Sherman's March Through Georgia

SHERMAN'S MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA

From mid-November to late December, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led 62,000 Union soldiers on a march through Georgia towards the sea, leaving in their wake a trail of destruction sixty miles wide. During this Civil War (1861–1865) expedition, which started in Atlanta and ended in the port-city of Savannah, Sherman and his men sought to demolish not only the state's military resources but also its economic structure. The Union troops worked to cut off food supplies by setting fire to cities; stripping fields, barns, and houses; and raiding villages for food and livestock. The men laid waste to Georgia's commercial infrastructure city-by-city. Sherman's ultimate goal was to crush the Confederate states' will to fight, and his tactics were merciless and un-relenting. The war did not end here, however, though the general's campaign did accomplish nearly all of its objectives. The march was long remembered as an epic gesture of violence that swept the North toward its victory.

General Sherman, the son of a Supreme Court justice, hailed from Lancaster, Ohio. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Sherman served as second lieutenant in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) in Florida, then as first lieutenant on assignment in South Carolina. At the onset of the Mexican War in 1846, he was assigned to the Pacific Division in California. In 1853 he resigned from the military and set out for San Francisco, where he briefly pursued a banking career; economic unrest in California, however, put an end to that venture in 1857. After another short-lived career as a lawyer in Kansas, Sherman returned to his former vocation in the army accepting a superintendent post at the state military academy in Alexandria, Louisiana. Upon that state's secession from the Union in January 1861, Sherman went north out of loyalty. In May of that year he was appointed colonel of the 13th infantry, beginning a decorated Civil War career.

After fighting at Bull Run in July 1861, Sherman rose to the position of brigadier general of volunteers. His first campaign in Kentucky was unsuccessful, which earned him a reputation for being unstable and manic-depressive. In April 1862, he regained the confidence of his peers following a victory at the Battle of Shiloh. Promoted to major general, Sherman took charge of the Union troops that occupied Memphis, Tennessee, in 1862. The following year, after a victory under Lieutenant General (and post-war president) Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi, he rose again in the ranks, assuming command of the Army of Tennessee. But it was in Atlanta, Georgia, that Sherman secured his place as a key figure in the war. His 1864 campaign, which lasted from May to September, ultimately ravaged the metropolis—fire consumed numerous buildings, and the Union soldiers used brute force to demolish or disable the city's machinery. It was this destruction of the commercial infrastructure of the South for which Sherman became known and feared.

The general's march through Georgia represented a continuation of his "total war" strategy. Leaving the burning city of Atlanta behind, he led two massive columns of troops, which operated under Generals Oliver H. Howard and Henry W. Slocum, on an eastward course. Supplying his men only with bread, Sherman organized raiding parties that allowed them to live off the food and livestock of the land. In a December 16 letter to Lieutenant General Grant, Sherman described in explicit detail the way in which his troops weakened Georgia's cities while reinforcing themselves: "We started with about 5,000 head of cattle, and arrived with over 10,000; of course, consuming mostly turkeys, chickens, sheep, hogs, and the cattle of the country. As to mules and horses, we left Atlanta with about 2,500 wagons, and our transportation is now in superb condition."

After Atlanta Sherman set out for Milledgeville, where his high-spirited men held a mock court session in which they repealed Georgia's secession ordinance. From Milledgeville they went on to the state capital, then to Sandersville, Louisville, and Millen, ravaging and pillaging along the way. Wildly outnumbered by Sherman's men, the Confederate troops could do little to halt the trend of violence. Ultimately, on December 21, 1864, Sherman ended his hell-raising march just as he had planned: by nearly demolishing Savannah, the port city at the end of his route. The victory followed a campaign to cut-off food supplies to the city and to take possession of its rice fields and mills. After a 10-day siege Sherman forced out the Confederates and took control of the city, presenting it grandly to President Lincoln as a "Christmas present."

In the end Sherman estimated that his Georgia campaign amounted to $100 million in damages. A large portion of that sum represented the destruction of the state's economic resources, which crippled its cities and left them open to occupation by Union forces. Pleased with the success of his total-war campaign, Sherman went on to organize an equally devastating march through the Carolinas. Although the general found much of his strength in numbers, he refused to take on African American soldiers. Clearly racist, he disburdened his troops of freed slaves, issuing an order that allowed them to inhabit land rather than join the war. Nevertheless, the general succeeded in his campaigns. Sherman went on to vanquish Confederate troops under Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston, and, in 1869, to succeed Lieutenant General Grant as commander of the U.S. Army.

See also: Civil War (Economic Impact of), War and the Economy

FURTHER READING

Barrett, John Gilchrist. Sherman's March Through the Carolinas. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Burke, Davis, Jeff Stone, ed., and Carolyn Reidy, ed. Sherman's March. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.

Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976, s.v. "Sherman's March to the Sea."

Marszlek, John F. Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Royster, Charles. The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

you cannot qualify war in harsher terms than i will. war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

william tecumseh sherman, letter to the mayor of atlanta, september 12, 1864