Shermans March To The Sea Essays - , Term Papers

Sherman's March to the Sea George M. Hovsepian December 14, 1998 Sherman's March to the Sea On November 15th, 1864 Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman, commander of the Grand Army of the West, embarked on a raid which would become known as the march to the sea designed to cut a 60 mile wide swath from Atlanta to Savannah. Once in Savannah he would turn north through South and North Carolina and on into Virginia to help Grant defeat Lee at Richmond. As Sherman's soldiers were leaving Atlanta, now in flames, they went forward with the intent of shortening the Civil War. Sherman's troops accomplished this with a brand of warfare seen only sporadically in the previous four years of battle. Sherman decided to turn his attention on destroying the "enemy's war economy" (Oates, 1998, p.594), going after the infrastructure of the South. Along the way his troops burned, pillaged, stole personal belongings, and confiscate possessions and property of the civilian population. Did the end justify the means and was this a just course of action? By November 1864, the Civil War had seen gruesome days to be sure. By the end of the war the total number of soldiers killed in combat and by disease and other non-combat related causes for both the North and South were 623, 026 (Foote, 1974). The total wounded for both sides were 471,427 (Foote, 1974). These numbers are staggering in that only 2,750,000 soldiers participated in the war. The battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Antietem to name a few, were some of the most bloody of the war. The Union Army had changed commanders many times, among them Meade, Hooker, McClellan twice, Burnside, and Grant. Ulysses S. Grant was there to stay. Grant's best subordinate officer was General Sherman. Sherman had taken command of the Western Theater and pushed Joseph Johnston off Lookout Mountain outside of Chattanooga, then maneuvered him out of position after position until Johnston fell back upon Atlanta, where Joe Johnston was relieved and the firebrand John Bell Hood took command. This was significant because Hood's aggressiveness, it was feared by his troops, would surely get them killed (Carter, 1976). They were not very wrong. Hood attacked Sherman almost immediately, launching several failed attacks intended to push Sherman away from Atlanta. They all failed and weakened Hood's army so severely he had to give up Atlanta and allow Sherman many options on what to do next. Sherman's intent was to tear through the heart of Georgia wrecking the infrastructure of the state. Sherman's orders upon leaving Atlanta were "that nothing be left intact that might be of use to the rebs when they returned" (Foote, 1974, p. 641). Sherman's orders for the march were similar, though he instructed his troops not to enter civilian dwellings or commit any trespass (Foote, 1974). Sherman did order his men to "forage liberally" (Oates, 1998) in organized details. Sherman wanted to bring the war to a region of the South previously untouched, middle Georgia. The tactic of foraging has certainly been used throughout history. Sun Tzu wrote essays about the art of war around 500 BC and even that far back the concept he proposed was "the wise general sees to it that his troops feed on the enemy" (Griffith, 1971, p. 74). When discussing doctrinal stability, Archer Jones writes "the Union's logistic strategy never had a chance to demonstrate its effectiveness" (1987, p. 417) because what ultimately shortened the war was Southern troops deserting their units. This may have been a lesser factor, but was likely brought about due to raids like Sherman's that showed the true vulnerability of the South. The destruction of the South's infrastructure such as rail lines, bridges, warehouses, and material that could be used to support military operations, is another principle which is a common occurrence in war. In Atlanta, the Mayor "begged Sherman to rescind his order expelling the citizens from the city" (Groom, 1995, p.112) which Sherman refused to do because he was about to fire the town. While his intention was not to disturb civilian homes on the march, he would in fact authorize the burning of homes if it was found that owners had willfully destroyed crops or other things which the Union Shermans March To The Sea Essays - , Term Papers Sherman's March to the Sea WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN AND HIS MARCH TO THE SEA William Tecumseh Sherman was born on May 8, 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio. He was educated at the U.S. Military Academy and later went on to become a Union General in the U.S. civil war. Sherman resigned from the army in 1853 and became a partner in a banking firm in San Francisco. He became the president of the Military College in Louisiana(now Louisiana state University) from 1859-1861. Sherman offered his services at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 and was put in command of a volunteer infantry regiment, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers after the first Battle of bull run. He led his division at the Battle of Shiloh and was then promoted to major general of volunteers. Soon after Sherman fought in the battle of Chattanooga he was made supreme commander of the armies in the west. Sherman fought many battles with such people as Ulysses S. Grant, and against people such as Robert E. Lee before he was commissioned lieutenant general of the regular army. Following Grants election to presidency he was promoted to the rank of full general and given command of the entire U.S. Army. William Sherman published his personal memoirs in 1875, retired in 1883, and died in 1891. William Tecumseh Sherman, as you have read, was a very talented and very successful man. He is remembered by many accomplishments, but probably most remembered by his famous March to the sea. Sherman's march to the sea was probably the most celebrated military action, in which about sixty thousand men marched with Sherman from Atlanta to the Atlantic ocean, then north through South Carolina destroying the last of the souths economic resources. Bedford Forrest was in Tennessee, and with Atlanta secured, Sherman dispatched George H. Thomas to Nashville to restore the order there. John B. Hood threatened Thomas's supply line, and for about a month, they both fought north of Atlanta. Sherman decided to do the complete opposite of what the strategic plan laid down by Grant six months earlier had proposed to do. In that plan Grant had insisted that Confederate armies were the first and foremost objectives for Union strategy. What Sherman decided now was that he would completely ignore the Confederate armies and go for the "spirit that sustained the Confederate nation itself", the homes, the property, the families, and the food of the Southern heartland. He would march for Savannah, Georgia and the seacoast, abandoning his own line of supply, and live off the land and harvests of the Georgia Country. Grant finally approved Sherman's plan, so Sherman set off on his march eastward, "smashing things to the sea." On November 15, 1864, Sherman began his march to the sea. "I can make . . . Georgia howl!" he promised. Sherman left Atlanta, setting it up in flames as they left, with 62,000 men, 55,000 of them on foot, 5,000 on cavalry horses, and about 2,000 riding artillery horses. It was an army of 218 regiments, 184 of them from the West, and of these 155 were from the old Northwest Territory. This army was remembered as a lean and strong one. The bulk of the army was made up of Germans, Irish, Scotch, and English. Sherman and his army arrived in Georgia where there was no opposition, and the march was very leisurely. The army fanned out widely, covering a sixty mile span from one side to the other. The army destroyed, demolished and crushed whatever got in their way, the land, homes, buildings, and people. Bridges, railroads, machine shops, warehouses- anything of this nature that was in Shaman's path was burned and destroyed. As a result of this march eliminating a lot of the food to feed the Confederate army and its animals, the whole Confederate war effort would become weaker and weaker and weaker. Sherman went on toward the sea while the Confederacy could do nothing. Sherman's march to the sea was a demonstration that the Confederacy could not protect its own. Many agree that Sherman was too brutal and cruel during the march to the sea, but Sherman and his men were effectively