SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA

SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. From 15 November to 21 December 1864 the Union general William T. Sherman and his 62,000 soldiers waged a purposeful war of destruction in Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman destroyed property to convince Southerners that their cause was hopeless and that they should surrender. He believed that this psychological warfare would end the Civil War more quickly and with less loss of life than traditional battlefield conflicts.

Sherman began the march following his successful capture of Atlanta on 2 September 1864. When the Confederate general John Bell Hood tried to cut Sherman's railroad supply line, forcing Sherman to chase him, Sherman decided to try a new approach. He proposed to leave sixty thousand soldiers under General George H. Thomas to handle Hood. Cutting himself off from the railroad, Sherman intended to live off the land while waging a psychological war of destruction. The commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, reluctantly went along with the plan.

Implementing the strategy he had used in the Meridian, Mississippi, campaign (3 February to 4 March 1864), Sherman divided his army into two wings, the right or southern wing under O. O. Howard and the left or

northern wing under Henry W. Slocum. Judson Kilpa-trick commanded the cavalry, which acted as a screen for the marching army. The two wings moved along separate paths from twenty to fifty miles apart, in four parallel corps columns, the left wing moving toward Augusta and the right wing toward Macon. They merged at Milledgeville, the state capital, and at Savannah. With no major Confederate army in the state, Joe Wheeler's Confederate cavalry and the weak Georgia militia provided ineffective opposition.

Sherman did not burn Atlanta to the ground when he began his march, and he did not destroy everything in his path through Georgia. His army systematically destroyed only property connected with the Confederate war effort, Union prisoners of war, or slavery. However, Sherman's Union soldiers, Wheeler's Confederate cavalry, deserters from both sides, fugitive slaves, and pillaging Southern civilians wantonly destroyed property. The anarchy aided Sherman's psychological cause and resulted in heavy though not total damage. Military and civilian casualties were extremely low. When Sherman completed his march, he offered the captured city of Savannah to Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present. Meanwhile Thomas crushed Hood at the battle of Nashville on 15 December 1864.

Sherman's march to the sea brought the Civil War home to Southern civilians. Few became casualties, but many lost property and felt demoralized. In Virginia, desertions in Robert E. Lee's army increased. Sherman's psychological warfare of destruction had a major effect on the outcome of the war. It also made Sherman a brute to many Southerners and a hero to Union supporters. By the twenty-first century the purpose for the march was forgotten, but Sherman's methods remained the subject of spirited debate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bailey, Anne J. The Chessboard of War: Sherman and Hood in the Autumn Campaigns of 1864. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Glatthaar, Joseph T. The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns. New York: New York University Press, 1985.

Kennett, Lee. Marching through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman's Campaign. New York: Harper-Collins, 1995.

Marszalek, John F. Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. New York: Free Press, 1993.

John F.Marszalek

See alsoAtlanta Campaign ; Nashville, Battle of ; Savannah, Siege of (1864) .