Civil War: Shermans March
In November 1864, sixty-two thousand Union forces readied themselves to depart from Atlanta. Under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman, these soldiers would engage in the most brutal, ruthless, devastating and effective military campaign of the Civil War, and possibly of history. Their mission was to cut a path across Georgia of complete destruction and beat the southern forces and spirit into submission of the war. Sherman's march to the sea would be the turning point of the Civil War that would cause the South to surrender and leave fertile ground for reconstruction.Sherman had a simple plan; he set out to destroy anything the Confederates could use to aid them in their rebellion. This included farms, windmills, railroads and bridges. A favorite way of destroying railways among the troops was to use a "Sherman Necktie." The men would take apart a section of railroad track, the ties would be piled up and burned while the rails were heated in the fire until they glowed red hot and then would be wrapped around tree trunks (Kennedy). Sherman gave his troops orders to "forage liberally on the country side," (Miers, 214). The soldiers would feed themselves off grain and crop that the looted from fields,
This successfully took the last considerable military might of the Confederacy out of Georgia and left the road to Savannah wide open. Georgia was now a pile of smoldering ruins. Like a lump of clay in the Union's hands, Georgia would be shaped and modeled into a dependent state and never able to leave the Union again. The fort was defended only two hundred and thirty Confederate soldiers armed with cannons. Sherman commented that Hood was "stepping aside, and leaving wide the door for us to enter central Georgia," (Miers, 198). However, on December 4, 1864 Kilpatrick's cavalry met up with Wheeler's at Waynesborough. Sherman entered the city and sent a message to Abraham Lincoln stating, "I beg to present you a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah," (Kennedy, 401). The Confederacy did not just lie down and take a beating, but their blunders left Georgia vulnerable to attack. They had crushed all opposition and destroyed everything in their path. The March, which many opposed and fought against before its start, was now complete and a greater success then anyone could imagine. Savannah was defended by ten thousand troops under the command of Lieutenant General William J. In under a month Sherman's army had covered over two hundred and fifty miles and had nearly reached their goal of Savannah. Over two hundred miles of railroads had been destroyer and a path sixty miles wide and over three hundred miles long had been cut through its belly.
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