sea, as well as questioning the practical execution of the latter code's strict dichotomy between civilians and combatants. The Special Field Orders No. 120, for instance, indicated that, "should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility." In a 2023 encyclopedia entry on irregular civilian, southern Unionist, and guerilla warfare in and by the Confederate States of America, historian Matthew Stith conceded that critics of "total war" usages in Civil War historiography were often "heavy-handed." In the final analysis, however, "debates about the war’s severity—total versus hard—as well as the nature of guerrillas themselves—noble warriors or bloodthirsty criminals—beg for more attention, even if each side of each debate might consider the case closed." Such studies on "irregular warfare" exacerbated, but also reconfigured, challenges in counting civilians and counting combatants during the Civil War.

title: Sherman's March to the Sea


text:
Talk:U of M

I believe that deletion of the accusation of ignorant, and indeed, gratuitously hostile, bigotry would leave an unjust and factually inaccurate impression. Nonetheless I expect complaints of POV unless I give reams of documentation. I doubt anyone has ever attempted seriously to prosecute this particular case. Michael Hardy 03:05, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Can you disambiguate U of Maryland please? :-) Evercat 03:06, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * I doubt anyone seriously considers this article anything other than a candidate for Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs)

I turned this into a disambiguation page. The fact that there is occasional discussion of who is the "real U of M" isn't particularly noteworthy: this happens with lots of other university abbreviations (e.g. the UTs: Texas and Tennessee, who happen to also be football rivals). --Delirium 05:11, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

 * I was a visiting professor at UT for a year, and it was neither in Texas nor in Tennessee. Michael Hardy 20:19, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Extraordinary bigotry
Anyone who thinks I exaggerate when I speak of extraordinarily intense and extensive bigotry incessantly emanating out of the otherwise admirable University of Michigan needs only to look at the falsehoods in the recent anonymous edit summaries. Michael Hardy 02:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See WP:WEASEL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.194.89 (talk • contribs)

 * I wish you wouldn't apply such a label to the entire University of Michigan population. It appears you may be struggling with a "vocal" minority in this case.  This "vocal" minority does appear to be making uninformed edits to this Wiki article, but I don't believe this situation is limited to this article.  As stated in the discussion on the University of Michigan page I would suggest, "Revert, rewrite, and don't let it get to you too much."

 * Personally I believe this page (once converted to disambig) has slowly become a little too wordy. I'm not sure how debating "who uses the abbreviation more" betters this disambig page or other articles.  I submit the following change suggestion:
 * University of Michigan, also referred to as "U-M" or "UM".
 * University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities area. Locally often called "the U".
 * Terryfoster 19:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The point of this page is less about debating which of these two is the real "U of M" (it's obviously Michigan, founded 34 years earlier and more widely known) and more about pointing out that people in Minnesota can't come up with any of their own nicknames for a university (see "The U" for further proof). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.30.95.82 (talk) 16:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup
This page has become just a list of universities that start with the letter M. Most of these universities are never refered to as the U of M. Would anyone to removing all articles that do not bold "U of M" in the lead? ~ Eóin (talk) 06:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm with you on the Universidad de Monterrey. The article indicates the school is abbreviated as "UDEM".  In order to become "U of M" you would need to show that it was common to translate the name into English and then abbreviate it. That seems unlikely.  (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the French Canadian schools on the list since they're officially bilingual.)  Please note, that my point is not related to the University of Michigan in any way; please keep that in mind when responding. RevelationDirect (talk) 09:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

 * I completely agree. I think there should only be 3 universities listed here (Michigan, Minnesota, and Miami) because those are the only three who refer to themselves as the U of M with any frequency.  Wikipediarul e s 2221  22:54, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:U of M