Total War and Siege: Strategy or Tragedy?

War strategies like total war or siege, are inhumane.  When there is war, the civilians should not be harmed. That is the soldier's job. They have to go out and fight, and not the citizens. The civilians are just people, they don't deserve to get hurt. Of course in the Civil War, Southern citizens had slaves. Even though it's terrible. They shouldn't get the outcome of all this violence, they just deserve to have their slaves taken from them. So in my opinion, war strategies like siege and total war are not necessary.