Sherman’s March to the Sea
Sherman’s
March to the Sea was integral part of the Union’s plan for victory during the
Civil War as well as a prime example of total war.
Sherman’s March to the
Sea, also known as the Savannah Campaign, was led by Major General William
Tecumseh Sherman; Commander of the Union Army during the Civil War. The march was
conducted through the state of Georgia and began in Atlanta on November 15, 1864,
and concluded in Savannah on December 21, 1864.[1]
Sherman had a group of almost 62,000 men. Confederate General Joseph E.
Johnston later said, "There had been no such army since the days of Julius
Caesar."[2] The
Union Army brought devastation to the southern landscape in a way never before
seen. They destroyed the South’s infrastructure, industry, and even civilian
homes and property. Not only did Sherman destroy the South’s ability to
continue the war by destroying their ability to survive by their own means of
industry and production, he destroyed their hope and created a rift in the
mindset of the people that the South could actually win against the North. David
J. Eicher summed it up when he said that Sherman “defied military principles by
operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or
communication. He destroyed much of the South's physical and psychological
capacity to wage war.”[3]
It is debatable what the true motivations were for Sherman’s actions in Georgia
throughout the campaign. Sherman wrote a letter to his brother John a little
after the march that read, “The South is whipped and submissive…”[4]
He also wrote that he and the 62,000 Union soldiers would be “smashing things…to
the sea.”[5]
Did he truly want to end one of the United States bloodiest wars because he
wanted the two halves of the country reunited? Or was there a more sinister
motivation lurking deep beneath the surface?
It has been said that
Sherman’s March to the Sea was an integral part of the Unions plan for victory.
As I stated in my introduction, not only did it devastate the South’s ability
to survive on their own, it put fear into the hearts of Southerners everywhere.
Another important point about the march was that with Sherman’s victory, it put
Lincoln in a good place for re-election. This is important because Lincoln was
the one fighting so hard to keep the country together while Lincoln’s
opposition, if they gained election, were likely to just end the war for the
sake of it and break up the country altogether. It is possible that if Sherman
had not made such a display of aggression and power that the war could have
raged on much longer than it did, not to mention the fact that the result of
war could have been much different than it was as well as the geography of the
modern day United States. The question you have to ask yourself is, does the
end truly justify the means?
The Civil War was the
United States first total war, in fact, Sherman is perhaps the originator and
the first practitioner of what the twentieth century came to know as
"total war."[6]
There are two types of war: total war and limited war. Total war is when both
sides go all out and use all the available resources and population to win. A
few examples of total wars would be the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII. In
contrast limited wars are when the country uses only a small amount of their
resources and population. A few examples of this type of war are the Cold War,
the Vietnam War, and the Korean War. More recently in our countries history
there have been mostly limited wars. There are various reasons for this, mostly
because they don’t want to risk going into total war because of how tragic it
can become. For example, during the Vietnam War the US didn’t want to risk
upsetting China and creating a total war. Sherman’s March to the Sea is a prime
example of total war. He used all of the men at his disposal and created havoc
to the fullest degree in hopes that it would result in total southern
submission and surrender. According to Sherman, the Yankees were “not only
fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people,” Sherman explained; as a result,
they needed to “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”[7]
There were a few
important battles/skirmishes that took place during Sherman’s march. Firstly,
on November 22 the Georgia militia fought back at the town of Griswoldville and
it ended as a decisive Union victory with 650 Georgia men dead and only 62
casualties for the Union soldiers.[8]
The second was when the Union army captured Fort McAllister which in turn
liberated a group of slaves. Before the slaves could cross the river, Jefferson
Davis removed the bridge and men, women, and children plummeted into the water,
many drowning before they could reach the safety of the shore. Sherman backed
this action claimed David had done what was military necessary.[9]
Where was the
confederate army while Sherman was marching around the South destroying the
state of Georgia? General John Bell Hood had decided that if he attacked Tennessee,
it would draw Sherman back out of Georgia. Instead, Sherman anticipated this
move and sent General George H. Thomas to meet Hood in Nashville. With only
militia and cavalry standing in his way, Sherman was free to continue his march
through Georgia[10].
Personal accounts of
Sherman’s March to the Sea are often hard to find because Sherman did not want
Journalists to be a part of the march. Historians are not really sure why this
is. Perhaps he was afraid of spies or afraid of giving away too much information.
Maybe he wanted the soldiers to focus on their work, or perhaps he didn’t want
the country to know what he was up to, or the acts he was planning on doing. We
are lucky however to have a few good personal accounts of Sherman’s March to
the Sea.
Firstly, we are
introduced to a woman named Dolly Sumner who lived in Covington, Georgia. She
was left alone to manage a plantation when her husband Thomas Burge died in
1858.[11]
Her story, I believe, is most similar to thousands of southerner stories about Sherman’s
march. Sherman himself drove by her home with his army. They took all of her
food, “To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished
wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand
pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my
lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine -
wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens,
and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were
rebels themselves.”[12]
She was powerless to the Union Army as they pillaged all of her belongings.
They also took all of the boys in her home with them, perhaps to induct them
into the army. She was thankful she was left with her life, but ended her
journal entry with, “this ended the passing of Sherman's army by my place,
leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And
a much stronger Rebel!”[13]
Our second Georgia
account comes from a women named Nora Canning. She lived in Savannah Georgia
and recalled the night Sherman’s army rolled into town, “That night the heavens
looked as if they were on fire from the glare of hundreds of burning houses.”[14]
Her story is a little more tragic than that of Dolly Sumner. Sherman’s soldiers
set fire to all of her cotton and hay bales. They cut the well ropes and stole
their buckets so they had no water to drink. When her husband had told them he
had no gold they hung him and cut him down just before he could smother. When
they saw a newly dug grave, they dug it up and when they found no treasure they
left the casket open of a young boy who had died only days before. Nora Canning
mentions the seen the following day, “The Yankees had cut all the well ropes
and stolen the buckets, and there was no water nearer than half a mile. Saturday
morning we looked out upon a scene of desolation and ruin. We could hardly
believe it was our home. One week before it was one of the most beautiful
places in the state. Now it was a vast wreck. Gin-houses, packing screws,
granary -- all lay in ashes. Not a fence was to be seen for miles. The corn
crop had not been gathered, and the army had turned their stock into the fields
and destroyed what they had not carried off. Burning cotton and grain filled
the air with smoke, and even the sun seemed to hide its face from so gloomy a
picture.”[15]
After Sherman captured
Savannah he presented it to Lincoln as a Christmas gift. He then continued the
march toward a destination he thought was vital to the surrender of the south:
Columbia, South Carolina. A soldier named Private John C. Arbuckle recalls the
burning of Columbia, “In all of our campaigns, no other city in the South
awakened our interest and bad feeling as did this city of Columbia; and now,
here it was, with all of its beauty and attractiveness, in full view; but,
withal, this was the trouble, there attached to it the bad eminence of having
been the first of Southern Capitols to lead off in unleashing the dogs of
war...The sacrifice, blood and carnage of four years of war through which we
had passed, were due to what first took place here in the city of Columbia.
Judging from the temper and feeling of the men in the ranks, it was evident
that a terrible day of retribution had at last come to this beleaguered and
doomed city.”[16] A
woman named Mary Boykin Chestnut, a South Carolinian, said, “I have felt as
if…we are going to be wiped off the earth.[17]
The last personal
account from a victim of Sherman’s march I want to give is perhaps the most
unsettling of the bunch. It took place in Columbia, South Carolina. The true
brutality of Sherman’s soldiers can only be seen with the full account. A
summary would not do it justice.
“The Yankees' gallantry,
brutality and debauchery were afflicted on the negroes.... The case of Mr.
Shane's old negro woman, who, after being subjected to the most brutal
indecency from seven of the Yankees, was, at the proposition of one of them to
"finish the old Bitch," put into a ditch and held under water until life
was extinct....
Mrs. T.B.C. was seized by one of the soldiers, an officer, and dragged by
the hair and forced to the floor for the purpose of sensual enjoyment. She
resisted as far as practical- held up her young infant as a plea for sparing
her and succeeded, but they took her maid, and in her presence, threw her on
the floor and had connection with her....
They pinioned Mrs. McCord and robbed her. They dragged Mrs. Gynn by the
hair of her head about the house. Mrs. G. told me of a young lady about 16,
Miss Kinsler, who... three officers brutally ravished and who became crazy from
it....”[18]
If the burning and
pillage of houses wasn’t enough, there are countless stories of sexual abuse
from Sherman’s soldiers. There are accounts of white women left alone whose
husbands were killed or at war, African American women who were slaves, and
even children. It is unclear if Sherman knew the extent his soldiers were going
to, to break the South’s will to fight.
I was able to find an
account from one of Sherman’s soldiers named Lieutenant Thomas J. Myers.
According to Myers the rules of plundering are, “Each company is required to
exhibit the results of its operations at any given place -- one-fifth and first
choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief and staff; one-fifth to the
corps commanders and staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and
two-fifths to the company.”[19]
He mentioned that officers were not allowed to plunder outright; they had to
disguise themselves as privates. He talked about all of the gold and silver he
had collected for his wife and daughters. He mentioned specifically, “General
Sherman has silver and gold enough to start a bank. His share in gold watches
alone at Columbia was two hundred and seventy-five.”[20]
This letter shows the greedy mindset of a Union soldier. With loot being handed
out so freely it was sure to draw a most undesirable crowd.
Despite the mixed
feelings about Sherman’s true intentions on the march to the sea, I have tried
to keep an open mind, free of biases. Being from South Carolina you can never
get a clear picture of Sherman as he is often seen a ruthless murderer,
however, it’s not fair to judge unless we first get all of the facts. Through
my findings I personally think Sherman was a harsh man who sought means to end
the bloodiest war the United States had ever seen. His methods are questionable
and actions often went unpunished, but without them, the war could have lasted
many more years. Not only this, but Sherman is only one man who had control over
60,000 men. Some officers did whatever they wanted without consent of Sherman
himself. We can never be sure if this would have affected Sherman’s mood
negatively. This is only my opinion, and we will never truly know Sherman’s
intentions, motivations, or expectations of the march to the sea. Sherman is
quoted as having said War is Hell. In studying the many tragedies of United
States military history, I would have to agree with him.
Bibliography
Eicher, David J.
The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001
[3] David J Eicher, The
Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2001) 739.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Nora Canning, Oh! The
Horror of the Night, Eyewitness Accounts of William T. Sherman's
Destructive March to the Sea, URL.
[15] Ibid.
[18] Dr. Daniel Trezevant,
Debauchery…Afflicted on the Negroes, Eyewitness Accounts of William T.
Sherman's
Destructive March to the Sea, URL.
[19] Thomas J. Myers, A
Souvenir of Sherman’s Bummers, Eyewitness Accounts of William T. Sherman's
Destructive March to the Sea, URL.
[20] Ibid.
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