Before leaving Atlanta, General Sherman announced to the Richmond authorities and the world: "Hood has gone to Tennessee; Georgia and South Carolina are at my feet, and I go forward." Davis considered this a vain boast, and after the march had commenced, so sure were they at Richmond that Sherman would not dare to undertake such a campaign, Mr. Davis Secretary of War ordered the suppression of press dispatches announcing it, giving as a reason that the reported march on Savannah was purely sensational.
Branchville, Charleston, Columbus, Winnsboro, Chester, Cheraw, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, and Raleigh, fell before the advance of this modern Alexander, and then as a crowning glory he received the surrender of the last and only formidable army in the service of the rebellion. Much has been said by the papers of the South about General Sherman's brutalities, in the burning of Columbia, and bad treatment of the citizens, but thousands and tens of thousands of Southern families in his line of march, who have been the recipients of his kindness, will give the lie to these charges in reference to the burning of Columbia. The decision which history will give of this frightful affair, will be in accordance with General Sherman's terse but faithful account of it: "And without hesitation, I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own City of Columbia, not with malicious intent, nor as a manifestation of Roman stoicism, but from folly and want of sense." No living man can move an army of one hundred thousand men through any country, without deeds of violence and wickedness occurring, but that Sherman advised or countenanced anything of the kind, we know to be false.
But Sherman moved forward, and after the leaders at Richmond found that he was in motion, they began to call out troops and concentrate them. Sherman's columns moved leisurely on, occasionally deviating to the right and left, until the Savannah was reached, where the entrance was more like that of a victorious army returning to the Capital of its own country after a series of successes, than the occupation of a fortified city in the centre of an enemy's country. The entire loss of our army in the march was not more than fifteen hundred from all causes. In fact, it was more like a picnic excursion, a gala day festival, than anything else; and the march was. So quiet and uninterrupted that General Sherman remarked on the way: "splendid country to loaf in."
But more rapid marches, more gigantic operations, and more glorious victories, were yet to be achieved. The army left Savannah in January and so rapid and brilliant were the operations from that time to the surrender of Johnston, that the mind is bewildered at an attempt to realize them.
Having spoken of the great deeds of General Sherman, it would seem proper for us to analyze the elements and characteristics of his greatness. I do not feel, however that I am competent to the task, and a single hint or two of the prominent elements of his life must suffice.
In Sherman's character the first feature that strikes the most superficial observer is his stern, indomitable, unflinching, unwavering sense of duty. He might be wrong in his conception of his duty, but he was ever true to what he believed to be his duty. He presents a marvellous contrast to almost all soldiers in this respect. Bonaparte made ambition and conquest his idol; and even 'Nelson, with all his bravery, set self far too' much before him, and on the eve of the battle of the Nile is reported to have said:
"Tomorrow will give me a peerage, or a monument in Westminster Abbey."
General Sherman never uttered a sentiment of this kind; and though he may have never expressed it, yet the sentiment of his heart was:
"Tomorow will find me doing my duty to my country, or laying my dust on the battle-field where I have fought."
There is a certain moral grandeur in this singleness of purpose that casts into the shade all his martial exploits.
Next to that feature of stern loyalty to duty, is his disinterestedness — his disregard of self. A more unselfish man than Sherman has never lived. He seemed little to care what is thought or said of him; he seems still less to care how he is abused or slandered; and how often does he let calumny pass by him as an idle breeze; and how often when he might emblazon himself, he was content to exalt and glorify his army, putting his brave soldiers in the foreground, himself in the background. He might have enriched himself; but no man can ever put his finger on a mean or mercenary act of Sherman's, NO dishonoring blot rests upon his name. No one can brand him with the guilt of peculation or of robbery. He seemed to soar above all such things, and though he is not stoically indifferent to honor, he is sensitively alive to ingratitude and undeserved reproach; and perhaps he never appeared greater than when he meekly retired to St. Louis, after being relieved of his command in Kentucky.
There is about Sherman another beautiful trait, his kindness and nobleness of heart. Though styled stern and severe, yet it is from the inflexibility of purpose, and character, and valor, and not the hardness and cruelty of his nature, that he is so called. He is a stern "disciplinarian, and his troops, especially civilians, did hot always appreciate his object. He had a constant and sleepless regard for his men. Let those same soldiers that fought under his banners tell how he cared for them, how he felt for them, and how he shared their privations. He is magnanimous to captured foes — amid the fiercest influences of the battle-field, though all his passions had been roused by the barbarous treatment of our soldiers in Libby and elsewhere, none of these feelings could induce in him revenge. How finely he contrasts with Napoleon a conduct after the battle of the Pyramids, during his retreat, when four thousand poor creatures capitulated on the promise that their lives should be spared, but were afterward bound hand and foot, and shot by a remorseless soldiery, compelled by their remorseless leader.
Sherman never treated the vanquished in this way. As he bursts through the Carolinas, all his words and actions are those of kindness to a guilty people. He sought not even to unduly humiliate them, but always threw over them the shield of his protection. General Sherman is not a bloodthirsty man, not a sanguinary fire-brand that delights in war. He fought so for as himself personally was concerned, for righteousness, the Union, and peace. It was no eager thirst for conquest, but the stern necessity of self-defense that prompted his warlike actions. In a letter to a New York clergyman, written from the field, he says:
“You may assure your congregation that this army fights that they may sleep in peace and enjoy the protection of a civilized government."
When a terrible battle has been fought, he has often wept, as he thought of the slaughter of thousands, both friend and foe, swept away by the thunder of the deadly artillery, or the thrust of the terrible bayonet, and of the countless agonies of the wounded, and the widowed hearts and hearths that were made. He forgot the unsubstantial glory of the great victories, and remembering only the stern and terrible duty, might say with the great Wellington:
“I know nothing more terrible than victory, except a defeat."
War with him is a means — not an end; intense necessity — not a willing sacrifice. He is a successful General, yet he hates the battle-field; he is the very incarnation of the spirit of peace; and there is a moral grandeur in him that commands our unbounded admiration.
In his private life, Sherman exhibits many generous and noble qualifies. He is admitted by all parties to be a man of strict fidelity to his engagements, frank, open, and unaffected; one who never destroys with a false hope and ruins with a smile. Easy and accessible, preserving the sense of his own dignity, but never offending the feelings of those by whom he is approached; endowed with lofty gentleness and fine suavity, he must be confessed to have deserved no ordinary portion of the popularity which he has acquired. As commander of his army he secured the affections of all his soldiers by his amiable care of the interests of the humblest private in the ranks. It is no small praise that the complaints of the most obscure soldier would not have been dismissed without investigation, and, if he deserved, without redress. One characteristic of his known public character is his magnanimity. This feature was strikingly displayed in his interviews with the Southrons suffering from the
miseries of war.
To crown all, Sherman is eminently a moral man. In every grateful panegyric which, the press has pronounced upon his name, the chief prominence has been given to this splendid virtue. This public virtue it must be confessed, has not always been the accompaniment of superior generalship. It was found in Epaminondas— it was certainly not in either Alexander or Pompey; the lustre of the transcendant warlike genius of Hannibal was eclipsed by his patriotic steadiness of purpose, whereas the glory of Julius Caesar was obscured by his impure personal ambition. We might draw similar .contrasts from recent times; but that would be invidious, and it is enough for us to say that never did any one possess more unblemished military feme, or more unblemished patriotism than does General Sherman. The Army and Navy Journal has the following estimate of his character:
"To Sherman we can afford no parallel in the history of this or any other modern war. An abler tactician than Joe Johnston, whom he out-maneuvered from field to field; as determined a fighter as either Hooker or Hood; as good an executive officer as either Jackson, Meade or Warren, he has shown in the combination of his last campaign a strategical ability unparalleled since the days of Napoleon. His able government of Savannah, exhibits a sound judgment and prudence which combined with his other unequaled excellencies make him the greatest soldier the American people have yet produced."
THE END.
In the preceding pages, we have endeavored, with the assistance drawn from various authentic sources to give a full and reliable account of the grand march seaward and thence northward, a campaign which is now acknowledged to be one of the most wonderful and brilliant of modern times. It was instrumental in bringing better and brighter times to the land. It blotted out the last hope of the Confederacy, and was to the whole country an act of political redemption. It stripped rebellion of its prop, and rescued the national cause from the disgrace of defeat. It breathed a living spirit into the people, and transformed millions of malignant enemies info eager citizens of a common country. It achieved what the nation so much desired Peace.
It is true, alas! too true, that to secure this longed-for consummation, there was many a hero slain — honored patriots, high-souled men — they sleep in no ignoble graves; for their resting place snail be a spot at which for ages to come, Valor shall gain fresh life, and Freedom trim her torch — we will live to rejoice that they have not died in vain.
.
Personal Recollections of Sherman's Campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas Page 51
