His primary objective was to capture and neutralize the city of Atlanta, which was a major railroad centre, supply depot, and manufacturing hub for both Georgia and the Confederacy. [7][6][8], Sherman's "March to the Sea" followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. During the march, between 17,000 and 25,000 enslaved Black people were freed. Confederate Maj. Gen. Wheeler's cavalry struck Brig. Each regiment had one wagon and one ambulance, and each company had one pack mule for the baggage of its officers; the number of tents carried was curtailed. Daviss men lagged behind the rest of the left wing, and Wheelers cavalry was hot on their heels. During his imprisonment, Byers wrote a poem about the Savannah campaign which he titled "Sherman's March to the Sea", which was set to music by fellow prisoner W. O. Although Shermans army had systematically destroyed Atlantas war-making potential, and had used artillery to bombard the city before taking it, 400 houses were still standing when he left. No doubt many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence were committed by these parties of foragers , Sherman acknowledged, but maintained that their crimes were generally against property, not individuals. Sherman demanded a surrender on December 17, but his request was promptly rejected. Not realizing that these Federals had repeating rifles and were dug in, temporary commander Phillips ordered his motley force to attack, and they were ripped to pieces by the Federals. Donations to the Trust are tax deductible to the full extent allowable under the law. The campaign began on November 15 with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. Sherman successfully fought a psychological war of destruction. They destroyed the bridge across the Oconee River and then turned south.[21]. Georgia, stretching before Shermans army with its red clay hills and sandy terrain, was the largest of the Confederate states. However, a turn eastward convinced him that Augusta was the target. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. The portion of this march through South Carolina was even more destructive than the Savannah campaign, since Sherman and his men harbored much ill-will for that state's part in bringing on the start of the Civil War; the following portion, through North Carolina, was less so. Although he personally considered them inferior to white men, Sherman treated the blacks he met with courtesies not widespread in the 19th century, shaking hands and carrying on conversations to glean their knowledge of the area. Confederacy's economy and transportation networks, Western Theater of the American Civil War, "Savannah Campaign Union order of battle", "Effective strength of the army in the field under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, November and December, 1864", "Abstract from return of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, Lieut. Soldiers became model gentlemen, no longer foraging, but paying for what they wanted or needed. Send Students on School Field Trips to Battlefields Your Gift Tripled! His force faced little resistance. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It was a strange end to a destructive month, but perhaps it should not have been unexpected. After seizing Atlanta, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman embarked on a scorched-earth campaign intended to cripple the Souths war-making capacity and wound the Confederate psyche. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1985. The First American President: Setting the Precedent, African Americans During the Revolutionary War, Help Save 820 Acres at Five Virginia Battlefields, Save 343 Acres at FIVE Battlefields in FOUR Western Theater States, Save 42 Historic Acres at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Phase Three of Gaines Mill-Cold Harbor Saved Forever Campaign, An Unparalleled Preservation Opportunity at Gettysburg Battlefield. [14], This was the process by which the 62,000 men (55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 2,000 artillerymen manning 64 guns) Sherman commanded were assembled, and would leave Atlanta for Savannah. Hood had taken the bulk of forces in Georgia on his campaign to Tennessee in hopes of diverting Sherman to pursue him. Sherman's March to the Sea With the full support of both Lincoln and Grant, Sherman devised an unusual plan. Union troops arrived outside the fort on December 13. [32] Some who welcomed him as a liberator chose to follow his armies. The American Battlefield Trust and our members have saved more than 56,000 acres in 25 states! The 360-mile march extended from Atlanta in central . The following is an excerpt from those orders: IV. after earning a reputation at Shiloh and earning key victories in Vicksburg, promoted to . The March to the Sea played psychological warfare in which . March to the Sea. Many scholars of military history contend that his psychological warfare was one of the first modern examples of total war. 15, which confiscated as Union property a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John's River in Florida, including Georgia's Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. Sherman pursued the smaller Confederate army west and south until mid-October, when Hood crossed into Alabama. Stay up-to-date on the American Battlefield Trust's battlefield preservation efforts, travel tips, upcoming events, history content and more. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war. Kilpatrick slipped by the defensive line that Wheeler had placed near Brier Creek, but on the night of November 26 Wheeler attacked and drove the 8th Indiana and 2nd Kentucky Cavalry away from their camps at Sylvan Grove. General Sherman finally gained control of the city of Atlanta on September 2, 1864. 40 Charles Royster's The Destructive War looks at the March's increasing violence through the figure of . HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. The intense battle that ensued saw 250 Confederate casualties and 190 Union losses. Sherman's . When Sherman instituted his destructive war, he told Southerners that as long as they continued their resistance, he would make them pay dearly, but that the process would stop when they quit the fight. Just before pivoting east past Macon, Howards right wing came upon the industrial town of Griswoldville. [26], The Army's stay in Savannah was generally without incident. Confederate forces were not stationary, however. Knowing that Confederate cavalry was nearby, the fugitives, fearful of being captured and killed or re-enslaved, panicked. Union forces sustained more than 1,300 casualties, whereas the Confederates suffered roughly 2,300. All Rights Reserved. The next morning, Savannah Mayor Richard Dennis Arnold, with a delegation of aldermen and ladies of the city, rode out (until they were unhorsed by fleeing Confederate cavalrymen) to offer a proposition: The city would surrender and offer no resistance, in exchange for General Geary's promise to protect the city's citizens and their property. The Union lost 130 men in this assault and the Confederacy 40. The full story, however, is not this simple. Some of the 134 Union casualties were caused by torpedoes, a name for crude land mines that were used only rarely in the war. On the night of December 2021 his Confederate garrison prepared to evacuate. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. For Shermans part, he made immediate contact with the U.S. Navy before sending the following telegram to Pres. With the Georgia state legislature having quit the capital, Union troops held a mock legislative session and voted to repeal Georgias ordinance of secession. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. In the spring of 1864, Union Lieut. In our collective memory, blue-clad soldiers march with impunity, their scavenged booty draped about them, leaving a trail of white women and children to sob at their losses and slaves to rejoice at their emancipation. A Buffalo, N.Y., native and a Ph.D. from Notre Dame, John F. Marszalek taught for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2002. Following the March to the Sea, Sherman's army headed north for the Carolinas Campaign. Slaves' opinions varied concerning the actions of Sherman and his army. [35] Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones cited the significant damage wrought to railroads and Southern logistics in the campaign and stated that "Sherman's raid succeeded in 'knocking the Confederate war effort to pieces'. Gen. William H. Jackson, had approximately 10,000 troopers. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was a contradiction embodied. However, if antagonized by Confederate soldiers, Union officers could destroy private and industrial property. Sherman had his favorite regimental band present a concert for the city and brought supply ships from the North to help the city and its people regain a sense of normality. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. To my smoke house, my Dairy, Pantry, kitchen & cellar. It was difficult to hide anything from the foragers or the massive main column. it was necessary to make the entire Confederate population, not just the military, feel the pain of war in order to defeat the rebellion. Wheelers 3,500 man Confederate cavalry tried to hinder Shermans army, but Brig. In planning for the march, Sherman used livestock and crop production data from the 1860 census to lead his troops through areas where he believed they would be able to forage most effectively. Although many of the houses were damaged and a minority put to the torch and totally destroyed others were left essentially untouched, an unpredictability that became a source of great fear. Doctors performed in-depth examinations to weed out the weak and those suffering from disease, and because of this 1% of the men were left behind. The march to the sea,the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during Civil War.It all begain in Atlanta on Novemeber 15,1864,and concluded in Savannah on December 21,1864.As a person who is searching and learning history day by day I am learning about Union general William T. Sherman and his march.Sherman divided his troops into two roughly equal wings,there was 60,000 . The Army of the Tennessee, headed by Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, comprised the right wing. VI. [33] A Confederate officer estimated that 10,000 liberated slaves followed Sherman's army, and hundreds died of "hunger, disease, or exposure" along the way. Shermans true objective, hidden from even his own rank and file, was to seize the state capital of Milledgeville. The Army was on its best behavior, in part because anyone caught doing "unsoldier like deeds" was to be summarily executed. He is rightly called the American father of total warfare, a harbinger of the psychological tactics of the next century. The campaign was designed by Grant and Sherman to be similar to Grant's innovative and successful Vicksburg campaign and Sherman's Meridian campaign, in that Sherman's armies would reduce their need for traditional supply lines by "living off the land" after consuming their 20 days of rations. The man leading the . In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shermans-March-to-the-Sea, Warfare History Network - Shermans March to the Sea, New Georgia Encyclopedia - Shermans March to the Sea, scorched-earth policy during the Atlanta Campaign, American Civil War: western and Carolina campaigns, American Civil War: Union soldiers wrecking railroads in Atlanta. The poem would go on to lend its name to Sherman's campaign, and a version set to music became an instant hit with Sherman's Army and later the public. Although his formal orders (excerpted below) specified control over destruction of infrastructure in areas in which his army was unmolested by guerrilla activity, he recognized that supplying an army through liberal foraging would have a destructive effect on the morale of the civilian population it encountered in its wide sweep through the state.[10]. Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah. Almost miraculously, damage and destruction immediately ceased. He sought to utilize destructive war to convince Confederate citizens in their deepest psyche both that they could not win the war and that their government could not protect them from Federal forces. Abraham Lincoln: I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.. 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. Sherman's March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah campaign or simply Sherman's March) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by William Tecumseh Sherman, major general of the Union Army.The campaign began on November 15 with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the . During this time he ordered the evacuation of some 3,000 civilians and seized their homes for his soldiers living quarters. Sherman demanded surrender, and he would accept nothing less, so his men tore through the Palmetto State. And mills from the foragers or the significance of sherman's march to the sea main column, Sherman 's army headed for. 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