|
|
|
|
|
Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman |
|
|
|
General Sherman's Headquarters During His March To The Sea |
|
From 15 November to 21 December 1864, William Tecumseh Sherman led 62,000 Union soldiers on his "March to the Sea," a sixty-mile-wide path of destruction that stretched 285 miles across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. Because Sherman intended to demolish Confederate logistics and crush Southern morale, it has often been argued that Sherman's raid was an example of modern and total war. A war may be considered modem if a nation utilizes its industrial capabilities and arouses nationalism among its citizens to achieve victory. Likewise, a war may be considered total if a nation attempts to harness all its natural and human resources as effective means to achieve victory. Born on 20 February 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, William Tecumseh Sherman entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1836 and graduated in 1840. In his first assignment, he went to Florida to fight the Seminole Indians. Much has been made of Sherman's experiences in this conflict, because he came to realize that wars were fought not only between armies but also between the societies that supported them. During the Civil War, Sherman joined Ulysses S. Grant's command and fought under him at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. When Grant went east as general-in-chief of the Union army in the spring of 1864, Sherman assumed command of the Western theater. In this role, he used the Armies of the Cumberland, Tennessee, and the Ohio to place constant pressure on the Confederacy—especially against Joseph E. Johnston and later John Bell Hood in Georgia. As part of this strategy, Sherman's forces attempted to demolish Confederate logistical infrastructure and hurt Southern morale. After much maneuvering and fighting in the Atlanta campaign beginning May 1864, Sherman forced the Confederate John Bell Hood to evacuate Atlanta and relinquish its key railroad hub on 2 September. Hood retreated from Georgia into Tennessee. After briefly pursuing his enemy, Sherman left the task of fighting Hood to his subordinates George H. Thomas and John M. Schofield. Meanwhile, Sherman took his remaining 62,000 soldiers of the Army of the Ohio and 64 cannon further southeast on a campaign across northern Georgia to Savannah; as one of the most important seaports in the South, Savannah remained a key to Confederate transportation between Lee's troops in Virginia and the deep South. Sherman departed from Atlanta on this march to the sea on 15 November 1864. Sherman's route across northern Georgia initially confused Confederates. He divided his forces into two columns or wings. One of these columns moved as if it were going to attack Augusta, Georgia; this upper column included XIV and XX Corps from the Union's Army of Georgia and was commanded personally by Sherman. The other column moved in a more southerly direction toward Macon, Georgia. This lower column included XV and XVII corps from the Union's Army of Tennessee led by Henry W. Slocum, as well as a cavalry division led by H. Judson Kilpatrick. Sherman's forces quickly broke away from the Union supply lines and lived off the land in northern Georgia. Sherman moved so quickly because his troops foraged in the Southern countryside and utilized Confederate resources to supply themselves. What his troops did no* consume, they destroyed. The total Confederate losses included more than 13,000 head of cattle, some 6 million rations of bread and beef, and about 90,000 bales of cotton-Many sawmills, cotton gins, foundries, and warehouses also fell into Union hands. Sherman himself estimated his raia had inflicted $100 million worth of damage. Sherman's strategy of destruction rather than strategv of battle was designed, as his own saying went, to "make Georgia howl." Sherman's forces burned and looter much of the north Georgia countryside. Although he die not condone wanton acts of violence and devastation. he certainly tolerated them. Drawing from experiences fighting the Seminoles in the early 1840s, Shermar. believed that destruction or confiscation of Southerr. property was necessary to cripple Confederate logistics and morale. These actions, however, caused few deaths among Southern civilians. Sherman's troops faced little opposition during the campaign. The only battle, if it can even be called that was at Griswoldville on 22 November. Several hundred members of the Georgia militia assaulted elements of Sherman's XV Corps. After 523 Georgians had been killed or wounded in action, the remaining militia retreated. After this brief engagement, Sherman's seasoned veterans wrecked more than 200 miles of Confederate railroad track and deprived the starving Confederate soldiers in Virginia of much-needed rations. By 24 November, Sherman's two columns had converged and sacked the state capital at Milledgeville. Union troops then occupied Sandersville on 26 November, Louisville on 29 November, and Millen on 3 December. Sherman bypassed Augusta, despite the fact that important arms production facilities remained there. On 9 December 1864, Sherman's forces took up positions outside Savannah and readied their attack against the heavily fortified city with its 10,000-man garrison. Rather than fight a losing battle, Confederate commander William J. Hardee evacuated his troops to South Carolina on the night of 20 December 1864. The next dav. Sherman occupied Savannah and effectively isolated the upper South from the lower South. He offered the city tc President Abraham Lincoln as a present that Christmas In 1865, Sherman took his troops on another destructive ~id northward into the Carolinas. Ultimately, the damage to Confederate logistics rtected Southerners' morale because Sherman's March to the Sea showed the region's vulnerability. Consequently, Southerners could not help but realize :hat the North was going to grind them into dust. Little nope was left. Herein lies a key to understanding whether William Tecumseh Sherman and his March to the Sea were examples of total and modern warfare. Two intertwined observations can be made. First, Sherman, along with Grant and others, clearly grasped the relationship that .inked strategy, logistics, and morale. They attempted to hurt both the Confederacy's psychological will and its material capability to fight. To accomplish these goals, Union strategy called for mobilization of the North's ropulace, industry, and natural resources as well as for an assault on the Confederacy's populace, industry, and natural resources. Such an understanding indicates an increasingly modern view of warfare. Likewise, Sherman clearly comprehended that the Civil War was fought by opposing militaries as well as the opposing societies. Morale, patriotism, and loyalty both on the front and at home remained crucial to military success. Civilian property, if not the civilians themselves, became viable targets for attack. War between whole societies is also a hallmark of modem and total war. These two observations notwithstanding, the Civil War remained relatively limited because the North did not wage unrestricted war against the Southern people themselves. Despite rhetoric and legend portraying Sherman's March to the Sea as brutal and vicious, the campaign concentrated on destroying property. Thus, Sherman's raid may be best categorized as part of a transitional stage anticipating total and modern war in the twentieth century. |
| My Source: Book: American National Biography (Library of Congress) |
