Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

  Georgians needed to believe that they had resisted the invaders to some degree; Union officers allowed the rumors of such killings to circulate in the hope it would discourage unofficial foraging. Thus it was in the interests of both sides to leave unchallenged the various claims of wandering soldiers waylaid and murdered. Assuming the number of Union soldiers missing to all be captured or killed foragers, and eliminating reasonable combat losses from the mortality total with the residue due to foraging, it can be estimated that on average, 14 soldiers were either killed or captured foraging each day between November 15 and December 10. Using a formula applied in the Fourteenth Corps of 1 man in 20 being assigned to these duties on a daily basis, roughly 3,000 infantrymen were actively foraging on any given day. (Given the number of “unofficial” foragers, the actual number could easily be double that.) Nonetheless, using the conservative number, the chance of a forager running into serious trouble was about one-half of one percent.

  Sherman’s successful completion of the march further strengthened his great friendship with Ulysses S. Grant. Grant had expended much political capital with President Lincoln in helping to convince the chief executive to approve the operation at a time when some of the lieutenant general’s senior staff opposed it. Even though the public record made clear that it initially took Grant a while to become comfortable with the March to the Sea concept, after the war he would loyally insist that he had been “in favor of Sherman’s plan from the time it was first submitted to me.”

  Sherman actually passed two tests in Grant’s way of measuring things. The first was his demonstration of professional competence in managing the campaign. The second was the public manner in which he resisted the kinds of boosters who would have had him competing with his friend’s accomplishments. When Sherman’s senator-brother John reported some talk about promoting him to the same rank as Grant, the General would hear none of it. “I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant,” he declared. “I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.” “How few there are who when rising to popular favor as he now is would stop to say a word in defense of the only one between himself and the highest in command,” Grant confided to his wife at this time. “I am glad to say that I appreciated Sherman from the first feeling him to be what he has proven to the world he is.”

  While honest in his respect and affection for what he called “the singular friendship of General Grant,” Sherman also noted that the lieutenant general was “almost childlike in his love for me.”

  Sherman’s generalship for the first portion of the march (Atlanta to Milledgeville) showed him at his thoughtful, self-confident best. Both wings moved under instructions drafted beforehand, with neither encountering anything to cause them to alter the program. Kilpatrick’s mounted command operated with the Right Wing, where it provided invaluable service when Howard’s columns passed closest to Macon. Wheeler’s failure to interdict the Federal procession to any serious degree owed as much to the dispersion of his forces (thanks to conflicting priorities imposed on him by the Confederate leadership) as it did to the effectiveness of Kilpatrick’s screen. Had the Rebel leaders clustered in Macon used their combined militia-infantry and cavalry with a coherent and targeted plan, Sherman’s dispositions might have proven inadequate to shrug off the blows, but as events played out, the disorganized enemy was never able to do anything more than annoy isolated Federal units.

  Once at Milledgeville, Sherman rapidly assessed the condition of his forces as well as the Confederate response, then made adjustments. He clearly expected much more trouble coming out of Augusta than he had registered from Macon. (From contemporary communications, the intensity of the fighting at Griswoldville was very much underreported at the time.) Sherman’s willingness to switch Kilpatrick’s command from the Right Wing to the Left shows the flexibility the General applied to his thinking. While he afterward downplayed any danger from Confederate troops gathered in Augusta, his decision to closely support Kilpatrick’s forays with infantry suggests that he viewed the threat seriously.

  The cavalry commander’s inflated claims of success at Waynesboro were accepted without question by army headquarters, and based on that assessment of damage, Sherman left his vulnerable logistical tail open to attack by spreading Kilpatrick’s men thin across the entire rear of the Left Wing. Once again, what might have proven to be a fruitful opening for enemy thrusts coming out of Augusta became no more than a mild bother as Braxton Bragg steadfastly refused to release any infantry from the earthworks protecting his temporary charge. Bragg’s tunnel vision was compounded by Hardee’s decision (firmly seconded by Beauregard) to transfer most cavalry operations to South Carolina, leaving just a few mounted units to harry the Federal logistical tail. It was another opportunity squandered.

  (Ironically, Sherman scored a significant success against a target not even on his hit list. On November 21, workers began dismantling the irreplaceable machinery at the Confederate Powder Works in Augusta for transportation out of danger. For the next month no gunpowder was produced there. Everything was returned in early December so that the mill complex was back in business by the end of the year. Still, for thirty critical days, the South’s largest gunpowder maker was virtually shuttered. Production in November 1864 topped 101,000 pounds; that for December was little more than 13,600 pounds.)

  Sherman’s equanimity was showing cracks by the time he confronted Savannah’s formidable defenses. Fort McAllister was assaulted without any thought given to less costly alternatives. Luck was again riding with Sherman as the Rebel defenses proved more theoretical than actual. Smart, potentially murderous preparations had been made, but here Union courage and determination overwhelmed any positional advantages enjoyed by the Rebels.

  The completely unexpected news that Grant wanted him to break off operations short of finishing the job further upset Sherman’s equilibrium. His thinking on the capture of Savannah veered all across the spectrum. At first he was prepared to tighten his grip in order to starve the garrison into submission. Then, when Grant’s bombshell message was received, he considered a quick assault heedless of the casualties. Sherman finally settled on a third option—a direct assault combined with a strong move against Hardee’s sole link with Charleston, before the Confederate officer saved him the trouble.

  Throughout the march, Sherman demonstrated the ethical inconsistency of a person whose strong general principles had to personally confront individuals affected by those policies. His sparing of cotton holdings in Milledgeville, and the varying degree of sympathy he showed to families he encountered along the way, speak to a moral drift that doesn’t match the traditional image of stone-faced devastator. Except on those cases where his acutely personal standard of right and wrong was violated, Sherman never sanctioned destruction outside the limits he had established. Yet he had accepted from the outset that damage would occur that he could not control. Much to the discomfort of those near him who expected a rigid consistency, Sherman embraced the seeming contradictions, assuaging his conscience by blaming southerners for their complicity and deeming himself powerless in the random destructiveness of the storm he had unleashed.

  Most of these rough spots were progressively forgotten by Sherman as he later wrote and talked about the March to the Sea. As well written as they are, his Memoirs grant him a degree of insight and calm reasoning that is not always borne out by more contemporary correspondence and actions. Sherman eventually distilled his recollections into a summary overview that trimmed off the dross, leaving only hard certainties. His thoughts were clearly expressed in a speech he gave at a reunion of the Army of the Tennessee (Howard’s wing) that took place in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 30, 1875. On that occasion he delivered what in many ways were his valedictory thoughts on the campaign that would forever define him and set his place in history.

  The “March to the Sea,” as it is called, is a kind of an epoch in the history of the country, and occupies a
prominent place in our memories. But this march began early. When you moved from Vicksburg to [Fort] Donelson, in a very early period of the war, you were moving to the sea…. And so the grand march went on till we found ourselves in Atlanta, in possession of a town. Now, up to that time it had been the policy of all to sow peace and prosperity wherever our armies trod. Indeed, we were playing into the hands of our enemies. We made up the roads after us…. We had tried kindness, but it seemed to be entirely lost. The stern rule of war must be applied to those who deserved the switch, and we did it. We had gone on stage line, on wagon line, and on railroad. We had hundreds of miles of roads to defend, consuming and absorbing our own strength, and it became necessary to stop that right there…. It must have entered into the minds of many that this was the time when something could be done. I therefore say that I determined to send back enough of that army which was then at my command to enable Gen. Thomas to defeat Hood and let Tennessee live, while the rest of us should go on to crush in that body of our enemies which was there before us between the two great conquering armies of the Union…. Now, gentlemen, that March to the Sea, so beautiful and poetical, was an example for armies. We went to the sea with some opposition, it is true, but well provided for, suffering but little; but in so doing we transgressed the rules of war that armies should not be more than 100 miles from their head-quarters…. But we had a journey of 300 miles to take, and we determined to make it and to subsist on our friends and enemies while making it. Now, so far as this is concerned, it is a subject rather of mirth than of serious moment. Georgia was at that time regarded, not only here but all over the world, as the arch stone of the South. That once destroyed, and the Southern Confederacy dwindled down to the little space between the Savannah River and Richmond. The consequences of this march were felt all over the country. All acknowledged that when Savannah should be taken the road to Richmond was clear, and that the war was at an end. And I appeal to those who remained at home if they did not feel that victory was near—if their hearts did not throb more warmly, and if their whole nature was not stirred to its very depths when they heard that the Army had reached Savannah? It was felt that the solution of this great problem of our civil war was assured, and that the people of the United States could not only vindicate their laws but could punish the traitors. The thoughts arising here overflow—spread like the waves of the sea, circling wider and wider till they inclose the whole field of our toils. Certain it is that this march was great in its conception and in its execution grand—that the blow was struck at the right moment and in the right direction.

  UNION FORCES ROSTER

  MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI

  Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, commanding

  ARMY HEADQUARTERS

  Lieut. Col. Charles Ewing, inspector general

  Capt. Lewis M. Dayton, adjutant general

  Capt. Orlando M. Poe, chief of engineers

  Capt. Thomas G. Baylor, chief ordnance officer

  Brevet Brig. Gen. Langdon C. Easton, chief quartermaster

  Col. Amos Beckwith, chief commissary

  Dr. John Moore, chief medical director

  Maj. J. C. McCoy, aide-de-camp

  Maj. Henry Hitchcock, aide-de-camp

  Capt. Joseph C. Audenried, aide-de-camp

  Capt. George W. Nichols, aide

  ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE (RIGHT WING)

  Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard

  PONTONIERS

  1st Missouri Engineers

  Lieut. Col. William Tweeddale

  FIFTEENTH ARMY CORPS [15,894]

  Maj. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus

  FIRST DIVISION

  Brig. Gen. Charles R. Woods

  FIRST BRIGADE

  Col. Milo Smith

  12th Indiana

  Maj. Elbert D. Baldwin

  26th Iowa

  Maj. John Lubbers

  27th Missouri

  Col. Thomas Curly

  29th Missouri

  Lieut. Col. Joseph S. Gage

  31st/32nd Missouri Battalion

  Maj. Abraham J. Seay

  76th Ohio

  Col. William B. Woods

  SECOND BRIGADE

  Brig. Gen. Charles C. Walcutt (w)

  Col. James S. Martin

  26th Illinois

  Capt. George H. Reed

  40th Illinois

  Lieut. Col. Hiram W. Hall

  103rd Illinois

  Maj. Asias Willson

  97th Indiana

  Col. Robert F. Catterson

  Capt. George Elliott

  100th Indiana

  Maj. Ruel M. Johnson

  6th Iowa

  Maj. William H. Clune

  46th Ohio

  Lieut. Col. Isaac N. Alexander

  THIRD BRIGADE

  Col. James A. Williamson

  4th Iowa

  Lieut. Col. Samuel D. Nichols

  9th Iowa

  Capt. Paul McSweeney

  25th Iowa

  Col. George A. Stone

  30th Iowa

  Lieut. Col. Aurelius Roberts

  31st Iowa

  Lieut. Col. Jeremiah W. Jenkins

  SECOND DIVISION

  Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen

  FIRST BRIGADE

  Col. Theodore Jones

  55th Illinois

  Capt. Charles A. Andress

  116th Illinois

  Lieut. Col. John E. Maddux

  127th Illinois

  Capt. Charles Schryver

  6th Missouri

  Lieut. Col. Delos van Deusen

  8th Missouri

  Capt. John W. White

  30th Ohio

  Capt. Emory W. Muenscher

  57th Ohio

  Maj. John McClure

  SECOND BRIGADE

  Col. Wells S. Jones (w)

  Col. James S. Martin

  111th Illinois

  Col. James S. Martin

  Maj. William M. Mabry

  83rd Indiana

  Lieut. Col. George H. Scott

  37th Ohio

  Lieut. Col. Louis von Blessingh

  47th Ohio

  Col. Augustus C. Parry

  53rd Ohio

  Capt. David H. Lasley

  54th Ohio

  Lieut. Col. Israel T. Moore

  THIRD BRIGADE

  Col. John M. Oliver

  48th Illinois

  Maj. Edward Adams

  90th Illinois

  Lieut. Col. Owen Stuart

  99th Indiana

  Lieut. Col. John M. Berkey

  15th Michigan

  Lieut. Col. Frederick S. Hutchinson

  70th Ohio

  Lieut. Col. Henry L. Philips

  THIRD DIVISION

  Brig. Gen. John E. Smith

  FIRST BRIGADE

  Col. Joseph B. McCown

  63rd Illinois

  Lieut. Col. James Isaminger

  93rd Illinois

  Lieut. Col. Nicholas C. Buswell

  48th Indiana

  Lieut. Col. Edward J. Wood

  59th Indiana

  Lieut. Col. Jefferson K. Scott

  4th Minnesota

  Col. John E. Tourtellotte

  SECOND BRIGADE

  Bvt. Brig. Gen. Green. B. Raum

  56th Illinois

  Capt. James P. Files

  10th Iowa

  Lieut. Col. Paris P. Henderson

  10th/26th Missouri

  Col. Benjamin D. Dean

  80th Ohio

  Lieut. Col. Pren Metham

  FOURTH DIVISION

  Brig. Gen. John M. Corse

  FIRST BRIGADE

  Brig. Gen. Elliott W. Rice