Necessary or unnecessary?

I think that both tactics were unnecessary to win the war. I don't understand why the Union would use siege and total war if they were trying to bring the country together, but instead the Union was bringing the country farther apart. It makes me wonder why we are even fighting the war in the first place. Seige is to cut off off all supplies from entering an area. Personally, I don't think that it is okay to let civilians starve, and all they can eat is rats, tree bark, and other gross things. Total war was destroying all of the civilians resources, and they were left homeless, and possibly even severely injured. That is just not right to me at all if we are fighting this war to bring the country closer together.