When was shermans march

Content to let Johnston escape to Smithfield, Sherman reached Goldsboro on March 23 and formed a junction with Schofield. On April 10, , Sherman resumed his Carolinas Campaign. The resulting surrender was the largest of the war, embracing almost 90, Confederate troops in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Unlike their earlier marches, however, foraging was prohibited and the men carried only five rounds in their cartridge boxes instead of the usual forty. As the Federals toiled northward, the daily march increased until it reached almost thirty miles per day.

Because of the springtime heat, many men straggled, some dropped from heat exhaustion, and a few unfortunates died. Accessed July 08, Photograph of Sherman's men tearing up railroads to prevent the Confederacy from resupplying its troops.

Skip to main content. Board of Education and School Desegregation Brown v. Bush: U. Reading Primary Sources: an introduction for students Appendix B. Wills and inventories: a process guide Appendix C.

Who created this source, and what do I know about her, him, or them? When was the source produced? Apparently, Hood hoped that if he invaded Tennessee, Sherman would be forced to follow.

Sherman, however, had anticipated this strategy and had sent Major General George H. Thomas to Nashville to deal with Hood. With Georgia cleared of the Confederate army, Sherman, facing only scattered cavalry, was free to move south. Sherman divided his approximately 60, troops into two roughly equal wings.

The right wing was under Oliver O. Peter J. Osterhaus commanded the Fifteenth Corps, and Francis P. Blair Jr. The left wing was commanded by Henry W. Slocum, with the Fourteenth Corps under Jefferson C. Davis and the Twentieth Corps under Alpheus S.

Judson Kilpatrick led the cavalry. Sherman had about 2, supply wagons and ambulances. Before the army left Atlanta, the general issued an order outlining the rules of the march, but soldiers often ignored the restrictions on foraging.

The two wings advanced by separate routes, generally staying twenty miles to forty miles apart. The right wing headed for Macon , the left wing in the direction of Augusta , before the two commands turned and bypassed both cities.

They now headed for the state capital at Milledgeville. Although William J. Hardee had overall command in Georgia, with his headquarters at Savannah, neither he nor Governor Joseph E.

The first came east of Macon at the factory town of Griswoldville on November 22, when Georgia militia faced Union infantry with disastrous results. The Confederates suffered men killed or wounded in a one-sided battle that left about 62 casualties on the Union side. The second battle occurred on the Ogeechee River twelve miles below Savannah.

Union infantry under William B. Hazen assaulted and captured Fort McAllister on December 13, thus opening the back door to the port city. As early as mid-January , at least one North Carolina newspaper began preparing its readers for invasion. A month later, when Fort Fisher and Wilmington on the coast fell to the Union, a wave of despondency hit the state. Many people, fearing that they might be in Sherman's direct path, hid their valuables in an effort to save them.

Because Sherman had cut himself off from his supply base at Savannah, his men were reduced to foraging extensively from the countryside as they moved through the Carolinas in early Strict regulations limited foraging parties, but there was a wide discrepancy between these orders and the actions of some of the troops, who operated more as mounted robbers than as disciplined foragers. Much of the wanton destruction of property in the two Carolinas was the work of this self-constituted group, known primarily as "bummers.

The origin of the term "bummer" is obscure; however, by the time of Sherman's March to the Sea in the fall of , it had come into general usage. A member of the general's staff defined a bummer as a "raider on his own account, a man who temporarily deserts a place in the ranks and starts up an independent foraging mission. By 8 Mar. Early on the morning of 10 March at Monroe's Crossroads west of Fayetteville , a part of the cavalry under Brevet Maj.

Judson Kilpatrick was surprised and temporarily driven from the field by Confederate horsemen led by Lt. Wade Hampton. But the Union force regained control of its camp and thus opened the way for the Federal occupation of Fayetteville the next day. The town and surrounding countryside suffered much at the hands of Sherman's men, who pillaged and destroyed property, including the arsenal. While at Fayetteville, Sherman took the opportunity to rid his columns of the 30, black and white refugees who had been following his army.

He considered them "useless mouths. On 16 March a small Confederate force fought a delaying action against Sherman's left wing at Averasboro, and three days later Johnston's entire army of 21, troops attacked the left wing at Bentonville about 20 miles west of Goldsboro. The first day's fight was by far the bloodiest, ending in a draw.

But the Union went on to win the three-day battle-the largest ever fought on North Carolina soil. The March to the Sea was no off-the-cuff reaction by Sherman to finding himself in Atlanta in September and knowing he could not remain there.

He had for a long time hated the idea of having to kill and maim Confederates, many of whom had been pre-war friends. He wanted his army to win the war and thus preserve the Union, but he also wanted to curtail the battlefield slaughter.

He sought to utilize destructive war to convince Confederate citizens in their deepest psyche both that they could not win the war and that their government could not protect them from Federal forces. He wanted to convey that southerners controlled their own fate through a duality of approach: as long as they remained in rebellion, they would suffer at his hands, once they surrendered, he would display remarkable largess.

On the ground and on a much smaller scale, Sherman pioneered this process, becoming the first American to do so systematically. He is rightly called the American father of total warfare, a harbinger of the psychological tactics of the next century. Just what was this warfare revolution? Two months after capturing Atlanta , Sherman was ready to move out and decided to strip the city of its military infrastructure. In preparation, he moved the few people remaining in the city — about 10 percent of its 20,person population in early — out of the area, and cut his supply line.

But the way to the sea was not open; Sherman still had to contend with the Confederate army of Lt. John Bell Hood. So Sherman proposed to split his Union force, taking 62, of his best troops on a destructive march, while Maj. George H. Thomas used the remainder to contain Hood. Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant preferred for Sherman to destroy the Southern army first and then initiate his psychological war of destruction.

But Sherman prevailed upon his commanding officer, who, in turn, convinced the president. Grant himself said that he would not have allowed anyone other than Sherman to attempt such a march — so great was the respect and trust between the two.

Sherman wasted no time. On November 15, 62, men — split into two infantry wings actually four parallel corps columns with screening cavalry to protect the main bodies as they spread across the landscape — departed Atlanta. The city was hardly burned to the ground, as Gone with the Wind implies. Sherman wanted to keep his movements as secret as possible; he cut telegraph lines to prevent intelligence reports from reaching the enemy or his superiors in Washington.

Although Sherman told his officers and troops little about his plans, they quickly grasped the basic purpose of the march and, trusting their commander fully, were unconcerned about the lack of details. It had some large plantations, but many more small farms growing a variety of products: vegetables, cotton, sweet potatoes and, in marshy areas, rice and sugar cane.

Although beef cattle trudged along with his army, and he had his men fill their haversacks with food before they left, he knew that they could live off the Georgia land. William J. Gustavus W. Smith led the small Georgia state militia. The approach was backbreaking, but simple: rails were torn from the ties, which were stacked to make a bonfire beneath them.

Orlando Poe, even devised specialized equipment, called cant hooks, for the task. Clearly this soldier was practicing the psychological destructive warfare against Georgia that his commander wanted. He fooled the Confederates into believing that one part of his army was heading toward Augusta, while the other wing was heading for Macon.

In fact, his true destination was the Georgia capital of Milledgeville. Confederate political and military leaders — Gov. Joe Brown, Hardee and militia commander Smith among them — all fell for the ruse.