I only regarded the march from Atlanta to Savannah as a "shift of
base," as the transfer of a strong army, which had no opponent, and
had finished its then work, from the interior to a point on the sea
coast, from which it could achieve other important results. I
considered this march as a means to an end, and not as an essential
act of war. Still, then as now, the march to the sea was generally
regarded as something extraordinary, something anomalous, something
out of the usual order of events; whereas, in fact, I simply moved
from Atlanta to Savannah, as one step in the direction of Richmond, a
movement that had to be met and defeated, or the war was necessarily
at an end.--_General W. T. Sherman, in his "Memoirs."_
The march to the sea, in which General William T. Sherman won undying fame
in the Civil War, is one of the greatest pageants in the world's
warfare--as fearful in its destruction as it is historic in its import.
But this was not Sherman's chief achievement; it was an easy task compared
with the great campaign between Chattanooga and Atlanta through which he
had just passed. "As a military accomplishment it was little more than a
grand picnic," declared one of his division commanders, in speaking of the
march through Georgia and the Carolinas.
Almost immediately after the capture of Atlanta, Sherman, deciding to
remain there for some time and to make it a Federal military center,
ordered all the inhabitants to be removed. General Hood pronounced the act
one of ingenious cruelty, transcending any that had ever before come to
his notice in the dark history of the war. Sherman insisted that his act
was one of kindness, and that Johnston and Hood themselves had done the
same--removed families from their homes--in other places. The decision was
fully carried out. Many of the people of Atlanta chose to go southward,
others to the north, the latter being transported free, by Sherman's
order, as far as Chattanooga.
Shortly after the middle of September, Hood moved his army from Lovejoy's
Station, just south of Atlanta, to the vicinity of Macon. Here Jefferson
Davis visited the encampment, and on the 22d he made a speech to the
homesick Army of Tennessee, which, reported in the Southern newspapers,
disclosed to Sherman the new plans of the Confederate leaders. These
involved nothing less than a fresh invasion of Tennessee, which, in the
opinion of President Davis, would put Sherman in a predicament worse than
that in which Napoleon found himself at Moscow. But, forewarned, the
Federal leader prepared to thwart his antagonists. The line of the Western
and Atlantic Railroad was more closely guarded. Divisions were sent to
Rome and to Chattanooga. Thomas was ordered to Nashville, and Schofield to
Knoxville. Recruits were hastened from the North to these points, in order
that Sherman himself might not be weakened by the return of too many
troops to these places.
Hood, in the hope of leading Sherman away from Atlanta, crossed the
Chattahoochee on the 1st of October, destroyed the railroad above Marietta
and sent General French against Allatoona. It was the brave defense of
this place by General John M. Corse that brought forth Sherman's famous
message, "Hold out; relief is coming," sent by his signal officers from
the heights of Kenesaw Mountain, and which thrilled the North and inspired
its poets to eulogize Corse's bravery in verse. Corse had been ordered
from Rome to Allatoona by signals from mountain to mountain, over the
heads of the Confederate troops, who occupied the valley between. Reaching
the mountain pass soon after midnight, on October 5th, Corse added his
thousand men to the nine hundred already there, and soon after daylight
the battle began. General French, in command of the Confederates, first
summoned Corse to surrender, and, receiving a defiant answer, opened with
his guns. Nearly all the day the fire was terrific from besieged and
besiegers, and the losses on both sides were very heavy.
During the battle Sherman was on Kenesaw Mountain, eighteen miles away,
from which he could see the cloud of smoke and hear the faint
reverberation of the cannons' boom. When he learned by signal that Corse
was there and in command, he said, "If Corse is there, he will hold out; I
know the man." And he did hold out, and saved the stores at Allatoona, at
a loss of seven hundred of his men, he himself being among the wounded,
while French lost about eight hundred.
General Hood continued to move northward to Resaca and Dalton, passing
over the same ground on which the two great armies had fought during the
spring and summer. He destroyed the railroads, burned the ties, and
twisted the rails, leaving greater havoc, if possible, in a country that
was already a wilderness of desolation. For some weeks Sherman followed
Hood in the hope that a general engagement would result. But Hood had no
intention to fight. He went on to the banks of the Tennessee opposite
Florence, Alabama. His army was lightly equipped, and Sherman, with his
heavily burdened troops, was unable to catch him. Sherman halted at
Gaylesville and ordered Schofield, with the Twenty-third Corps, and
Stanley, with the Fourth Corps, to Thomas at Nashville.
Sherman thereupon determined to return to Atlanta, leaving General Thomas
to meet Hood's appearance in Tennessee. It was about this time that
Sherman fully decided to march to the sea. Some time before this he had
telegraphed to Grant: "Hood ... can constantly break my roads. I would
infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road ... send back all my wounded
and worthless, and, with my effective army, move through Georgia, smashing
things to the sea." Grant thought it best for Sherman to destroy Hood's
army first, but Sherman insisted that his plan would put him on the
offensive rather than the defensive. He also believed that Hood would be
forced to follow him. Grant was finally won to the view that if Hood moved
on Tennessee, Thomas would be able to check him. He had, on the 11th of
October, given permission for the march. Now, on the 2d of November, he
telegraphed Sherman at Rome: "I do not really see that you can withdraw
from where you are to follow Hood without giving up all we have gained in
territory. I say, then, go on as you propose." It was Sherman, and not
Grant or Lincoln, that conceived the great march, and while the march
itself was not seriously opposed or difficult to carry out, the conception
and purpose were masterly.
Sherman moved his army by slow and easy stages back to Atlanta. He sent
the vast army stores that had collected at Atlanta, which he could not
take with him, as well as his sick and wounded, to Chattanooga, destroyed
the railroad to that place, also the machine-shops at Rome and other
places, and on November 12th, after receiving a final despatch from Thomas
and answering simply, "Despatch received--all right," the last telegraph
line was severed, and Sherman had deliberately cut himself off from all
communication with the Northern States. There is no incident like it in
the annals of war. A strange event it was, as Sherman observes in his
memoirs. "Two hostile armies marching in opposite directions, each in the
full belief that it was achieving a final and conclusive result in a great
war."
For the next two days all was astir in Atlanta. The great depot,
round-house, and machine-shops were destroyed. Walls were battered down;
chimneys pulled over; machinery smashed to pieces, and boilers punched
full of holes. Heaps of rubbish covered the spots where these fine
buildings had stood, and on the night of November 15th the vast débris was
set on fire. The torch was also applied to many places in the business
part of the city, in defiance of the strict orders of Captain Poe, who
had the work of destruction in charge. The court-house and a large part of
the dwellings escaped the flames.
Preparations for the great march were made with extreme care. Defective
wagons and horses were discarded; the number of heavy guns to be carried
along was sixty-five, the remainder having been sent to Chattanooga. The
marching army numbered about sixty thousand, five thousand of whom
belonged to the cavalry and eighteen hundred to the artillery. The army
was divided into two immense wings, the Right, the Army of the Tennessee,
commanded by General O. O. Howard, and consisting of the Fifteenth and
Seventeenth corps, and the Left, the Army of Georgia, by General Henry W.
Slocum, composed the Fourteenth and Twentieth corps. Sherman himself was
in supreme command. There were twenty-five hundred wagons, each drawn by
six mules; six hundred ambulances, with two horses each, while the heavy
guns, caissons, and forges were each drawn by eight horses. A twenty days'
supply of bread, forty of coffee, sugar, and salt was carried with the
army, and a large herd of cattle was driven on foot.
In Sherman's general instructions it was provided that the army should
march by four roads as nearly parallel as possible, except the cavalry,
which remained under the direct control of the general commanding. The
army was directed "to forage liberally on the country," but, except along
the roadside, this was to be done by organized foraging parties appointed
by the brigade commanders. Orders were issued forbidding soldiers to enter
private dwellings or to commit any trespass. The corps commanders were
given the option of destroying mills, cotton-gins, and the like, and where
the army was molested in its march by the burning of bridges, obstructing
the roads, and so forth, the devastation should be made "more or less
relentless, according to the measure of such hostility." The cavalry and
artillery and the foraging parties were permitted to take horses, mules,
and wagons from the inhabitants without limit, except that they were to
discriminate in favor of the poor. It was a remarkable military
undertaking, in which it was intended to remove restrictions only to a
sufficient extent to meet the requirements of the march. The cavalry was
commanded by General Judson Kilpatrick, who, after receiving a severe
wound at Resaca, in May, had gone to his home on the banks of the Hudson,
in New York, to recuperate, and, against the advice of his physician, had
joined the army again at Atlanta.
On November 15th, most of the great army was started on its march, Sherman
himself riding out from the city next morning. As he rode near the spot
where General McPherson had fallen, he paused and looked back at the
receding city with its smoking ruins, its blackened walls, and its lonely,
tenantless houses. The vision of the desperate battles, of the hope and
fear of the past few months, rose before him, as he tells us, "like the
memory of a dream." The day was as perfect as Nature ever gives. The men
were hilarious. They sang and shouted and waved their banners in the
autumn breeze. Most of them supposed they were going directly toward
Richmond, nearly a thousand miles away. As Sherman rode past them they
would call out, "Uncle Billy, I guess Grant is waiting for us at
Richmond." Only the commanders of the wings and Kilpatrick were entrusted
with the secret of Sherman's intentions. But even Sherman was not fully
decided as to his objective--Savannah, Georgia, or Port Royal, South
Carolina--until well on the march.
There was one certainty, however--he was fully decided to keep the
Confederates in suspense as to his intentions. To do this the more
effectually he divided his army at the start, Howard leading his wing to
Gordon by way of McDonough as if to threaten Macon, while Slocum proceeded
to Covington and Madison, with Milledgeville as his goal. Both were
secretly instructed to halt, seven days after starting, at Gordon and
Milledgeville, the latter the capital of Georgia, about a hundred miles to
the southeast. These two towns were about fifteen miles apart.
General Hood and General Beauregard, who had come from the East to assist
him, were in Tennessee, and it was some days after Sherman had left
Atlanta that they heard of his movements. They realized that to follow him
would now be futile. He was nearly three hundred miles away, and not only
were the railroads destroyed, but a large part of the intervening country
was utterly laid waste and incapable of supporting an army. The
Confederates thereupon turned their attention to Thomas, who was also in
Tennessee, and was the barrier between Hood and the Northern States.
General Sherman accompanied first one corps of his army and then another.
The first few days he spent with Davis' corps of Slocum's wing. When they
reached Covington, the negroes met the troops in great numbers, shouting
and thanking the Lord that "deliverance" had come at last. As Sherman rode
along the streets they would gather around his horse and exhibit every
evidence of adoration.
The foraging parties consisted of companies of fifty men. Their route for
the day in which they obtained supplies was usually parallel to that of
the army, five or six miles from it. They would start out before daylight
in the morning, many of them on foot; but when they rejoined the column in
the evening they were no longer afoot. They were astride mules, horses, in
family carriages, farm wagons, and mule carts, which they packed with
hams, bacon, vegetables, chickens, ducks, and every imaginable product of
a Southern farm that could be useful to an army.
In the general orders, Sherman had forbidden the soldiers to enter private
houses; but the order was not strictly adhered to, as many Southern people
have since testified. Sherman declares in his memoirs that these acts of
pillage and violence were exceptional and incidental. On one occasion
Sherman saw a man with a ham on his musket, a jug of molasses under his
arm, and a big piece of honey in his hand. As the man saw that he was
observed by the commander, he quoted audibly to a comrade, from the
general order, "forage liberally on the country." But the general reproved
him and explained that foraging must be carried on only by regularly
designated parties.
It is a part of military history that Sherman's sole purpose was to weaken
the Confederacy by recognized means of honorable warfare; but it cannot be
denied that there were a great many instances, unknown to him,
undoubtedly, of cowardly hold-ups of the helpless inhabitants, or
ransacking of private boxes and drawers in search of jewelry and other
family treasure. This is one of the misfortunes of war--one of war's
injustices. Such practices always exist even under the most rigid
discipline in great armies, and the jubilation of this march was such that
human nature asserted itself in the license of warfare more than on most
other occasions. General Washington met with similar situations in the
American Revolution. The practice is never confined to either army in
warfare.
Opposed to Sherman were Wheeler's cavalry, and a large portion of the
Georgia State troops which were turned over by General G. W. Smith to
General Howell Cobb. Kilpatrick and his horsemen, proceeding toward Macon,
were confronted by Wheeler and Cobb, but the Federal troopers drove them
back into the town. However, they issued forth again, and on November 21st
there was a sharp engagement with Kilpatrick at Griswoldville. The
following day the Confederates were definitely checked and retreated.
The night of November 22d, Sherman spent in the home of General Cobb, who
had been a member of the United States Congress and of Buchanan's Cabinet.
Thousands of soldiers encamped that night on Cobb's plantation, using his
fences for camp-fire fuel. By Sherman's order, everything on the
plantation movable or destructible was carried away next day, or
destroyed. Such is the price of war.
By the next night both corps of the Left Wing were at Milledgeville, and
on the 24th started for Sandersville. Howard's wing was at Gordon, and it
left there on the day that Slocum moved from Milledgeville for Irwin's
Crossroads. A hundred miles below Milledgeville was a place called Millen,
and here were many Federal prisoners which Sherman greatly desired to
release. With this in view he sent Kilpatrick toward Augusta to give the
impression that the army was marching thither, lest the Confederates
should remove the prisoners from Millen. Kilpatrick had reached Waynesboro
when he learned that the prisoners had been taken away. Here he again
encountered the Confederate cavalry under General Wheeler. A sharp fight
ensued and Kilpatrick drove Wheeler through the town toward Augusta. As
there was no further need of making a feint on Augusta, Kilpatrick turned
back toward the Left Wing. Wheeler quickly followed and at Thomas' Station
nearly surrounded him, but Kilpatrick cut his way out. Wheeler still
pressed on and Kilpatrick chose a good position at Buck Head Creek,
dismounted, and threw up breastworks. Wheeler attacked desperately, but
was repulsed, and Kilpatrick, after being reënforced by a brigade from
Davis' corps, joined the Left Wing at Louisville.
On the whole, the great march was but little disturbed by the
Confederates. The Georgia militia, probably ten thousand in all, did what
they could to defend their homes and their firesides; but their endeavors
were futile against the vast hosts that were sweeping through the country.
In the skirmishes that took place between Atlanta and the sea the militia
was soon brushed aside. Even their destroying of bridges and supplies in
front of the invading army checked its progress but for a moment, as it
was prepared for every such emergency. Wheeler, with his cavalry, caused
more trouble, and engaged Kilpatrick's attention a large part of the time.
But even he did not seriously retard the irresistible progress of the
legions of the North.
The great army kept on its way by various routes, covering about fifteen
miles a day, and leaving a swath of destruction, from forty to sixty miles
wide, in its wake. Among the details attendant upon the march to the sea
was that of scientifically destroying the railroads that traversed the
region. Battalions of engineers had received special instruction in the
art, together with the necessary implements to facilitate rapid work. But
the infantry soon entered this service, too, and it was a common sight to
see a thousand soldiers in blue standing beside a stretch of railway, and,
when commanded, bend as one man and grasp the rail, and at a second
command to raise in unison, which brought a thousand railroad ties up on
end. Then the men fell upon them, ripping rail and tie apart, the rails to
be heated to a white heat and bent in fantastic shapes about some
convenient tree or other upright column, the ties being used as the fuel
with which to make the fires. All public buildings that might have a
military use were burned, together with a great number of private
dwellings and barns, some by accident, others wantonly. This fertile and
prosperous region, after the army had passed, was a scene of ruin and
desolation.
As the army progressed, throngs of escaped slaves followed in its trail,
"from the baby in arms to the old negro hobbling painfully along," says
General Howard, "negroes of all sizes, in all sorts of patched costumes,
with carts and broken-down horses and mules to match." Many of the old
negroes found it impossible to keep pace with the army for many days, and
having abandoned their homes and masters who could have cared for them,
they were left to die of hunger and exposure in that naked land.
After the Ogeechee River was crossed, the character of the country was
greatly changed from that of central Georgia. No longer were there fertile
farms, laden with their Southern harvests of corn and vegetables, but
rather rice plantations and great pine forests, the solemn stillness of
which was broken by the tread of thousands of troops, the rumbling of
wagon-trains, and by the shouts and music of the marching men and of the
motley crowd of negroes that followed.
Day by day Sherman issued orders for the progress of the wings, but on
December 2d they contained the decisive words, "Savannah." What a tempting
prize was this fine Southern city, and how the Northern commander would
add to his laurels could he effect its capture! The memories clinging
about the historic old town, with its beautiful parks and its
magnolia-lined streets, are part of the inheritance of not only the South,
but of all America. Here Oglethorpe had bartered with the wild men of the
forest, and here, in the days of the Revolution, Count Pulaski and
Sergeant Jasper had given up their lives in the cause of liberty.
Sherman had partially invested the city before the middle of December; but
it was well fortified and he refrained from assault. General Hardee, sent
by Hood from Tennessee, had command of the defenses, with about eighteen
thousand men. And there was Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee, protecting
the city on the south. But this obstruction to the Federals was soon
removed. General Hazen's division of the Fifteenth Corps was sent to
capture the fort. At five o'clock in the afternoon of the 13th Hazen's men
rushed through a shower of grape, over abatis and hidden torpedoes, scaled
the parapet and captured the garrison. That night Sherman boarded the
_Dandelion_, a Union vessel, in the river, and sent a message to the
outside world, the first since he had left Atlanta.
Henceforth there was communication between the army and the Federal
squadron, under the command of Admiral Dahlgren. Among the vessels that
came up the river there was one that was received with great enthusiasm by
the soldiers. It brought mail, tons of it, for Sherman's army, the
accumulation of two months. One can imagine the eagerness with which
these war-stained veterans opened the longed-for letters and sought the
answer to the ever-recurring question, "How are things at home?"
Sherman had set his heart on capturing Savannah; but, on December 15th, he
received a letter from Grant which greatly disturbed him. Grant ordered
him to leave his artillery and cavalry, with infantry enough to support
them, and with the remainder of his army to come by sea to Virginia and
join the forces before Richmond. Sherman prepared to obey, but hoped that
he would be able to capture the city before the transports would be ready
to carry him northward.
He first called on Hardee to surrender the city, with a threat of
bombardment. Hardee refused. Sherman hesitated to open with his guns
because of the bloodshed it would occasion, and on December 21st he was
greatly relieved to discover that Hardee had decided not to defend the
city, that he had escaped with his army the night before, by the one road
that was still open to him, which led across the Savannah River into the
Carolinas. The stream had been spanned by an improvised pontoon bridge,
consisting of river-boats, with planks from city wharves for flooring and
with old car-wheels for anchors. Sherman immediately took possession of
the city, and on December 22d he sent to President Lincoln this message:
"I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with
one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about
twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." As a matter of fact, over two
hundred and fifty guns were captured, and thirty-one thousand bales of
cotton. General Hardee retreated to Charleston.
Events in the West now changed Grant's views as to Sherman's joining him
immediately in Virginia. On the 16th of December, General Thomas
accomplished the defeat and utter rout of Hood's army at Nashville. In
addition, it was found that, owing to lack of transports, it would take at
least two months to transfer Sherman's whole army by sea. Therefore, it
was decided that Sherman should march through the Carolinas, destroying
the railroads in both States as he went. A little more than a month
Sherman remained in Savannah. Then he began another great march, compared
with which, as Sherman himself declared, the march to the sea was as
child's play. The size of his army on leaving Savannah was practically the
same as when he left Atlanta--sixty thousand. It was divided into two
wings, under the same commanders, Howard and Slocum, and was to be
governed by the same rules. Kilpatrick still commanded the cavalry. The
march from Savannah averaged ten miles a day, which, in view of the
conditions, was a very high average. The weather in the early part of the
journey was exceedingly wet and the roads were well-nigh impassable. Where
they were not actually under water the mud rendered them impassable until
corduroyed. Moreover, the troops had to wade streams, to drag themselves
through swamps and quagmires, and to remove great trees that had been
felled across their pathway.
The city of Savannah was left under the control of General J. G. Foster,
and the Left Wing of Sherman's army under Slocum moved up the Savannah
River, accompanied by Kilpatrick, and crossed it at Sister's Ferry. The
river was overflowing its banks and the crossing, by means of a pontoon
bridge, was effected with the greatest difficulty. The Right Wing, under
Howard, embarked for Beaufort, South Carolina, and moved thence to
Pocotaligo, near the Broad River, whither Sherman had preceded it, and the
great march northward was fairly begun by February 1, 1865.
Sherman had given out the word that he expected to go to Charleston or
Augusta, his purpose being to deceive the Confederates, since he had made
up his mind to march straight to Columbia, the capital of South Carolina.
The two wings of the army were soon united and they continued their great
march from one end of the State of South Carolina to the other. The men
felt less restraint in devastating the country and despoiling the people
than they had felt in Georgia. The reason for this, given by Sherman and
others, was that there was a feeling of bitterness against South Carolina
as against no other State. It was this State that had led the procession
of seceding States and that had fired on Fort Sumter and brought on the
great war. No doubt this feeling, which pervaded the army, will account in
part for the reckless dealing with the inhabitants by the Federal
soldiery. The superior officers, however, made a sincere effort to
restrain lawlessness.
On February 17th, Sherman entered Columbia, the mayor having come out and
surrendered the city. The Fifteenth Corps marched through the city and out
on the Camden road, the remainder of the army not having come within two
miles of the city. On that night Columbia was in flames. The conflagration
spread and ere the coming of the morning the best part of the city had
been laid in ashes.
Before Sherman left Columbia he destroyed the machine-shops and everything
else which might aid the Confederacy. He left with the mayor one hundred
stand of arms with which to keep order, and five hundred head of cattle
for the destitute.
As Columbia was approached by the Federals, the occupation of Charleston
by the Confederates became more and more untenable. In vain had the
governor of South Carolina pleaded with President Davis to reënforce
General Hardee, who occupied the city. Hardee thereupon evacuated the
historic old city--much of which was burned, whether by design or accident
is not known--and its defenses, including Fort Sumter, the bombardment of
which, nearly four years before, had precipitated the mighty conflict,
were occupied by Colonel Bennett, who came over from Morris Island.
On March 11th, Sherman reached Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he
destroyed a fine arsenal. Hitherto, Sherman's march, except for the
annoyance of Wheeler's cavalry, had been but slightly impeded by the
Confederates. But henceforth this was changed. General Joseph B.
Johnston, his old foe of Resaca and Kenesaw Mountain, had been recalled
and was now in command of the troops in the Carolinas. No longer would the
streams and the swamps furnish the only resistance to the progress of the
Union army.
The first engagement came at Averysboro on March 16th. General Hardee,
having taken a strong position, made a determined stand; but a division of
Slocum's wing, aided by Kilpatrick, soon put him to flight, with the loss
of several guns and over two hundred prisoners.
The battle of Bentonville, which took place three days after that of
Averysboro, was more serious. Johnston had placed his whole army, probably
thirty-five thousand men, in the form of a V, the sides embracing the
village of Bentonville. Slocum engaged the Confederates while Howard was
hurried to the scene. On two days, the 19th and 20th of March, Sherman's
army fought its last battle in the Civil War. But Johnston, after making
several attacks, resulting in considerable losses on both sides, withdrew
his army during the night, and the Union army moved to Goldsboro. The
losses at Bentonville were: Federal, 1,527; Confederate, 2,606.
At Goldsboro the Union army was reënforced by its junction with Schofield,
who had come out of the West with over twenty-two thousand men from the
army of Thomas in Tennessee. But there was little need of reënforcement.
Sherman's third great march was practically over. As to the relative
importance of the second and third, Sherman declares in his memoirs, he
would place that from Atlanta to the sea at one, and that from Savannah
through the Carolinas at ten.
Leaving his army in charge of Schofield, Sherman went to City Point, in
Virginia, where he had a conference with General Grant and President
Lincoln, and plans for the final campaign were definitely arranged. He
returned to Goldsboro late in March, and, pursuing Johnston, received,
finally, on April 26th the surrender of his army.
[Illustration: BEFORE THE MARCH TO THE SEA