The Vicksburg campaign marked a key transitional phase of Union policy toward white Southern civilians. Initially, Northern military commanders had instituted a conciliatorily approach to Southern civilians and property, but by late 1862 the policy had evolved to a pragmatic form of warfare that allowed stricter measures but still attempted to limit the physical and monetary damage inflicted upon civilians. In the Mississippi River Valley in 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee perfected a punitive policy concerning civilians known to historians as “hard war,” which authorized the destruction of all Confederate economic and transportation resources. This thesis examines the creation of hard war policy by the lower ranks of the Union army and concludes that the Army of the Tennessee developed hard war first in response to the distinct culture clash between Midwestern soldiers and the Secessionist residents of the Deep South.