Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

  Wednesday, December 7, 1864

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1864

  Left Wing

  Heeding General Bragg’s admonition to press the enemy’s forces nearest the Savannah River and South Carolina, Major General Wheeler renewed his campaign of harassment aimed at the Federal Fourteenth Corps. His troopers ran up against Kilpatrick’s Second Brigade, which absorbed much of their attention during the day. There was a short but sharp skirmish first thing in the morning, followed by a larger-scale scrap late in the afternoon. In the latter, the Union riders were struck as they were feeling their way across a stream and threading gingerly through a swamp.

  The afternoon fight began when Wheeler and his escort ventured too near the Federal rear guard—the 9th Michigan Cavalry—which reacted by charging the enemy party. Wheeler’s group retreated to the Rebel main body, which returned the compliment by driving the Michigan men back to their fully alerted reserve, the 9th Ohio Cavalry. For the next few minutes charge was met by countercharge as small groups of riders engaged in briefly violent combat to the accompaniment of shouts, screams, and the crack of pistols firing. One officer in the 9th Ohio Cavalry recalled the events in broken fragments—a lazy column of march suddenly transformed by shouted orders to form a line of battle, followed by the breathless command: “Draw saber, forward charge!” A Tennessean with Wheeler long remembered the civilian they had along as a local guide, an embittered old man whose property had been wrecked by marauding Yankees. Caught in the whirl of the fight, the noncombatant used both barrels of his shotgun to bring down two of the enemy, one of them a young officer. “He is very proud of his feat,” wrote the Tennessee trooper, “and feels that he had taken partial satisfaction for the burning of his house and turning his family out of shelter.”

  During the engagement Wheeler’s men put enough pressure on the Union troopers that they called for infantry help. The added heft proved more than enough to squelch the fighting. Wheeler’s losses were eleven killed, wounded, or missing, while the two Federal cavalry regiments suffered thirteen casualties. The Union officer felled in this affair was the “gallant” Captain Frederick S. Ladd. For all the sound and fury, the effect on today’s movements by the Fourteenth Corps was negligible.

  Far more bothersome for the foot soldiers were the swamps and occasional stretches choked by chopped timber. A Wisconsin soldier recalled how he and his comrades, after one swampy section, were “bespattered with mud from heels to crown.” The officer commanding the leading Fourteenth Corps division reported that the roadway was “badly obstructed by fallen trees, but by heavy details removed them, causing but little delay.”

  A few of those marching in Baird’s division, still traveling last in line, worried about rumors that Braxton Bragg, with 10,000 soldiers from the Augusta garrison, was driving hard on their heels. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that when the division bivouacked for the night, extra details were assigned to erect defensive barricades. The head of the Fourteenth Corps column settled in about two miles shy of Ebenezer Creek, where, scouts reported, the bridge had been destroyed. Poor staff work had allowed the pontoniers of the 58th Indiana to make their camp before it was realized that their talents would be needed. “We were aroused at 11:30 [P.M.] and ordered to ‘fall in,’” groused one engineer. “Four Companies were sent to Ebenezer Creek to make a bridge.”

  There was emotion in the ranks of the 87th Indiana this night regarding the noncombat death of a popular soldier, Sergeant Kline Wilson. A friend who sat with him just before he died asked if he had any special message for his parents. “He said he was too weak to talk but to say to his father that he died in a good cause.” In a letter to the sergeant’s hometown newspaper, the friend wrote that “Sergt. Wilson was a brave, good soldier and his loss is deeply regretted by the officers and soldiers of his regiment, and especially of his own company.”

  Marching parallel to the south of the Fourteenth Corps, the three divisions of the Twentieth encountered some especially bad sections of ground. A Michigan foot soldier complained that “in places [the swamp] was almost impassible.” In the Second Division, one brigade commander had to assign every man to be “distributed along the [wagon] train,” where they “rendered material assistance in pushing them along.” An Ohio infantryman, who termed the swampy surface “quicksand,” noted that “many teams [were] getting [stuck] fast.” It had rained off and on throughout the morning and as a result, attested a Wisconsin man, “we had to pry and pull whip & shout, to extricate the wagons…sunk to the axles in the soft quicksand.” Along one mucky patch, a New Jersey officer was struck by the sight of forty or fifty wagons “looking like so many stranded ships, stuck to their beds in the mud, with their mules resting quietly.”

  For the Twentieth Corps soldiers this day’s big distraction came when they passed through the small town of Springfield, which one Illinois soldier described as “a poor looking distracted, woe begone place.” An officer in a companion regiment recollected “white flags flying at all inhabited houses.” Once they entered the town, a few of the boys discovered the pleasant charms of its female residents. A soldier in the 102nd Illinois had to laugh at the citizens who remained safe and unmolested in their houses, while having to helplessly watch as the inquisitive Yankees found all their outdoor hiding places. “An almost endless variety of articles have been exhumed,” chuckled the infantryman. “Some are bringing any clothing, others blankets, others fine dishes, silver spoons, etc. One man has just passed us dressed as a lady, only his toilet was rather rudely made.”

  For one little girl in the path of Sherman’s men, the impressions of this day stayed with her. The enemy’s approach triggered a variety of responses from her neighbors; some tried to hide their valuables, while others seemed resigned to whatever would happen. “All were in a wild state of expectancy, moving hither and thither, knowing not what was best to do,” she recalled years later. The Yankees at last arrived with the suddenness of a thunderstorm. “In a few minutes the broad grounds were literally alive with soldiers—rushing in all directions like wild Comanche Indians,” she remembered. “Parties searching through the house from garret to cellar, in every niche and corner, through drawers, closets, trunks, wardrobes, and even under beds, taking everything of any value. Outside the house, the burning of fencing and outbuildings, and the firing of guns and pistols, slaying of cows, calves, hogs, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, while others were robbing the smokehouse, dairy, syrup house and store room.”

  Right Wing

  Assigned to follow the Central of Georgia Railroad tracks and river road along the Ogeechee River’s east bank, the Seventeenth Corps encountered both swamps and roadblocks. A member of the 11th Illinois remembered it as “a very wet swampy country,” while another in the regiment wrote that they “had to build four or five small bridges, and also had to do some corduroy work.” “Stopped often and long while the roads are cleared of trees etc felled by the rebels,” added a man in the 20th Illinois.

  The tougher traveling and diminishing prospects of locating adequate forage for the animals led to another culling of the herds. A diarist in the 12th Wisconsin noted the shooting of 100 horses and mules this day; another in the 16th Wisconsin added 200 to the sum, while a third, in the 64th Illinois, estimated the entire number of unfit animals dispatched at “about 2,000.”

  The leading elements of the Seventeenth Corps camped around Station No. 3, Guyton, near where Sherman set his headquarters for the night. During the ride from Station No. 4½, Oliver, Major Hitchcock had been both sobered and amused. One of the first sights to meet his gaze this morning was a roadside burial detail setting to rest “some poor fellow’s remains…. Perhaps by some once happy fireside his place is now empty forever, and loving eyes will look vainly for his return.” The diversion was provided at midday, when the General took lunch at the Elkins residence. The matron of the house, “a regular Georgia woman,” admitted to Hitchcock that she took snuff and let her children eat clay.

 
; Mrs. Elkins hoped that Sherman would find Savannah undefended, but he thought otherwise. “McLaws’ division was falling back before us,” he reflected, “and we occasionally picked up a few of his men as prisoners, who insisted that we would meet with strong opposition at Savannah.” When he sent Major General Slocum his movement objectives for the next few days, Sherman added the thought: “We hear that the enemy is fortifying in a semi-circle around and about four miles from Savannah.” Some of the General’s concerns percolated to his staff, so that his principal telegrapher observed today that “indications now point to a fearful & determined battle to make that harbor a base.”

  It speaks to the flexibility of Sherman’s troop arrangements that while fully three-fourths of his force did little this day but march and change camps, the remainder executed several offensive missions. Yesterday the Fifteenth Corps had secured one Ogeechee River crossing at Wright’s Bridge and positioned itself near another (Jenks’ Bridge). Today the Fifteenth Corps exploited the first and forced the second.

  At Wright’s Bridge, below Guyton, Colonel James A. Williamson took his all-Iowa brigade over the rebuilt span, crossed to the river’s east bank, advanced to the railroad, and turned south. The Union officer was taking no chances. “All the way down the Ogeechee we kept out flankers and skirmishers in front,” recollected a member of the 4th Regiment. This action got under way about midday. Farther south, midwesterners from Brigadier General Elliott W. Rice’s brigade (Brigadier General John M. Corse’s division) mounted a successful crossing at Jenks’ Bridge.

  It was no casual operation. A slight enemy force held the opposite bank, and the old bridge was unusable, necessitating a pontoon. The call went back to Wright’s Bridge for the 1st Missouri Engineers to come forward. The pontoniers arrived at 10:30 A.M., and their presence triggered the action’s first phase. Under a covering fire of musketry and artillery, the engineers pushed their pontoon boats into the river to ferry several companies of the 2nd Iowa to the east bank, where they engaged the Rebels, then established a security perimeter.

  Now the engineers were able to use their canvas boats for the purpose they had been designed; by 1:00 P.M. the military bridge was carrying traffic. The rest of Rice’s brigade trouped over, with the 2nd Iowa covering the front. One of those soldiers in the advance recalled marching “about ½ mile over 5 or 6 [foot] bridges which the planks had been taken off so that we had to cross on the timbers and then deployed and advanced through the swamp knee deep in water for about 1½ miles when we came onto dry land.” Here the Rebels had concentrated to impede the advance, positioning themselves behind a rail barricade.

  The 7th Iowa supported the 2nd, which attacked in open skirmishing order. A soldier in the regiment recollected having to “charge over an open field of several rods in extent. We did not wait for a second volley, but got to the barricade before they could reload and 19 prisoners were taken, and the company hurried after the rest of them.” According to this soldier, both generals Howard and Corse were on hand, the latter applauding them and exclaiming: “Brave boys, brave boys; never saw such brave boys.”

  The retreating Confederates had a last trick up their sleeves. A train was waiting for them on the Central of Georgia tracks. Much to the wonderment of the pursuing Federals, the Rebels clambered aboard and clattered off. “They took the cars for Savannah,” marveled an Iowa soldier. Once Rice’s men reached the railroad, they made contact with scouts from Williamson’s brigade marching down from Wright’s Bridge. The combined force took possession of a railroad station known as Eden. Experienced soldiers who did the math reckoned they were now within a day’s march of Savannah.

  The First, Third, and Fourth divisions encamped this night near Jenks’ Bridge. The Second had turned south to follow roads taking it to the Canoochee River crossing probed on December 6. Leading the way for the Second Division was Colonel John M. Oliver’s brigade, whose route led across Black Creek, where another enemy party was waiting, the bridge ablaze with the streambed tangled with tree pieces and brush. Hardly had the enemy skirmishers been driven off when a cloud of pioneers attacked the blockage with a vengeance. “At Black Creek,” reported the colonel, “the obstructions in the ford were removed, so that our ambulances and ammunition wagons crossed the ford before the troops could get across on the stringers of the still burning bridge.”

  Savvy field officers, knowing there was a second bridge just ahead at Mill Creek, rushed the pace so that the leading Yankees and retreating Confederates reached it at the same time. The Federals took the crossing intact, allowing them to continue as far as Bryan County Court House, also known as Eden.* Here most of the division would spend the night with pickets forward about two miles to the Canoochee River. While the unsupported thrust had no greater objective than securing the river crossing, it did cause the enemy to spread his defending forces southward to cover that approach to Savannah, thus reducing the concentration in the northwest quadrant, where Sherman had massed most of his men.

  It fell to the 83rd Illinois to picket the river this night, always a dangerous operation in the close presence of the enemy. Already this evening there had been a firing incident when a party of Rebel scouts attempted to slip past the cordon. Joseph Grecian of Company A had just reached his post at one of the posts involved when he observed five riders heading toward him. “There they come, boys!” he shouted and pulled the trigger, only to hear the percussion cap snap without igniting the gunpowder. Quickly recapping the piece, the soldier tried again with the same result; however, a comrade next to him successfully fired his rifle. A verbal exchange with the intruders established they were Yankee scouts who were allowed to come in. The officer commanding them said that one sentry’s bullet had hissed close to his head, yet when his men had tried to shoot back, their guns too had only popped their percussion caps. “It seems providential, indeed, that so many pieces were snapped, but only one shot was fired and all our lives were saved,” noted Grecian.

  Across southeastern Georgia, life went on in the wake of Sherman’s passage. It was business as usual in Augusta, as a member of Wheeler’s staff discovered when he cooled his heels for twelve hours in the offices of the government powder works before he could satisfy the rules of the bureaucracy in order to secure a requisition of ammunition for the troopers at the front. “An apparently small trifle sometimes wields the destiny of nations,” he fumed.

  In Milledgeville, Governor Joseph Brown, back in his office, took the offensive against local citizens who had helped themselves to State House and Executive Mansion property during the Yankee occupation. Unless everything was returned right away, Brown vowed to search any household suspected of colluding and punishing those responsible.

  In Savannah, the time had come for Lieutenant General William J. Hardee to man the city’s battlements. Into the field works guarding the northwest approaches Hardee sent the Georgia militia, now commanded by Major General Gustavus W. Smith. One of the approximately 2,500 civilian-soldiers so assigned took the opportunity to dash off a letter to his wife. Wrote Felix W. Prior:

  We are camped here, where we have some fortifications, awaiting Sherman’s advance on this city. It is feared he may succeed in cutting the roads and deprive us of communication from without…. Savannah is now rather a dull place, every thing remarkably dear in the way of provisions. It requires a good deal of money to get but very little even of something to eat. The militia have seen a rough time indeed since they have been out this last time and the prospect ahead is not flattering though if the enemy would pass over into South Carolina the Ga. Militia might stand a chance of going home…. I don’t think I shall enjoy life much while this great war lasts, but I desire to live through it, especially on account of my wife & children. I have seen men killed on the battle field who had heavy responsibilities at home, clever, good men who had dear and near wives & children at home. I hope God in his goodness will spare me.

  Photographic Insert

  Major General William Tecumseh Sherman.


  He was forty-six years old at the time of the Savannah Campaign and about to undertake an operation that he described as “smashing things to the sea.” Before setting out, Sherman reviewed his cavalry arm, commanded by Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick. The General considered Kilpatrick a “hell of a damned fool.”

  Working from orders by Captain Orlando Poe, Union soldiers destroyed Atlanta’s manufacturing and transportation systems.

  On November 15, the Twentieth Corps (one-half of the Left Wing) left Atlanta, heading due east.

  Many facets of this operation are depicted in the composite sketch of the march.

  Peaceful Georgia villages such as Madison played unwilling host to the Yankee invaders. “Colored people are pleased to see the Yanks,” wrote an Ohio soldier. “Whites look sour & sad.”

  “Cotton stored near the railroad station [in Madison] was fired, and the jail near the public square gave up its whips and paddles to increase the big bonfire in the public square,” noted an Ohioan.

  On November 22, Sherman’s Left Wing entered Milledgeville, where the Stars and Stripes were raised over the capitol building.

  Union soldiers held a mock session of the legislature in the capitol building and repealed Georgia’s act of secession.

  Sherman spent the night of November 23 in the Governor’s Mansion, where he had to use his field equipment, since Joseph Brown had hidden the furniture.

  After resting just a day in Milledgeville, Sherman had his Left Wing marching on November 24. The crossing of the Little River was accomplished by means of a pontoon bridge.