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American Civil War: 1864 (view source)
Revision as of 14:22, September 8, 2007
, 14:22, September 8, 2007→March to the Sea
===March to the Sea===
===March to the Sea===
Before marching out of Atlanta, Sherman’s engineers put the torch to selected buildings and destroyed all railroads in the vicinity. On November 12, moving away from the Nashville depots toward Savannah, the Division of the Mississippi troops broke telegraphic contact with Grant. They had twenty days’ emergency rations in their wagons but planned to replenish them by living off the country. Operating on a sixty-mile-wide front unimpeded by any Confederate force, Sherman’s army systematically burned or destroyed what it did not need. The march became something of a rowdy excursion, but the destruction of private homes and towns has perhaps been exaggerated by popular myth. Sherman concentrated on destroying Confederate warehouses, depots, railroad lines, and other elements that assisted the Confederate war effort. His thrust deep into the Confederacy also liberated thousands of slaves, many of whom followed the Army in its march to the sea. Sherman’s campaign, like Sheridan’s in the Shenandoah, anticipated the economic warfare and strategic aerial bombardments of the twentieth century.
Before marching out of Atlanta, Sherman’s engineers put the torch to selected buildings and destroyed all railroads in the vicinity. On November 12, moving away from the Nashville depots toward Savannah, the Division of the Mississippi troops broke telegraphic contact with Grant. They had twenty days’ emergency rations in their wagons but planned to replenish them by living off the country. Operating on a sixty-mile-wide front unimpeded by any Confederate force, Sherman’s army systematically burned or destroyed what it did not need. The march became something of a rowdy excursion, but the destruction of private homes and towns has perhaps been exaggerated by popular myth. Sherman concentrated on destroying Confederate warehouses, depots, railroad lines, and other elements that assisted the Confederate war effort. His thrust deep into the Confederacy also liberated thousands of slaves, many of whom followed the Army in its march to the sea. Sherman’s campaign, like Sheridan’s in the Shenandoah, anticipated the economic warfare and strategic aerial bombardments of the twentieth century.
E.W. Evans was a nine-year-old slave when Sherman's troops passed by the plantation where he was born. Evans, in his own dialect told to an interviewer many years later, remembered Sherman as the herald of his family's freedom:
:''"He [Sherman] come through Madison on his march to the sea and we chillun hung out on the front fence from early morning unil late in the evening, watching the soldiers go by. It took most of the day…The next week…Miss Emily called the five women that wuz on the place and tole them to stay 'round the house…She said they were free and could go wherever they wanted to."'' [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/wpa:@field(DOCID+@lit(wpa113070608))]
On December 10 Sherman, having broken the classic pattern by moving away from his logistical base, arrived in front of Savannah. Confederate forces evacuated the seaport on December 21, and Sherman offered it to the nation as a Christmas present. Awaiting him offshore was Meigs’ floating seatrain, which enabled him to execute the last phase of Grant’s strategy: a thrust north toward the line of the James River.
On December 10 Sherman, having broken the classic pattern by moving away from his logistical base, arrived in front of Savannah. Confederate forces evacuated the seaport on December 21, and Sherman offered it to the nation as a Christmas present. Awaiting him offshore was Meigs’ floating seatrain, which enabled him to execute the last phase of Grant’s strategy: a thrust north toward the line of the James River.