Sherman’s March - American Civil War - HISTORY.com Google The Fall of Atlanta General Sherman’s troops captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864. This was an important triumph, because Atlanta was a railroad hub and the industrial center of the Confederacy: It had munitions factories, foundries and warehouses that kept the Confederate army supplied with food, weapons and other goods. It stood between the Union Army and two of its most prized targets: the Gulf of Mexico to the west and Charleston to the East. It was also a symbol of Confederate pride and strength, and its fall made even the most loyal Southerners doubt that they could win the war. (“Since Atlanta,” South Carolinian Mary Boykin Chestnut wrote in her diary, “I have felt as if…we are going to be wiped off the earth.”) Did You Know? In theyears afterthe Civil War, fighting forces around the world have made use of Sherman’s “total war” strategy. March to the Sea After they lost Atlanta, the Confederate army headed west into Tennessee and Alabama , attacking Union supply lines as they went. Sherman was reluctant to set off on a wild goose chase across the South, however, and so he split his troops into two groups.

Major General George Thomas took some 60,000 men to meet the Confederates in Nashville, while Sherman took the remaining 62,000 on an offensive march through Georgia to Savannah, “smashing things” (he wrote) “ to the sea.” “Make Georgia Howl” Sherman believed that the Confederacy derived its strength not from its fighting forces but from the material and moral support of sympathetic Southern whites. Factories, farms and railroads provided Confederate troops with the things they needed, he reasoned; and if he could destroy those things, the Confederate war effort would collapse. Meanwhile, his troops could undermine Southern morale by making life so unpleasant for Georgia’s civilians that they would demand an end to the war. To that end, Sherman’s troops marched south toward Savannah in two wings, about 30 miles apart. On November 22, 3,500 Confederate cavalry started a skirmish with the Union soldiers at Griswoldville, but that ended so badly–650 Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded, compared to 62 Yankee casualties–that Southern troops initiated no more battles.

Instead, they fled South ahead of Sherman’s troops, wreaking their own havoc as they went: They wrecked bridges, chopped down trees and burned barns filled with provisions before the Union army could reach them. The Union soldiers were just as unsparing. They raided farms and plantations, stealing and slaughtering cows, chickens, turkeys, sheep and hogs and taking as much other food–especially bread and potatoes–as they could carry. (These groups of foraging soldiers were nicknamed “bummers,” and they burned whatever they could not carry.) The marauding Yankees needed the supplies, but they also wanted to teach Georgians a lesson: “it isn’t so sweet to secede,” one soldier wrote in a letter home, “as [they] thought it would be.” Sherman’s troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864, about three weeks after they left Atlanta. The city was undefended when they got there.

(The 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled.) Sherman presented the city of Savannah and its 25,000 bales of cotton to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift.Early in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through South Carolina to Charleston. In April, the Confederacy surrendered and the war was over. Total War Sherman’s “total war” in Georgia was brutal and destructive, but it did just what it was supposed to do: it hurt Southern morale, made it impossible for the Confederates to fight at full capacity and likely hastened the end of the war. “This Union and its Government must be sustained, at any and every cost,” explained one of Sherman’s subordinates.

“To sustain it, we must war upon and destroy the organized rebel forces,–must cut off their supplies, destroy their communications…and produce among the people of Georgia a thorough conviction of the personal misery which attends war, and the utter helplessness and inability of their ‘rulers’ to protect them…If that terror and grief and even want shall help to paralyze their husbands and fathers who are fighting us…it is mercy in the end.” Tags Civil War for Kids: Sherman's March to the Sea Sherman's March to the Sea Sherman's March to the Sea by Unknown History >> Civil War General Sherman's march through the state of Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah was one of the most devastating blows to the South in the American Civil War. Not only did he take control of Atlanta, a major railroad hub, and Savannah, a major sea port, but he laid the land between Atlanta and Savannah to waste, destroying all that was in his path. Before the March Prior to his famous march to the sea, General Sherman led 100,000 men into the southern city of Atlanta. He defeated Confederate General John Hood at the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864.

He had a lot more soldiers than General Hood who only had 51,000. General Sherman finally gained control of the city of Atlanta on September 2, 1864. The March to Savannah After establishing control of Atlanta, General Sherman decided to march to Savannah, Georgia and take control of the sea port there. He was well into enemy territory, however, and didn't have supply lines back to the north. This was considered a risky march. What he decided to do was live off the land. He would take from the farmers and livestock along the way to feed his army. Map of Sherman's March to Savannah by Hal Jespersen click map for larger view General Sherman also decided that he could hurt the Confederacy even further by destroying cotton gins, lumber mills, and other industries that helped the Confederate economy. His army burned, looted, and destroyed much that was in their path during the march. This was a deep blow to the resolve of the Southern people. During the march, Sherman divided up his army in four different forces. This helped to spread out the destruction and give his troops more area to get food and supplies.

It also helped to confuse the Confederate Army so they weren't sure exactly what city he was marching to. Taking Savannah When Sherman arrived in Savannah, the small Confederate force that was there fled and the mayor of Savannah surrendered with little fight. Sherman would write a letter to President Lincoln telling him he had captured Savannah as a Christmas gift to the president. Interesting Facts about Sherman's March to the Sea The tactic of destroying much in an army's path is called "scorched earth". The Union soldiers would heat up rail road ties and then bend them around tree trunks. They were nicknamed "Sherman's neckties". Sherman's decisive victories are thought to have assured Abraham Lincoln's reelection as president. The soldiers who went out to forage for food for the army were called "bummers". Sherman estimated that his army did $100m in damage and that's in 1864 dollars! Go here to read more about the history of Georgia .

Activities William Tecumseh Sherman - American Civil War - HISTORY.com William Tecumseh Sherman A+E Networks Introduction Perhaps the originator and the first practitioner of what the twentieth century came to know as “total war,” William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 commanded the Union armies of the West in the decisive drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the famous “march to the sea” across Georgia. In these campaigns and his later push northward from Savannah through the Carolinas, Sherman’s troops carried the war to the Southern home front and blazed a wide path of destruction that delivered the death blow to the Confederacy’s will and ability to fight. For the accompanying destruction, his name is still cursed in some parts of the South; but he is also recognized as a great strategist, a forceful leader, and–together with Ulysses Grant –the ablest Union general of the war. The partnership of William Tecumseh Sherman (known to friends as “Cump”) with Grant helped bring both out of early obscurity, until Grant commanded all Union armies and Sherman led all federal forces in the West. Did You Know?

Ohio-born William Tecumseh Sherman was named after the Shawnee chief Tecumseh who had tried to unite Ohio River Valley Native American tribes in the early 19th century. The careers of both men had been undistinguished between the Mexican War and the American Civil War . When the South seceded, Sherman–West Point, 1840–was superintendent of a military college that is now Louisiana State University. Aided by his brother John, a member of Congress from Ohio , he reluctantly left the South for a Union commission. Sherman commanded a brigade in the war’s first major battle, at Bull Run in Virginia , and then a division in its first truly bloody encounter, at Shiloh; later, he led a corps in one of its climactic campaigns, against Vicksburg, Mississippi , and he commanded a federal army in the last battle of the war in the East, at Bentonville, North Carolina . His military career had not always been so outstanding; as commanding general of the Department of the Cumberland, 1861-1862, he feuded with the press, displayed emotional problems, and suffered accusations of insanity.

Only after this ordeal did he begin his long and fruitful association with Ulysses Grant. Sherman’s influence, for example, helped stop Grant from resigning when the latter felt himself hamstrung by orders from Washington . In the battles before Atlanta, Sherman’s opponent was Joseph E. Johnston ; but Johnston’s skilled retreats before Sherman’s turning tactics exasperated President Jefferson Davis , who replaced Johnston with the belligerent John B. Hood . Sherman soundly defeated Hood in several engagements and occupied Atlanta early in September 1864. On November 15, in perhaps the boldest act of the war, he led an army of sixty-two thousand men in two wings, with thirty-five thousand horses and twenty-five hundred wagons, on an overland march to Savannah–cutting himself off from his line of supply and sustaining his army on the land. “The utter destruction of [Georgia’s] roads, houses and people,” he had written, “will cripple their military resources… I can make Georgia howl!” Encountering little organized opposition, Sherman took Savannah on December 21, 1864, and later turned north for the Carolinas, covering 450 miles in fifty days.

The results of this remarkable march justified Sherman’s strategic expectations and, together with Grant’s victories in Virginia, destroyed the Confederacy’s ability to carry on the war. It is still disputed, however, whether the burning of Atlanta, the later burning of Columbia, South Carolina , and the depredations of “Sherman’s bummers” were either necessary or unpreventable. For his military prowess, Sherman is justly renowned; he succeeded Grant as commander in chief in 1869 and remained in that post until 1883. Two memorable remarks of his also have entered history. Having written to Mayor Calhoun of Atlanta in 1874 that “war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it,” he sharpened this definition in a commencement address at the Michigan Military Academy in 1879 to the oft-quoted phrase “War is hell.” Five years later, when he was frequently talked of as a prospective Republican nominee for president, Sherman sent the Republican National Convention of 1884 the most famous of all rejections: “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.” Even today, “a Sherman” is well-understood slang for a firm refusal.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to William T. Sherman was paid by his old Civil War opponent Joe Johnston, who had fought him in Georgia and had signed with him an armistice after the Battle of Bentonville in April 1865. The two became friends. General Johnston attended Sherman’s funeral in New York in 1891, stood in the rain to watch the cortege pass, and caught a cold. It caused Johnston’s death two weeks later. TOM WICKER The Reader’s Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Tags March to the Sea | American Civil War | Britannica.com March to the Sea THIS IS A DIRECTORY PAGE. Britannica does not currently have an article on this topic. Alternative Title: Sherman’s March to the Sea Union soldiers wrecking railroad lines (making “Sherman’s neckties”), Atlanta, Georgia. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (B8184-10488) Learn about this topic in these articles: in American Civil War: Sherman’s Georgia campaigns and total war ...in each of them.

With his communications threatened, Hood evacuated Atlanta on the night of August 31–September 1. Sherman pursued only at first. Then, on November 15, he commenced his great March to the Sea with 62,000 men, laying waste to the economic resources of Georgia in a 50-mile- (80-km-) wide swath of destruction. He captured Savannah, 285 miles (460 km) from Atlanta, on... The American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea The American Civil War: Sherman's March to the Sea May 11, 2005 THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English. (MUSIC) I'm Kay Gallant. Today,Harry Monroe and I continue the story of America's Civil War. VOICE TWO: By the autumn of eighteen-sixty-four, it appeared that the North would defeat the South in the war between the states. The southern army needed men and supplies. There was little hope of getting enough of either to win. The northern army was stronger and better-equipped. But it, too, had suffered. Much of the death and destruction was the result of new military technology.

VOICE ONE: A new kind of bullet had been invented. It was called the minie ball. It made the gun a much more deadly weapon. Before the minie ball, few soldiers could hit a target more than thirty meters away. With the new bullet, they could hit targets more than one hundred fifty meters away. Soldiers with such weapons could be put into position behind stone or earth walls. Then it was almost impossible to defeat them. VOICE TWO: Most American generals, however, seemed unable to accept this. They continued to use the old methods of attack that had worked before the minie ball was invented. Hundreds or thousands of men were put in long lines across the front of the enemy position. A signal was given. The men began to march forward. When they got close, they fired their guns. Then they ran at the enemy and struck with their knives or hands. The idea was to shock the enemy, frighten him, and make him run away. As generals on both sides learned, this method no longer worked. The attackers were shot down before they could get close enough to hurt the defenders. VOICE ONE: After three-and-a-half years of fighting, hundreds of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Still the war continued. In the East, Union armies were slowly pushing forward toward their main target. That was the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. In the West, Union armies were slowly pushing deeper into Confederate territory. The western armies were led by General William Sherman. VOICE TWO: Sherman had two goals. One was to capture the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was one of the few remaining industrial cities of the Confederacy. The other goal was to destroy the Confederate Army led by General Joe Johnston. Sherman's army was stronger than Johnston's army. But the Confederates usually got into better defensive positions. Sherman refused to attack in such situations. It was easier to march around the Confederates and force them to withdraw. This happened again and again. VOICE ONE: Confederate President Jefferson Davis began to believe that General Johnston was afraid to fight. He replaced him with another general. Within two days, that general attacked the Union Army. The attack began without enough planning. It was based on false information. It was a disaster. In eleven days of fighting, one-third of the Confederate Army in Georgia was destroyed. The remaining force was too weak to defend Atlanta. The city fell.

VOICE TWO: After capturing Atlanta, General Sherman fought a series of small battles with a Confederate force across northern Georgia. Then he decided to march to Savannah, a city on the Atlantic coast. Before leaving, his men set fire to the city. Almost all of Atlanta was destroyed. Sherman's army would continue to do this all the way to Savannah, Georgia, three hundred fifty kilometers away. It cut a path of destruction more than one hundred kilometers wide. This campaign would be known as Sherman's "March to the Sea." VOICE ONE: Sherman said he wanted to make the people of Georgia suffer. He said he wanted to show the people of the Confederacy that their government could not protect them. Union soldiers stopped at every farm and village. They took food and clothing. They took horses, cows, and other farm animals. What they could not take, or did not want, they destroyed. They set fire to houses and farm buildings. They burned crops. They destroyed stores and factories. They burned bridges and pulled up railroad tracks. Day by day, the Union Army of General William Sherman cut and burned its way across Georgia. VOICE TWO: The army faced little opposition. Small groups of Confederate horse soldiers struck at the edges of the army.

But they did little damage. On December twenty-second, eighteen sixty-four, Sherman reached Savannah. He sent a message to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington. He said: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas holiday gift, the city of Savannah." Sherman's campaign had cut a great wound in the heart of the Confederacy. All that remained were the states of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. His "March to the Sea" had a great, destructive effect on the spirit of the south. VOICE ONE: Sherman's army rested in Savannah for a month. Then, on February first, eighteen-sixty-five, it began to move north. The goal was to join General Ulysses Grant outside the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. As Sherman's army moved across South Carolina, it destroyed almost everything in sight. The soldiers remembered that South Carolina had been the first state to rebel and leave the Union. They remembered that South Carolina had fired the first shots of the war. This time -- against orders -- they destroyed the land they left behind. Confederate forces could not stop them. VOICE TWO: The same thing happened in the Shenandoah River Valley northwest of Richmond.

In the early years of the war, Confederate forces had moved through the valley to strike northern territory. They had invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, and had threatened Washington, from there. General Grant decided that the Confederates had used the Shenandoah Valley long enough. He sent some of his men into the valley. He ordered them to destroy everything that might be of use to the enemy. "Eat up Virginia," he said, "clear and clean as far as you can go." Farms were burned. Crops were destroyed. Farm animals were taken away or killed. Nothing was left that could feed a man or animal. Nothing but blackened earth. VOICE ONE: Then General Grant sent General Philip Sheridan into the Shenandoah Valley. Sheridan's army battled its way through the valley in the autumn of eighteen sixty-four. It gained victory after victory against a smaller, weaker Confederate force. By the end of the year, Union troops had complete control of the valley. The only Confederate power that remained was the army of General Robert E. Lee. VOICE TWO: With the Shenandoah Valley closed to the Confederates, food supplies fell very low. There was almost nothing to feed the soldiers in Lee's army.

Wagons would go out each day in search of food. They returned almost empty. More and more Confederate soldiers were running away. Some returned to their homes. Others surrendered to Union forces. Confederate leaders no longer could find soldiers to take the places of those who left. Men would not answer the army's call. There was, however, a huge labor force in the south that the army had not called. Slaves. VOICE ONE: Slaves had been used to do non-military work for the army. They had built roads and bridges. They had driven wagons. But they had not served as soldiers. In the north, thousands of free Negroes served in the Union army. But they received less pay than white soldiers. Confederate lawmakers finally began to discuss the idea of using slaves as soldiers. A bill was proposed that would free any slave who joined the army to fight. Many southern leaders opposed the bill, even if it would save the Confederacy. Said one: "Do not arm the slaves. The day you make them soldiers is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers, our whole idea of slavery is wrong." VOICE TWO: General Robert E. Lee did not agree.

He believed slaves could be made into good soldiers if they believed they had an interest in Confederate victory. He proposed giving immediate freedom to any slave who joined the army. The Confederate Congress passed a bill in March of eighteen sixty-five to accept Negroes as soldiers. The bill did not promise to free them. By then, however, it was too late. An army of freed slaves could not be trained in time to save the Confederacy. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: You have been listening to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley and Christine Johnson. (MUSIC) --- Editor's note: On an earlier version of this page, a picture that was supposed to show General William Sherman in fact was a picture of General Phillip Sheridan. --- THE MAKING OF A NATION is an American history series written with English learners in mind. Developed as a radio show, each weekly program is 15 minutes long. The series begins in prehistoric times and currently ends with the presidential election of 2000. Both the text and sound of each week's program can be downloaded from voaspecialenglish.com.

Past shows can also be found on the site. There are more than 200 programs in the complete series, which starts over again every five years. Most of the shows were produced a long time ago. This explains why a few words here and there may sound a little dated. In fact, the series has even outlived some of the announcers. But we know from our audience that THE MAKING OF A NATION is the most popular of the feature programs in VOA Special English. VOA Special English is a radio, TV and Internet service of the Voice of America. Programs are written with a limited vocabulary and are read at a slower speed. The purpose is to help people improve their American English as they learn about news and other subjects. Stumbling in Sherman’s Path By Noah Andre Trudeau Hardee’s field headquarters was about 40 miles from Beauregard’s, but Beauregard might as well have been on the moon. Standard histories of Major General William T. Sherman’s celebrated March to the Sea invariably portray the Confederacy’s response as inconsequential. Former Southern Brigadier General Clement A. Evans asserted, for example, that there was “no force available to obstruct” Sherman’s soldiers.

Such broad generalizations may assuage wounded Southern pride, but they also rewrite history. Efforts to forestall Sherman’s operations in central Georgia began in late September 1864, when President Jefferson Davis personally visited the threatened front. On September 25 he reached Palmetto, Ga., some 25 miles southwest of enemy-occupied Atlanta. Palmetto was then headquarters for General John B. Hood, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Just two months earlier Davis had bumped Hood up the seniority ladder to take over the army after General Joseph E. Johnston had failed to stop Sherman’s march from Chattanooga to the outskirts of Atlanta. Hood quickly launched a series of fierce offensive strikes at the Union forces enfolding the city. None succeeded in halting the enemy, however, and Atlanta was abandoned on September 1. Hood did have another plan, which, considering his situation, was about as good as could be expected. Outnumbered more than 2-to-1, his best option was to march around north of Atlanta to disrupt the Federals’ attenuated supply line and draw them away from the city in order to protect their vital rail link with their Tennessee depots.

Hood planned to strike at exposed portions of the Federal force, but only when the odds favored him. At worst, he thought, if the enemy’s attention was on him, it would mean the rest of Georgia would be left alone. Should Sherman not play along—by choosing to thrust southward through Georgia instead—Hood would then harry his rear. Add to this the home force’s familiarity with the Georgia countryside, the prospect of a general rising of civilian forces promised by the state’s governor and an active Confederate cavalry, Davis had a “not unreasonable hope that retributive justice might overtake the ruthless invader.” Hood’s army wasn’t the only piece of Davis’ strategy. His first move solved a prickly personality clash by transferring Hood’s unhappy senior subordinate, Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, from commanding a corps in the Army of Tennessee to taking charge of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Hardee would anchor the defense of Sherman’s likely targets along the Atlantic coast. Davis also met with Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, commanding the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. Although skeptical of Hood’s chances for success, Taylor agreed with the president’s belief that having General P.G.T.

Beauregard, a Confederate hero early in the war, coordinate the region’s military response would “awaken a certain enthusiasm” among the citizenry. On October 3 Davis met with Beauregard in Augusta. It was not a comfortable occasion, since the two had quarreled bitterly over issues of strategy and resources. Even so, Beauregard pronounced Hood’s plan “perfectly feasible…according to the principles of war.” Davis offered Beauregard command of a new organizational jurisdiction, to be called the Division of the West, encompassing five states and including the forces under Hood and Taylor (Hardee’s coastal domain would be added later). His duties would be largely administrative, leaving it to others to command in the field. Beauregard eagerly accepted the new position, afterward insisting that Davis had promised him the cooperation of the Confederate War Department. Rebel operations began on September 29, when Hood started marching his army counterclockwise around Atlanta. By October 3 his infantry was wrecking the Federal depots at Acworth and Big Shanty. Two days later a Rebel division nearly captured Allatoona Pass, a natural choke point in the Federal supply route.

Sherman reacted according to expectations by taking most of his troops out of Atlanta to chase after Hood. So far, so good. Hood, however, soon tired of playing the spoiler’s role. Worse yet, he would not recognize Beauregard’s ultimate authority. Believing that Hood enjoyed a direct sanction from Davis, Beauregard was reluctant to press the issue and limited his role to that of adviser and facilitator. Not that Hood was interested in his advice as he made changes to the Davis-approved plan. Instead of bobbing, weaving and jabbing to foil his opponent, Hood began thinking of striking into Tennessee to capture its Federal-occupied capital, Nashville. Toward that end, Hood marched west and north to close on the Tennessee border. Soon he was well out of Georgia, with Sherman between him and the heart of the state. But Sherman quickly reversed course, returned to Atlanta and, on November 15-16, moved his armies out of the city in two large columns, or wings, on routes both east and southeast. Hood was not in position to pursue. Beauregard was hoping Hood’s surge into Tennessee might eventually draw Sherman back, but he took an important step to bolster the defenses in central Georgia.

In early November he freed up the cavalry assigned to Hood under Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler by replacing it with the Tennessee-based command of Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Wheeler’s units were then sent south into the region between Atlanta and the all-important manufacturing center of Macon. Sherman, however, had begun his march before that transfer was completed. With Hood out of the picture, Wheeler’s troopers, Georgia state militia, and garrisons in Macon, Augusta and Savannah—perhaps 15,000 men altogether, supplemented by an un­known number of small irregular units—remained to oppose Sherman’s 60,000 Federals. In Macon, Maj. Gen. Howell Cobb, a Georgia state officer, remained in charge, but Augusta and Savannah both fell under Hardee’s control. On November 16 Beauregard ordered Taylor to proceed immediately to Macon and take charge. To slow down Sherman, Beauregard instructed Taylor to “cut and block up all dirt roads in advance of him, [and] remove or destroy supplies of all kinds in his front” while Wheeler’s cavalry harassed his flanks and rear.

Beauregard sent another message to General Cobb, who was with the Georgia militiamen falling back toward Macon from forward positions just south of Atlanta. Cobb was advised to prepare Macon for a siege. In the midst of all the complicated planning for his Tennessee invasion, Hood added his bit to the mix. He advised Wheeler: “If Sherman advances to the south or east destroy all things in his front that might be useful to him, and keep a portion of your force constantly destroying his trains.” Had it been aggressively pursued, the last suggestion could have caused Sherman real problems. Even though he was counting on foraging to keep his army supplied, Sherman had hedged his bets by filling 2,500 wagons with a 20-day supply of bread; 40 days’ of sugar, coffee and salt, as well as three days’ of animal feed. Moving with the lengthy wagon trains were 5,000 cattle, representing a 40-day beef supply. This long logistical tail was Sherman’s weak point. It seemed too that “General Weather” was wearing Confederate gray.

Just a few days out from Atlanta, Sherman’s men were pummeled by a series of rain and snow storms that slowed the wagons to a crawl. Fearing what would happen if Wheeler’s men got loose among the Yankee supply trains, Sherman’s wing commanders allotted whole brigades and even divisions to the role of protecting them. Further complicating matters were a series of significant rivers requiring pontoon bridging—natural congestion points that an alert and aggressive enemy could exploit. The prospect greatly worried Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick, commanding Sherman’s cavalry, who retorted later: “Was there no enemy to oppose us? Yes, yes! Sufficient, if concentrated in our front, to have disputed the passage of every river and delayed us days and days, which of itself would have been fatal.” Problems abounded for the Rebels, too. Both Beauregard and Taylor were held up by the Confederacy’s decrepit transportation network. In a pinch, Beauregard summoned Hardee from Savannah to take charge in Macon, with Hardee arriving just as the first elements of Union Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard’s Right Wing began appearing north of the city. Before Hardee reached Macon, it was every officer for himself.

The militia field commander, Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith, then at Forsyth, determined that the best place for his citizen-soldiers was “in the fortifications at Macon, leaving the outside work to the cavalry.” Wheeler was also getting plenty of advice in lieu of concrete missions. With his units being asked to help protect Macon as well as slow Sherman, the frustrated cavalryman sent an urgent request to Richmond on November 17 asking to be directed to someone “who knows the course they desire pursued.” He never received a clear answer to his query. Hardee entered Macon on November 19 to grim news: The enemy was close and in strength. There was more bad news. An investigation of Savannah’s landside defenses revealed them to be weak. Hardee told the garrison commander “to press Negroes if you need them.” No effort was to be attempted to save the state capital, Milledgeville, which the Federals finally occupied on November 22. Hardee paid attention only to Macon’s immediate needs, ignoring the first significant opportunity to upset Sherman’s plans.

Thanks to the poor roads and unceasing rain, the Union Right Wing was stretched out for nearly 30 miles, with its head at Clinton while its wagon-heavy tail was greatly delayed getting across the Ocmulgee River. One unanticipated consequence of the Union feint toward Macon was to concentrate the various Confederate military assets more effectively than it had been ordered when the Federal supply columns were so attenuated. A strike against the Right Wing’s supply train could wreak havoc with Sherman’s tight timetables. But the command-and-control systems failed to kick in. Beauregard and Taylor were out of touch, and Hardee viewed his task as limited to Macon’s present danger. Wheeler had his hands full scouting the Federal advance and meeting emergencies. All the remaining high-ranking individuals in town were state officers obsessed with protecting Macon. No one was thinking beyond the immediate horizon. Isolated in Macon, lacking telegraphic connection north or east, Hardee soon reckoned that the city was no longer menaced by Sherman’s forces and reasoned that Augusta must be the Yankees’ true objective.

Without any contrary information from Wheeler, Hardee wrongly assumed that the Federal line of march was well to the northeast, leaving the railroad clear from Gordon to the coast. It would be quickest for Macon’s now superfluous militia to tramp east the 20 or so miles to Gordon, where the men could catch trains to Augusta. Orders to that effect were issued to the various units around the city. Taking his own cue, Hardee packed up, and on the evening of November 21 headed for the coast. The immediate consequence of Hardee’s decision was the needless Battle of Griswoldville, on November 22. A division’s worth of the militia that he had ordered east collided there with a brigade-sized Union rear guard. The citizen-soldiers were thrown back with serious losses. Even as that combat was unfolding, Taylor arrived at Macon. The experienced field commander at once instructed Macon’s defenders to stand down, but orders to recall the troops from Griswoldville arrived too late to avert the tragedy.

That same day Jefferson Davis sent more of his military brain trust to help by temporarily assigning General Braxton Bragg (then overseeing affairs in North Carolina) to Augusta to “employ all available force against the enemy now advancing into Southeastern Georgia.” Preventing Sherman from capturing Augusta’s irreplaceable powder works was Davis’ top priority. An effort to better focus the state’s military response to Sherman’s advance became mired in political controversy. Declaring that Governor Joseph Brown was “disabled” by being cut off in Macon (where he had fled before the fall of Milledgeville), Augusta-based Ambrose R. Wright, second-in-command of state forces as president of the Georgia Senate, activated a clause in the law empowering him to intervene. He took control of the militia east of the Oconee River and ordered it to Macon. Governor Brown’s partisans viewed Wright’s action as a blatant subversion of gubernatorial authority. The resulting clamor prompted Wright to request Brown’s approval of his action, which the governor promptly refused. Wright’s action only compounded the confusion. One of the Georgia legislature’s final acts that session was to authorize a general mobilization of Georgia civilians against the invaders.

While Governor Brown expected thousands to turn out, he hadn’t counted on the inability of the state’s bureaucracy to manage such an enterprise. By the time the machinery finally began to turn, Sherman’s March to the Sea was a matter for the history books. The one Confederate action that actually stopped Sherman went virtually unnoticed at this time. Near where the Central of Georgia Railroad bridged the Oconee River, a Rebel force of some 700 men held Sherman’s entire Right Wing at bay for nearly three days. This action was undertaken entirely on the initiative of officers on the scene, who reported to Savannah, where Hardee was headed from Macon. Wheeler, on a self-appointed mission to protect Augusta, passed behind the defenders without lending any significant aid, leaving the little force very much on its own. On the night of November 25, Howard used his superior numbers to flank the defenders and force them to retreat. Hardee, who had just reached Savannah, sanctioned the withdrawal, hoping to save the troops and bolster Savannah’s garrison.

Hardee’s field headquarters was about 40 miles from Beauregard’s, but with all telegraphic communication north and east of the city disrupted, Beauregard might as well have been on the moon. That same day Braxton Bragg reached Augusta. The threat posed by Sherman’s army caused Jefferson Davis to break his own rule by allowing Bragg to bring with him some Regular CSA units (a few hundred men) assigned to defend coastal North Carolina. He also suspended a law restricting the use of militia reserves to their own states, so that there would be nothing to hinder South Carolina units from coming into Georgia. Bragg and Hardee turned their attention to protecting Augusta and Savannah. After sending Taylor to assist in Savannah and urging Hood to move promptly to divert Sherman’s attention, Beauregard departed for Mobile, for reasons not entirely clear. After reaching Montgomery, Ala., on December 1, Beauregard received a message from Richmond informing him that all coastal forces opposing Sherman’s march had been added to his command. He didn’t make it back to Augusta until December 6. There was one last opportunity to stop Sherman before he reached Savannah.

Nearly 4,000 Rebels, in­cluding reinforcements sent by Hardee, were aligned before the advancing Federals near the modern town of Oliver, at the naturally strong defensive position formed where Ogeechee Creek and the Ogeechee River meet. Sherman placed one corps to flank the position from the north and another across the river to the south. On December 4 Hardee sent his veteran commander Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws to the post for an assessment. Deciding that the 4,000 muskets were more crucial to Savannah’s defense, McLaws ordered a withdrawal. The last best chance to stop Sherman had been abandoned without a fight. Once Wheeler drew close to Augusta, he came under the jurisdiction of Bragg, who used the cavalry to blunt Federal thrusts toward the city. The result was a series of mounted clashes between Wheeler and his Federal counterpart Kilpatrick that climaxed at Waynesboro on December 4.

Wheeler always believed that his stubborn defense of that point halted Sherman’s grab for Augusta, although Kilpatrick’s orders were to turn south there to shield the rear of the infantry columns while they pivoted into a swampy, peninsulalike corridor with little to forage from as they closed on Savannah. But yet again no concerted action was taken against Sherman’s vulnerable logistical tail. When Beauregard arrived in Augusta, a new phase be­gan in the campaign. He first sent a long report to Richmond expressing concern over the lack of Confederate success but also declaring that Sherman would “doubtless be prevented from capturing Augusta, Charleston, and Savannah, and he may yet be made to experience serious loss before reaching the coast.” Beauregard moved his headquarters to Charleston. On December 8 he instructed Hardee that if he were forced to choose between the safety of his army or “that of Savannah, sacrifice the latter.” Davis reluctantly seconded Beauregard’s priorities, hoping that “the fullest possible defense consistent with the safety of the garrison” would be made. Beauregard promptly directed all his resources toward holding open the narrow land corridor north of Savannah that was Hardee’s only escape route.

On the night of December 20, with Sherman well away from the front in Hilton Head and most of the Union troops besieging Savannah in a purely defensive posture, the Confederates evacuated the city. Sherman’s March to the Sea was over. The Jefferson Davis scheme to subvert Sherman in his mission failed in every aspect. Once Hood was permitted to pursue an independent agenda, he completely removed his army from the Georgia arena. Hood failed to realize that the Union strength remaining in Tennessee was sufficiently large enough to stop him outside Nashville, and Sherman never gave a second thought to turning back. When P.G.T. Beauregard was not ineffectively carping at John B. Hood, he seemingly managed to be anywhere except where he was most needed. Once Beauregard was finally in a position to influence events, his determination to preserve military assets at all costs doomed Savannah. Hardee, Taylor and then Bragg limited their participation to narrowly focused defensive measures, leaving larger strategic issues hanging. Wheeler never looked beyond the enemy in his immediate front, and though he may have banged up Kilpatrick’s cavalry from time to time, his men never posed a serious threat to Sherman’s timetables.

Southern soldiers who found themselves in Sherman’s path fought hard, but most of the opposition was limtited to hit-and-run attacks that the Federals could easily counter. Approximately 2,300 Confederates were killed, wounded or captured in the efforts to defend Georgia. Sherman’s surge through the state was not unstoppable. If Wheeler’s mounted units had been concentrated against the Federal army’s logistical tail, with intelligent deployment of the militia to cover those actions, the Union columns would have been considerably impeded and Sherman would have reached Savannah in a much weakened condition. Had Hardee issued orders to defend the city to the fullest, risking his small garrison in the process, it would have taken Sherman much longer to capture the city. All of which might have delayed his departure into the Carolinas well into March. What the badly hemorrhaging Confederacy might have done with the extra time, however, is another question altogether. Noah Andre Trudeau’s latest book, Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea, reexamines that event and the Southern response to it.

150 years since Sherman’s March to the Sea - World Socialist Web Site World Socialist Web Site Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) 150 years since Sherman’s March to the Sea By Tom Mackaman 27 November 2014 On November 15, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led a 60,000 soldier Union army from the recently captured city of Atlanta deep through the heart of the state of Georgia, resulting in the seizure of the port city of Savannah on December 21. In the March to the Sea, as the campaign became known, the Union army fed itself off the land, destroyed infrastructure and liberated tens of thousands of slaves, in the process delivering a deathblow to the slaveholders' rebellion. The American Civil War would be over within four months. Sherman's March to the Sea Sherman had been promoted to command of the Union armies of the West, known as the Army of Tennessee, after Abraham Lincoln brought Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman's friend and military co-thinker, to the eastern theater and command of all Union armies.

Sherman's capture of Atlanta in early September, 1864 had come at a crucial moment for the war-weary Union. In the same days the Democratic Party held its national convention in Chicago, where it denounced Lincoln for “four years of failure” and promised peace with the South and the perpetuation of slavery if its nominee, General George McClellan—whom Lincoln had cashiered in 1862— prevailed in the November elections. Sherman's victory helped turn an expected Lincoln defeat into one of the most lopsided electoral wins in American history. Atlanta first union station in ruins 1864 Immediately afterward, in the fall of 1864, Sherman proposed a bold strategy. He told Lincoln and Grant that he should march his army from Atlanta to the Atlantic Coast, leaving behind his supply lines in Tennessee. The army would take its sustenance from the late autumn harvest.

“I can make the march,” Sherman said, “and make Georgia howl.” Sherman recalled in his memoirs the political esprit du corps of the soldiers on the first day: “We rode out of Atlanta by the Decatur road, filled by the marching troops and wagons of the Fourteenth Corps; and reaching the hill, just outside of the old rebel works, we naturally paused to look back upon the scenes of our past battles. Behind us lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city.... Some band, by accident, struck up the anthem of 'John Brown's soul goes marching on' the men caught up the strain, and never before or since have I heard the chorus of 'Glory, glory, hallelujah!' done with more spirit, or in better harmony of time and place.” His strategy was based on Grant's Vicksburg Campaign in the fall of 1862, when the latter had separated himself from his supply lines and tore through the Mississippi countryside, living off the land and inflicting a series of defeats on Confederate armies before laying siege to Vicksburg, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River.

It was here too that Grant was taught the usefulness of the slaves as a lever against the Confederacy. They fled their plantations, denying the South its primary labor force, while adding new manpower to the Union armies. Sherman's rear guard Sherman was never as sympathetic to the slaves as Grant, or for that matter his own brother John Sherman, a Republican Senator from Ohio. But unlike McClellan, Sherman understood emancipation and the requisitioning of enemy property as a means toward the end of defeating the rebellion. “We are fighting not only a hostile army but a hostile people and everyone, young and old, rich and poor, man, woman and child must be made to feel the hard hand of war,” Sherman said. “We cannot change the hearts of those people of the South, but we can make war so terrible...that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” Such rhetoric might suggest to a modern reader “total war”—a twentieth century concept associated especially with World War II and the massive destruction and wholesale slaughter inflicted upon civilian populations. Sherman by the sea The term is an anachronism when applied to the Civil War. There was no mass killing of civilians by Sherman's troops.

Though crimes were certainly committed by individual soldiers, Sherman explicitly targeted enemy production, which he studied using the 1860 Federal Census prior to his campaign. Sherman ordered his corps commanders to distinguish “between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly,” and to not “destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins.., [i]n districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested.” He even commanded soldiers in foraging to “refrain from abusive or threatening language [and] endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.” The destruction was nonetheless immense. Sherman estimated the army inflicted damage of $100 million (1864 dollars) to Georgia's economy, probably an underestimate. The northern soldiers laid waste to about 300 miles of railroad, telegraph lines and bridges. In tearing up the railway lines, they heated steel rails red hot and then wrapped them around tree trunks so they could not be reused. These became known in the South as “Sherman's neckties.” The Army of Tennessee also took tens of thousands of head of livestock and draft animals. Sherman's troops destroying a railroad The southern army, meanwhile, was disintegrating.

Before the fall of Atlanta Confederate President Jefferson Davis, wishing for a more aggressive strategy, promoted John Bell Hood of Texas to command in Georgia, removing the capable but defensive-minded General Joseph Johnston. Misreading Sherman's strategy, Hood led what remained of the Western Confederate Army in a desperate assault on Union supply lines in Tennessee. This campaign resulted in the shattering of Hood's army in the Battle of Franklin, where the general sent his soldiers, many of them shoeless, over two miles of open field in the face of Union artillery, suffering 13,000 losses. His subsequent defeat at the Battle of Nashville resulted in the utter rout of the Confederate forces. Lt Gen John B Hood “Never had there been such an overwhelming victory during the Civil War—indeed, never in American military history,” writes historian Wiley Sword. Hood's reckless squandering of soldiers was remembered in the ironic final verse of a popular southern war song, “The Yellow Rose of Texas”: And now I'm going southward, for my heart is full of woe, I'm going back to Georgia, to see my Uncle Joe. You may talk about your Beauregard, and sing of Bobbie Lee, But the gallant Hood of Texas played hell in Tennessee.

There was nothing standing in Sherman's way. His army advanced at a clip of twelve miles per day, even while taking time to dismantle infrastructure in a swath 20 to 40 miles wide. The soldiers ate well off the Georgia harvest. “This is probably the most gigantic pleasure excursion ever planned,” wrote one officer. Sherman moved so far from his supply and communication lines that his army's whereabouts became uncertain, the “lost army,” a source of wild media speculation. The London Times mocked the “mysterious expedition of General Sherman, on an unknown route against an undiscoverable enemy.” Lincoln said in those days of Sherman, “we all know where he went in at, but I can't tell where he'll come out at.” But then, on December 21, Lincoln received a telegram from Sherman: “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and about 25,000 bails of cotton.” Lincoln confessed earlier doubts about the plan.

“When you were leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained' I did not interfere,” he wrote back. “But what next?” What came next was the end game of the war. The object now was to place Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee and the Richmond, Virginia rebel government of Jefferson Davis between the hammer and the anvil. Sherman would move on Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from the south, while Grant would continue to push down from the north with the Union's biggest force, the Army of the Potomac. “Grant has the bear by the hind leg while Sherman takes off the hide,” as Lincoln put it. After a few days rest, Sherman wheeled the Army of Tennessee northward, putting it on a march through the Carolinas. Moving in winter and through difficult terrain the progress was slower but just as inexorable as it had been in Georgia. "I resolved that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar,” said Gen. Johnston, who had been put back in command by Davis after Hood's debacle.

Ruins, Columbia, South Carolina Testimony suggests that the Union soldiers took particular feeling in laying waste to South Carolina, the cradle of the slaveholders' rebellion, in order “to avenge the national wrong which they attach … for dragging our country into civil war,” Sherman said. Union forces made it through most of North Carolina and nearly to Virginia. They fought their last major battle against Johnston's forces in late March, 140 miles separating them from Lee, and not quite three weeks ahead of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House,Virginia. To generations of “Lost Cause” advocates, the historian-apologists for the Confederacy, Sherman loomed as the bête noire of the Civil War, more hated even than Lincoln and Grant. This school of thought made its way into countless high school and college history textbooks, where the Civil War was portrayed not as the “irrepressible conflict,” but as a tragic mistake, and Sherman's march therefore wantonly destructive. This approach has faded, but other forms of historical distortion attempt to fill the breach. Writing in the New York Times' Opinionator on November 17, historian W.

Todd Groce draws an equal sign between Sherman's march and the use of torture in Washington's “war on terror.” He writes, “Like the total war tactics of his 20th century successors and the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' employed more recently, the March to the Sea reveals the moral ambiguity of war and the extent to which Americans are willing to go when our national existence is at stake.” In fact there is nothing “morally ambiguous” about either Sherman's March to the Sea or the Bush and Obama administrations' use of torture. The latter is the outcome of the barbarism of American capitalism in its decline; the former a tool for the emancipation of the slaves in its ascent. Indeed it is only by ignoring the question of slavery—the word does not even appear in his column—that Groce can make such a preposterous comparison. The Army of Tennessee was, in effect, an army of liberation; the enforcer of the Emancipation Proclamation. As it bore down on “the Cotton Kingdom” thousands of slaves fled their plantations and sought protection, food and shelter, in the ranks. Sherman employed as many as possible; many others were allowed to follow along as best they could.

Sherman went a step further in January of 1865, when, pushed by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, he issued his Special Field Orders, No. 15. This confiscated 400,000 acres of plantation land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and divided it into 40-acre lots for the freed slaves. In typical fashion, Sherman saw this as a reasonable military measure. But there was powerful justice to it. Did not the freed slaves deserve the land of the traitor slaveholders, as compensation “for all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil,” as Lincoln put it in his Second Inaugural address? The freedmen felt certain it should be so; from Sherman's field order “forty acres and a mule,” became their slogan. In the years after the war, Sherman's act was reversed. There would be no division of the southern land. The Republican Party, having confiscated the human chattel of the Southern oligarchy, would go no farther. Nor could it. This was a party of capitalist private property; the Civil War the second and culminating stage of America's bourgeois revolution.

No new class of small commercial farmers, such as then existed at its zenith in the North, would be created in the South. This in no way detracts from the significance of the Civil War or the revolutionary methods that secured Union victory, including those employed by Sherman. Sherman's March to the Sea | New Georgia Encyclopedia Sherman's March to the Sea Original entry by Anne J. Bailey , Georgia College and State University, 09/05/2002 Last edited by Chris Dobbs on 01/04/2017 Explore This Article William T. Sherman to the Sea, the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War (1861-65), began in Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and concluded in Savannah on December 21, 1864. Union general William T. Sherman abandoned his supply line and marched across Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean to prove to the Confederate population that its government could not protect the people from invaders. He practiced psychological warfare; he believed that by marching an army across the state he would demonstrate to the world that the Union had a power the Confederacy could not resist.

"This may not be war," he said, "but rather statesmanship." Preparation After Sherman's forces captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864, Sherman spent several weeks making preparations for a change of base to the coast. He rejected the Union plan to move through Sherman's Commanders Alabama to Mobile, pointing out that after Rear Admiral David G. Farragut closed Mobile Bay in August 1864, the Alabama port no longer held any military significance. Rather, he decided to proceed southeast toward Savannah or Charleston. He carefully studied census records to determine which route could provide food for his men and forage for his animals. Although U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was skeptical and did not want Sherman to move into enemy territory before the presidential election in November, Sherman persuaded his friend Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant that the campaign was possible in winter. Through Grant's intervention Sherman finally gained permission, although he had to delay until after election day. Confederate Response After General John Bell Hood abandoned Atlanta, he moved the Confederate Army of Tennessee outside the city to recuperate from the previous campaign.

In early October he began a raid toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, in an effort to draw Sherman back over ground the two sides had fought for since May. But instead of tempting Sherman to battle, Hood turned his army west and marched into Alabama, abandoning Georgia to Union forces. Apparently, Hood hoped that if he invaded Tennessee, Sherman would be forced to follow. Sherman, however, had anticipated this strategy and had sent Major General George H. Thomas to Nashville to deal with Hood. With Georgia cleared of the Confederate army, Sherman, facing only scattered cavalry, was free to move south. The March Sherman divided his approximately 60,000 troops into two roughly equal wings. The right wing was under Oliver O. Howard. Peter J. Osterhaus commanded the Fifteenth Corps, and Francis P. Blair Jr. commanded the Seventeenth Corps. The left wing was commanded by Henry W. Slocum, with the Fourteenth Corps under Jefferson C. Davis and the Twentieth Corps under Alpheus S. Williams. Judson Kilpatrick led the cavalry. Sherman had about 2,500 supply wagons and 600 ambulances.

Before the army left Atlanta, the general issued an order outlining the rules of the march, but soldiers often ignored the restrictions on foraging. The two wings advanced by separate routes, generally staying twenty miles to forty miles apart. The right wing headed for Macon , the left wing in the direction of Augusta , "Bummers" before the two commands turned and bypassed both cities. They now headed for the state capital at Milledgeville . Opposing Sherman's advance was Confederate cavalry, about 8,000 strong, under Major General Joseph Wheeler and various units of Georgia militia under Gustavus W. Smith. Although William J. Hardee had overall command in Georgia, with his headquarters at Savannah, neither he nor Governor Joseph E. Brown could do anything to stop Sherman's advance. Sherman's foragers quickly became known as "bummers" as they raided farms and plantations. On November 23 the state capital peacefully surrendered, and Sherman occupied the vacant governor's mansion and capitol building . Military Encounters There were a number of skirmishes between Wheeler's cavalry and Union troopers, but only two battles of any significance.

The first came east of Macon at the factory town of Griswoldville on November 22, when Georgia militia faced Union infantry with disastrous results. The Confederates suffered 650 men killed or wounded in a one-sided battle that left about Fort McAllister Panorama 62 casualties on the Union side. The second battle occurred on the Ogeechee River twelve miles below Savannah. Union infantry under William B. Hazen assaulted and captured Fort McAllister on December 13, thus opening the back door to the port city. The most controversial event involved contrabands (escaped slaves) who followed the liberating armies. At Ebenezer Creek on December 9, Jefferson C. Davis removed the pontoon bridge before the slaves crossed. Frightened men, women, and children plunged into the deep water, and many drowned in an attempt to reach safety. After the march Davis was soundly criticized by the Northern press, but Sherman backed his commander by pointing out that Davis had done what was militarily necessary.

Sherman at Savannah Sherman's Headquarters in Savannah Confederate lieutenant general Hardee, realizing his small army could not hold out long and not wanting the city leveled by artillery as had happened at Atlanta, ordered his men to abandon the trenches and retreat to South Carolina. Sherman, who was not with the Union army when Mayor Richard Arnold surrendered Savannah (he had gone to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to make preparations for a siege and was on his way back to Georgia), telegraphed President Lincoln on December 22 that the city had fallen. He offered Savannah and its 25,000 bales of cotton to the president as a Christmas present. Consequences of the March Sherman's march frightened and appalled Southerners. It hurt morale, for civilians had believed the Confederacy could protect the home front. Sherman's March to the Sea Sherman had terrorized the countryside; his men had destroyed all sources of food and forage and had left behind a hungry and demoralized people. Although he did not level any towns, he did destroy buildings in places where there was resistance. His men had shown little sympathy for Millen , the site of Camp Lawton, where Union prisoners of war were held.

Physical attacks on white civilians were few, although it is not known how slave women fared at the hands of the invaders. Often male slaves posted guards outside the cabins of their female friends and relatives. Confederate president Jefferson Davis had urged Georgians to undertake a scorched-earth policy of poisoning wells and burning fields, but civilians in the army's path had not done so. Sherman, however, burned or captured all the food stores that Georgians had saved for the winter months. As a result of the hardships on women and children, desertions increased in Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia. Sherman believed his campaign against civilians would shorten the war by breaking the Confederate will to fight, and he eventually received permission to carry this psychological warfare into South Carolina in early 1865. By marching through Georgia and South Carolina he became an archvillain in the South and a hero in the North. You Might Also Like

Question: In the American Civil War General Sherman led the so-called 'March to the Sea' through which US state?
Answer: GEORGIA