Because the Nephites looked with longing for Mormon to lead them, he did. But he mentioned once again that he was without hope. What a heartsickening feeling! Mormon described a condition known among military commanders as “total war” or war on a “strategic level,” where everything in the army’s wake is destroyed. General William T. Sherman’s march to the sea through Georgia during the American Civil War was such a campaign. In November 1864, with four corps of soldiers, arranged in two wide columns, Sherman cut a huge swath during his infamous march. When leaving Atlanta, he set fire to factories, clothing mills, houses—anything that could be a resource to his enemy.
In like manner, total war was unleashed in the same New World some fifteen hundred years before Sherman. Mormon explicitly mentioned that his reason for recounting the “blood and carnage” is not to sicken or sorrow his readers but to teach important lessons in a powerful way to the remnant of the house of Jacob. That is, the wicked will not tell us what wickedness brings, but the results of wickedness are unmistakable.