The North won the Civil War for many reasons: more manpower, greater industrial strength, tremendous capital, a better idea. They also won because they had three generals who believed in total war. It was not enough to defeat an enemy in the field; no, one had to tear the insides out of the enemy. Bring war with its flames and cruelty to the very hearths of the enemy to make them realize what war really was and is to this day. Those three generals are Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan. These men knew that with the material, industrial and manpower strength of the Union, they could win and were determined to ensure that there could be no future Civil War.