Feb. 8, 1820 - Feb. 14, 1891

Dress Rehearsal For Hell

In early 1864 Mississippi was a proving ground for "total war"

Article by Herman Hattaway in the Civil War Times magazine of October 1998.

Major General William T. Sherman took a step into the unknown on February 3, 1864. The surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, seven months earlier had placed the Mississippi River firmly in Union hands, and now Sherman, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, sought to extend the Union's foothold farther, across the state of Mississippi. On the other side of the state, some 20 miles from the Alabama border, lay Meridian, the largest railroad center in Mississippi still under Confederate control. If Sherman could capture that crossroads town, he could turn the tide of the war in the West.

Meridian was a small town — fewer than 400 people called it home — but its limited population belied its strategic value. The nearby intersection of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Southern Railroad of Mississippi, along with the huge stores of military supplies stockpiled at the town, made possession of it critical. Perhaps more importantly, Sherman's assault on Meridian would be a test. Could an entire army behave like a raiding party, probing deep into enemy territory while living off the land without a supply line? This was what Sherman hoped to find out, and the outcome would determine the conduct of his future operations.

The Meridian Campaign was inspired by the thinking of Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Military Division of Mississippi and Sherman's superior officer. Grant saw the war as a whole: he was less interested in capturing specific sites than in destroying the enemy's forces. He wanted the 1864 spring offensive to be as strong as possible, not simply effective, and he wanted to combine the destruction of Rebel forces with the elimination of resources in order to double the impact against Southern will and morale. In Sherman, Grant had found a like-minded general. "We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South but we can make war so terrible that they will realize [their folly], however brave and gallant and devoted to their country [they may be]," Sherman had written to Grant in 1862. Within a year, he had strengthened his stance: "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

Sherman's campaign was to be his second march through Mississippi in seven months. On July 5,1863, the day after the Confederates surrendered the river stronghold of Vicksburg, an expeditionary force drawn from Sherman's XV Corps had thrust due east toward Jackson, the state capital. By July 9, Sherman's men were approaching the city. Outnumbered, General Joseph E. Johnston and elements of his Confederate Department of the West abandoned Jackson a week later. Sherman's force captured the city and by July 19 had ranged as far as Bran-don, about 12 miles to the east. His campaign, however, quickly petered out; Sherman had not brought sufficient supplies for an extended foray into enemy territory, and he had not fully considered ways to replenish his stock. As the supplies ran out, his men subsisted on nothing but green corn, and soon dysentery broke out. The awful Southern heat added to the misery. Disappointed, Sherman was compelled to return to Vicksburg. He would be certain not to make the same mistake again.

This time, Sherman demanded that his soldiers live off the land. They would be lightly equipped, bringing only what they and their horses could carry. No tents would be taken, not even for Sherman himself. The wagons would carry nothing but ammunition, a 10-day supply of meat and bread, and enough salt, sugar, and coffee for 30 days. "We will take all provisions and God help the starving families," Sherman wrote. "I warned them [the Confederates] last year against this last tribulation, and now it is at hand."

Sherman had what he felt was the ideal plan: he and Major General James B. McPherson's XV11 Corps would head east from Vicksburg to Meridian, a distance of about 130 miles, while the XVI Corps, led by Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut, would arc north of Jackson, marching concurrently with McPherson's corps. Meanwhile, Brigadier General William Sooy Smith, chief of cavalry for the Military Division of the Mississippi, would lead his horsemen 210 miles south-southeast from Memphis, Tennessee, roughly along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, destroying railroad bridges as they went, and would meet Sherman and his two infantry corps in Meridian about February 10. To confuse the Rebels, Sherman would send an amphibious force up the Yazoo River northeast from Vicksburg and order a land-based feint on Mobile, Alabama, about 130 miles south of Meridian. If successful, the campaign would not only cripple Confederate rail support and destroy a whole region's ability to provide resources for Southern troops, but also hamper the Rebels enough to allow the Union to reduce the number of troops needed to maintain control over the Mississippi.

First, Sherman and McPherson sent spies across the state on January 15 to learn the location and strength of the Confederate forces they might face. Then, Sherman instructed his chief engineer, Captain Andrew Hickenlooper of the 5th Ohio Battery, to build a pontoon-and-float bridge across the Big Black River, just outside Vicksburg. A week and a half later, Hickenlooper's bridge, constructed mainly of cotton bales, was complete.

A spy soon reported that Confederate Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk had taken command of the Department of Mississippi, Alabama, and East Louisiana as of January 28. Although he was a West Pointer, Polk had never served in the military before the Civil War. Instead, he had entered the Episcopal ministry and was consecrated as the missionary bishop of Louisiana in 1841. Polk was now in Meridian, and he had two divisions each of infantry and cavalry at his immediate disposal, the spy told Sherman, but they were far too scattered to present a coordinated threat. Folk's cavalry, under the direct command of Major General Stephen Dill Lee, dotted the 40 miles between Yazoo City and Jackson, and another cavalry force under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest was in Como, about 40 miles south of Memphis. Folk's infantry divisions, commanded by Major Generals William W. "Old Blizzards" Loring and Samuel G. French, were respectively in Canton, about two dozen miles north of Jackson, and Brandon, a dozen miles east.

Encouraged by the spy's report, Sherman had his 23,519-man force ready to march as January came to a close, while at Memphis, Smith's well-equipped column of 6,604 cavalrymen was ready to ride southeastward. The Confederates had only 21,963 effective fighting men to counter them all—not too small a force if managed well. Hearing rumors of the Union advance, Polk quickly prepared to meet the invasion. He suspected that Sherman's ultimate objective was the port city of Mobile, so he directed Lee, who was then at Jackson, to have his cavalry destroy the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad from the Big Black River to the capital, thus delaying any Federal advance by rail.

At about 8:00 A.M. on February 3, the Federals started out from Vicksburg. That afternoon, they stumbled upon two small Rebel cavalry brigades led by Brigadier General Wirt Adams and Colonel Peter B. Starke of the 29th Mississippi Cavalry. These few mounted Confederates opened fire on some of McPherson's men and badly wounded one of them before scurrying away. The next morning, on the northeastern slope of Champion's Hill, McPherson's vanguard ran headlong into a cavalry squadron led by Captain Henry L. Muldrow. More than 50 of the surprised Federals were killed or wounded, and seven were captured. Adams rushed up the scant Rebel reinforcements he had available, but as the larger Union forces began to assert their might, Adams and his men withdrew across Baker's Creek, a half mile to the rear. Adams praised his men for their perseverance, writing that "nothing could surpass the unflinching courage and steadiness of these commands."

Word of the skirmishes soon reached Polk. Now in Mobile, Polk began a series of frenzied decisions that h(e hoped would stave off the invasion of this, the western Confederacy's "breadbasket." He gave direct command of the operations to Loring, who ordered French to assume command of the troops in Jackson and move the public stores to Morton, about 30 miles east of Jackson. Polk himself returned to Meridian.

Unshaken by their earlier losses, the Union invaders advanced slowly but inexorably over the next two days despite all the opposition the Rebels could muster. "[The Federals'] intention seems to be to move on Clinton and Jackson," Lee reported. "Our loss is about 10 killed; a good many wounded, among the number several officers. ..." The Union soldiers entered Clinton, eight miles west of the capital, at noon on February 5. Learning of the threat, Polk ordered Lee to keep the Yankees out of Jackson as long as possible, then sent all the public stores in Jackson and Brandon to Meridian as Sherman's men continued to drive east.

Preventing the Federals from reaching the capital would not be easy. McPherson's cavalry vanguard strode easily through Clinton, but two miles beyond the town, the Federals found Adams and his men behind parapets atop a ridge known locally as the "Tombstone." Six cannon blasted away at the Federals, forcing them to fall back. The Yankee force, however, was too massive for the Rebels to stop, and Adams withdrew, followed soon by Lee's cavalry. As the Confederate guns fell silent just after sunset, the Yankees charged the parapets and rushed into Jackson.

That night, Lee and his men camped four miles north of the capital and began preparing for the next day's fight. But inside the city, the Federal troops set busily to a different sort of work: destruction. "During the 5th and 6th it seemed as though everything that had previously escaped the torch managed to take fire, especially on the business streets," one Union soldier wrote. "The destruction was particularly sad, and years will not efface the effects of the war in Jackson."

The next morning, Hickenlooper's men began building a bridge across the 130-foot-wide Pearl River just east of Jackson. Sherman was elated over how well his campaign was proceeding and at how readily the Rebels fell back. "Our troops fought very handsomely and keenly all the way, marching roughshod over all opposition," he wrote. Still, a passing doubt tempered Sherman's enthusiasm; he had learned that Smith was only now leaving Memphis, five days behind schedule. "The delay of William Sooy Smith at Memphis may compel me to modify my plans a little, but not much," Sherman wrote.

Along the way, an ever-increasing number of black civilians, mostly escaped slaves, sought refuge with the marching Union column. "Even before reaching Jackson," wrote one soldier, "we had been joined by hundreds of negroes who seemed to think that to go with us meant to be free." Their appearance, however, was not wholly unwelcome to the hungry soldiers. "[They] were mostly loaded with hogs, chickens, and turkeys and considerable bacon, pork and ham... taken from the planters' smoke houses and cellars," a private in the 32d Ohio Infantry noted in his diary. The Union troops crossed Hickenlooper's new bridge as soon as it was completed, but just then the mild Southern winter suddenly gave way to strong winds and icy cold. The soldiers were ill-prepared for the rapid onset of foul weather; the only clothing they owned was what they wore, and what they wore had become ragged and dirty. But the advance continued.

As quickly as the Yankees left Jackson, Southern cavalrymen poured back into the city to begin rebuilding it, leaving only a 40-man detachment between the Yankees and Brandon. The Federals easily pushed them aside and marched into the small town on the afternoon of February 7. Soldiers from the 15th Iowa Infantry demolished the tracks of the Southern Railroad just north of town and burned a bridge, a turntable, a passenger car, and 50 feet of trestle work. "We went into camp about 2 miles east of the once pretty village of Brandon," a Federal soldier wrote in his diary. "This place, like Jackson, was none the better nor richer for our occupation, foraging and fire doing fearful work, and as usual attacking the lovelies: and costliest first." Another wrote, "There was considerable foraging done today, in the line e: hay, corn, meat, hogs, chickens and turkeys."  Wherever the Union men had gone, the local citizen-found their vital resources diminished, and the soldiers' pillaging:--creased as they continued eastward.

Back at Rebel headquarters in Meridian, Polk received a message from one of his scouts in Clinton. The Yankees "do not try to conceal that their destination is Meridian," it stated. Polk, however, stubbornly refused to believe that the Union's objective was anything but Mobile. He was determined to block Sherman's progress in that direction. During the night, he ordered more Confederate troops into Morton, about 18 miles east of Brandon, and sent for Brigadier General Francis M. Cockrell's Missouri Brigade, Department of the Gulf, from Mobile. The moves raised the Confederate strength in the area to 20,933 effectives. By noon on February 8, these troops had established a mile-long line along a crescent-shaped stretch of hills just outside Morton. Hastily dug rifle pits and the extensive cover of trees and brush added to the strength of their well-selected defensive location.

The Federals set out from Brandon that same day. Almost immediately, elements of the 4th Mississippi Cavalry, part of Adams's brigade, offered them stiff resistance, but the Confederates gradually gave way after bitter fighting. They made their final stand at Line Creek, near a little house with a fenced yard.   Several Rebel cavalrymen charged into the yard and assumed defensive positions. Unknown to the soldiers, a woman and her five small children were inside the house, and the sound of gunfire brought her to the door, where a stray Yankee bullet killed her instantly. The sad news filtered quickly through the Union expeditionary force and reached Sherman and McPherson that evening. The Federals took up a collection to aid the unfortunate orphans and left the money with a neighbor.

Anxiety soon replaced the Union soldiers' sadness. By now, the soldiers had learned that the Confederates were massing just a bit farther east. At midnight, the Federals heard music believed to be coming from a distant Rebel camp, and pickets reported scattered Confederate troop movements all through the night. The next day, February 9, as Sherman's soldiers approached, Loring met with his officers at 3:00 P.M. Despite their strong position and enhanced numbers, most of the officers believed the Union force was too large to defeat. Retreat, they felt, was their safest option. Within two hours, a brigade of Yankee cavalry assailed the center of the Confederate line, and though the horsemen were easily thrown back, the main Rebel force soon began its withdrawal. Just before dark, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Robert S. Bevier of the 5th Missouri Infantry, part of Cockrell's brigade, ordered his men to set campfires behind a stone wall to deceive the Federals into thinking that vast numbers of Confederates remained. After midnight, Bevier led his men away, too.

Unaware that most of the Confederates had fallen back, the Yankees cautiously approached the fortifications early the next morning. A scant column of Confederate cavalry slashed at a detachment of the Union Signal Corps, but the Rebel horsemen were outnumbered and soon withdrew toward Hillsborough, 10 miles northeast of Morton. The Union troops swarmed into Morton, taking over the telegraph office and setting fires throughout the town. Soldiers foraged in the nearby smokehouses and yards for hams, hogs, poultry, and whatever else they could carry. Infantry details tore up a mile of railroad track and stacked it atop piles of ties. Setting the wood aflame, the soldiers watched as the heat mangled the rails.

By 9:00 A.M., the Yankees were marching into Hillsborough. Several residents greeted them with gunfire, so the soldiers angrily retaliated by setting fire to nearly every house in the town. The infantrymen then moved out, but a Rebel patrol set fire to the bridge across Beaver Dam Creek just east of town, delaying the Yankee crossing. Early that evening, the Federals encamped on the Tallabogue Creek, about three miles east of Hillsborough. Sherman wanted his men to have a good rest so they could start early the next day and perhaps reach Decatur, two dozen miles away, by nightfall. Like Smith, he had fallen behind schedule.

The Confederates did not care that Sherman was late; all they knew was that he and his men were destroying Mississippi. Polk frantically wired Richmond that the "enemy reached Morton last night and turned toward Mobile today." Still believing that the Yankees would bypass Meridian, he sent all possible reinforcements to Mobile, then ordered Lee's cavalry to cover the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and screen the remainder of the Confederate force as it fell back on Meridian through Decatur, 25 miles to its west. Unlike Polk, Lee was certain Sherman was headed for Meridian and that he would try to unite there with a strong cavalry force sent out of Memphis. At noon on February 11, the frustrated Lee, by now in Garlandville, south of the advancing Federals, again warned Polk that Mobile was not Sherman's objective. The Confederate cavalry had done all it could to harass the Yankees, he reported, but it wasn't enough. "There is little opportunity to do much with the enemy on the march," Lee wrote. "He moves in perfect order, with every precaution. Each brigade has its train behind it and flankers out. A battery accompanies each brigade, and they have a large amount of artillery."

That same day, the massive Yankee column that Lee had described to Polk reached the swollen Tuscalameta Creek only to find its bridge burned beyond use. Rebuilding this structure and two more later in the day proved time consuming. The Federal soldiers covered only 13 miles on February 11, but it was one of the hardest and most tiring marches of the expedition. The weather was cold; the swamp, almost impenetrable. Mud and tangled underbrush were everywhere, and wagon after wagon became bogged down. A few miles to the south, a detached battalion of Union cavalry reached Lake that night and laid waste to much of the town. Meanwhile, some 180 miles to the north, Smith's men had not even reached Mississippi yet. They were in Collierville, only 20 miles outside Memphis.

To this point, Sherman had been heading due east. Polk kept an anxious eye on the Federals, still clinging to the belief that they would turn toward the south. They did not. Slowly, Polk began to realize that Lee was right after all—Sherman was not going to Mobile. Polk ordered Lee to fall back toward Meridian, again stressing the importance of keeping his cavalry between the Federals and the vital Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Soon, Polk received a telegram from Forrest in Oxford that revealed that Smith's column, estimated at 10,000 cavalry and mounted infantry, was headed south—toward Meridian. Fearing the worst, Polk ordered all Confederate property removed from the town and directed his medical officer to send all the sick and wounded recuperating there 40 miles east toward safety beyond Alabama's Tombigbee River.

February 12 dawned cold and clear as the Federals trudged out of the swamps around the Tuscalameta Creek and into the rolling, sparsely settled pine country to the east. Somewhere near Decatur, Sherman penned a nervous note to XVI Corps commander Hurlbut: "Do you hear anything of W. Sooy Smith?" Other than the word that Smith had at last left Memphis, no one had heard a thing. By now, Lee was at Decatur with two cavalry brigades. Determined to find the Yankees, he and some of his men rode out and soon discovered a lengthy wagon train struggling through the swampy land. Adams's brigade charged, but when the Yankees massed, the Confederate horsemen galloped away. In the fight, the Federals lost 4 men, 20 wagons, and 24 mules; the Confederates suffered 8 casualties.

That night, the weary Sherman himself was very nearly captured. "I heard shouting and halooing, and then heard pistol-shots close to the house," he recalled years later in his Memoirs. "My aide, Major [actually Captain Joseph C. Audenried, called me and said we were attacked by Rebel cavalry, who were all around us." Sherman and his aides ran to the shelter of a nearby corncrib to defend themselves, but just then a Union infantry regiment arrived and drove the Confederates off.

Thus far, the Confederates had retreated steadily before Sherman's forces. But as the Federals drew nearer their goal, Polk decided the time had come to bring on a battle. That was the only hope for saving Meridian now. So, Polk assigned Loring to find a favorable place to make a stand. Loring ordered Major Abner C. Steede and his 150 men of the 9th Mississippi Cavalry to comb the 10 miles of road from Decatur north to Union for such a site, but Steede's men came back with bad news: there was no suitable ground for a pitched battle. "I have examined carefully the positions in front," Loring reported to Polk, "and I do not regard any of them as tenable with the force under my command."

Early the next morning, Lee headed south of the road between Decatur and Meridian. With no further orders from Polk, Lee and his cavalry took up a position north of Chunky Station at 9:00 A.M. An hour later Lee sent his staff surgeon, Dr. Robert J. Hicks, to press Polk for definite instructions. "If you think proper you can entrust a message to me by him," an impatient Lee wrote. That night, the cavalry commander finally heard from Polk, who ordered the horsemen to move into Meridian and protect the infantry as it retreated west toward Demopolis, Alabama.

Even as Lee's cavalry rushed toward Meridian, the Federals were pushing slowly along the mud-choked roads through Decatur not far to the west, harassed periodically by Confederate cavalry. The Rebels felled trees to block the roads, burned bridges, and offered sniper fire whenever possible. Late in the evening, cavalrymen at the head of the Yankee column were 14 miles from Meridian when they stumbled upon a stretch of virgin forest atop rugged hills. If ever there was an ideal spot for an ambush, it was here, and Sherman knew instantly that crossing this land would not be easy. So, he ordered Colonel Edward E Winslow and his brigade to ride north and fetch Hurlbut's advancing corps to support the final push into Meridian.

Long after dark, Winslow's men came across 20 ax-wielding Confederates chopping trees in the swamps near Tallahatta Creek. The Union men dismounted and advanced, and the Southerners fired, yielding ground only slowly. It was only by sheer weight of numbers that the plucky Rebels were forced to retreat. Later, near the low country east of the hills, the Confederate cavalry offered them another tenacious stand near Sukelena. The Yankees attempted to advance in two lines, but they became separated and one fired into the other. Both lines evaporated in disorder while the outnumbered Confederates fled. Just after midnight Winslow's brigade halted for the night about 10 miles northwest of Meridian; They had not reached Hurlbut yet, but by the next day the two corps would unite outside Meridian.

Sherman's men reached the Confederate rear a mile from Chunky Station on the morning of February 14 and easily drove the Rebels back into the village and across the Chunky Creek. Another small Confederate force soon moved into the nearby stockade that guarded the railroad bridge, but they, too, were driven from town. With the Confederates out of the way, the Federals once again commenced their work of destruction, setting fire to the railroad bridge and all unoccupied houses, demolishing two water tanks, and ravaging several miles of track.

Only two and a half miles from their goal, the Federals had to halt to rebuild the long bridge at Okatibee Creek. Sherman ordered the 4th Iowa Cavalry, part of Winslow's brigade, to ford the creek. The Iowans tore down a nearby cotton press and used timbers from the building to erect a makeshift bridge. More horsemen quickly scampered across and climbed the hill beyond the bridge, where they discovered a line of fortifications vacated only recently by Rebel cavalrymen. These Confederates, the last mounted force left to cover the evacuation of Meridian; were waiting in the woods nearby. The Southerners fired, but soon withdrew.

After a week and a half of marching punctuated by sporadic but persistent Confederate opposition, Sherman and his infantry triumphantly entered Meridian at 5:00 P.M. on February 14. The next day he gave his soldiers simple, concise orders: "Destroy! Burn!"

"For five days 10,000 men worked hard and with a will in that work of destruction...," Sherman wrote. His troops destroyed 61 bridges, 20 locomotives, and about 115 miles of rail. From Meridian's newly established armory they captured a number of small arms, three pieces of artillery, some flintlocks, and an array of bayonets, lances, and knives fashioned from old files and saw blades. Meanwhile, foragers confiscated molasses, corn meal, flour, meats, and planks of pine. "Before night nearly every soldier in the 17th Army Corps had a comfortable but rudely constructed shanty with a floor in it and was prepared for a good night rest secure from rain," one soldier recalled. Sherman summed it up this way: "Meridian, with its depots, store-houses, arsenals, hospitals, offices, hotels, [and] cantonments no longer exists."

The Federals' statewide destruction had been thorough and methodical. All they left behind was burning buildings and desolation. Lee called this "the Sherman torch" and accused Sherman of acting in a wantonly vindictive manner; after all, he pointed out, most of what the Federals had destroyed was privately owned. "Was this the civilized warfare of the nineteenth century?" Lee asked. Sherman, however, reasoned that the property, though private, was critical to the Southern war effort and was, therefore, fair game.

Trying to pick up what pieces were left, Polk placed Lee in command of all Confederate cavalry west of Alabama. Lee immediately sent news of Meridian's fall to Forrest and retired toward Old Marion, six miles northeast of Meridian, to begin preparing for an expected assault on Mobile or Montgomery, Alabama.

Even as Sherman's men were pillaging Meridian, Smith and his men—who had never come within 80 miles of Meridian—had their hands full with Forrest. On February 20, Smith's main column skirmished with Forrest at Prairie Station in northern Mississippi. The two cavalries soon fought again at Aberdeen, just to the east. Perhaps intimidated by Forrest's fearsome reputation and uncertain of his numbers, Smith concentrated his men at Prairie Station, then rode toward West Point, 12 miles to the south, the next morning. Soon, Smith's spearhead clashed violently with Forrest's advance guard, and the Rebels lured the Yankees into a swampy area four miles south of West Point. Aware of the trap, Smith ordered a retrograde movement, and a two-hour fight ensued before the Yankees at last managed to retreat toward the north. This was as far south as Smith would get.

The Union and Confederate forces engaged several times during the night. At dawn on February 22, Forrest's cavalry attacked Smith's men in an open area known locally as "the prairie," four miles south of Okolona. As more and more Rebels arrived, the Federals broke ranks and fled, sparking an 11-mile running skirmish. The Northerners twice tried to make a stand north of Okolona, and finally, after losing six pieces of artillery, Smith's bedraggled men positioned themselves in the wooded hills and open areas around the buildings of Ivey's Farm, a plantation seven miles northwest of Okolona. Each side charged the other twice, and each charge was repulsed. The Federals then broke off the engagement and continued their retreat. Mississippi militiamen continued to harass Smith's force until it reached Collierville on February 26.

Though it had failed to meet Sherman's infantry, Smith's expedition was not a complete failure: his cavalry had burned vast stores of corn and cotton, damaged part of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad, and led more than 1,000 slaves to safety. Smith reported 54 killed, 179 wounded, and 155 missing during his failed expedition. Forrest, with a smaller force, lost 25 killed and 75 wounded.

Farther south, Sherman withdrew from Meridian on February 20, his destination Vicksburg. No Confederate force was there to see him off, and there was little fighting along the way. Sherman's men had done a tremendous amount of damage in just a few weeks and had escorted some 5,000 black refugees back to Vicksburg, but failing to make the rendezvous with Smith induced them to return before doing as much harm as they might have. Sherman called Smith's failure "unpardonable," and Smith would resign five months later.

Sherman listed the following casualties: in roughly 360 to 450 miles of marching, he had lost 21 killed, 68 wounded, and 81 missing, and had captured some 400 prisoners and 3,000 draft animals. The Federals returned to Vicksburg before the end of February, he reported, "in better health and condition than when we started." As soon as Sherman had vacated Meridian, the Confederates set about repairing the devastated railroads the Federals had left in their wake.

Sherman had done other damage to the Confederate cause, however, that could not be erased. That damage was the knowledge Sherman had gained firsthand—knowledge that an army really could live off the enemy's civilian resources while it destroyed those resources. That knowledge would change everything in the western theater only a few months later.