 Not surprisingly, in addition to slowing the Confederate advance such foraging aroused anger in the North and led many Northerners to support General Sherman's total warfare tactics as retaliation.Scorched earth policies especially in Georgia, South Carolina and the Virginian Shenandoah Valley proved far more devastating than anything Pennsylvania had suffered and further reduced the capacity of the increasingly effectively blockaded Confederacy to feed even its civilian population, let alone its Army.At many points during the war, and especially near the end, Confederate Armies were described as starving and, indeed, many died from lack of food and related illnesses.