Senator John Sherman (his younger brother and a political ally of President Lincoln) and other connections in Washington helped him to obtain a commission. [28], While many of his colleagues saw action in the MexicanAmerican War, Sherman was assigned to administrative duties in the captured territory of California. The resulting trial of Satanta and Big Tree marked the first occasion in which Native American chiefs were tried by a civilian court in the United States. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying newspapers to believe that we were being whipped all the time now realize the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. [179][180] According to historian Eric Foner, "the 'Colloquy' between Sherman, Stanton, and the black leaders offered a rare lens through which the experience of slavery and the aspirations that would help to shape Reconstruction came into sharp focus."[176]. Rhodes, James Ford. The next morning, Savannah Mayor Richard Dennis Arnold, with a delegation of aldermen and ladies of the city, rode out (until they were unhorsed by fleeing Confederate cavalrymen) to offer a proposition: The city would surrender and offer no resistance, in exchange for General Geary's promise to protect the city's citizens and their property. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. [90] This success contributed greatly to raising Sherman's spirits and changing his personal outlook on the Civil War and his role in it. [281] Except during the personal crisis triggered by his son Thomas's decision to become a priest, Sherman's personal attitude towards the Catholic Church was tolerant and even friendly at a time when anti-Catholic prejudice was common in the United States. Holden-Reid, for instance, argued that "the concept of 'total war' is deeply flawed, an imprecise label that at best describes the two world wars but is of dubious relevance to the U.S. Civil War."[204]. [28], From Savannah, after a month-long delay for rest, Sherman marched north in the spring in the Carolinas Campaign, intending to complete his turning movement and combine his armies with Grant's against Robert E. Lee. In planning for the march, Sherman used livestock and crop production data from the 1860 census to lead his troops through areas where he believed they would be able to forage most effectively. On December 17, he sent a message to Hardee in the city: I have already received guns that can cast heavy and destructive shot as far as the heart of your city; also, I have for some days held and controlled every avenue by which the people and garrison of Savannah can be supplied, and I am therefore justified in demanding the surrender of the city of Savannah, and its dependent forts, and shall wait a reasonable time for your answer, before opening with heavy ordnance. On December 13, William B. Hazen's division of Howard's wing stormed the fort in the Battle of Fort McAllister and captured it within 15 minutes. In September 1863, Sherman laid out his emerging philosophy in a long letter to Halleck. Who were the most important figures in the American Civil War? The Union soldiers were just as unsparing. "Sherman's March" redirects here. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. [76] During the fighting, Sherman was grazed by bullets in the knee and shoulder. [99] According to historian John D. Winters's The Civil War in Louisiana (1963), at this stage Sherman, had yet to display any marked talents for leadership. In fact, although the men destroyed public buildings, they largely left individual homes intact. This was a new regiment yet to be raised. Many in the Union sought a more vigorous approach. [81][82] He was promptly replaced by Don Carlos Buell and transferred to St. Louis. Sherman excelled academically at West Point, but he treated the demerit system with indifference. Schofield. The destruction of millions of dollars . According to British military historian Brian Holden-Reid, "if Sherman had committed tactical errors during the attack, he more than compensated for these during the subsequent retreat". Hood had taken the bulk of forces in Georgia on his campaign to Tennessee in hopes of diverting Sherman to pursue him. This ill-fated raid cost Price most of his artillery as well as the greater part of his army, which numbered about 12,000. But I think faith in him [Jefferson Davis] is much shaken in Georgia, and before we have done with her South Carolina will not be quite so tempestuous. He was devoted to the theater and to amateur painting and was in demand as a colorful speaker at dinners and banquets, in which he indulged a fondness for quoting Shakespeare. The biggest battle Abraham Lincoln fought early in the Civil War was simply to find generals who would fight. During the campaign, the Confederate War Department brought in additional men from Florida and the Carolinas, but they never were able to increase their effective force beyond 13,000.[18]. total war, military conflict in which the contenders are willing to make any sacrifice in lives and other resources to obtain a complete victory, as distinguished from limited war. This meeting was memorialized in G. P. A. Healy's painting The Peacemakers. He tells us what he thought and what he felt, and he never strikes any attitudes or pretends to feel anything he does not feel. You are bound to fail. [185], Towards the end of the Civil War, some elements within the Republican Party regarded Sherman as being strongly prejudiced against black people. [292] This led to the publication of several works, notably John B. Walters's Merchant of Terror: General Sherman and Total War (1973),[293] that presented Sherman as responsible for "a mode of warfare which transgressed all ethical rules and showed an utter disregard for human rights and dignity. Lincoln happened to be at City Point at the same time, making possible the only three-way meeting of Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman during the war. William Tecumseh Sherman Influence On Civil War | ipl.org It is sufficient for my Government to know that the removal of the inhabitants has been made with liberality and fairness; that it has been attended by no force, and that no women or children have suffered, unless for want of provisions by their natural protectors and friends. [33] Sherman and Halleck lived in a house in Monterey, now known as the "Sherman Quarters", from 1847 to 1849. Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems. To the Confederates, it was an attack on their property. Republican Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain appealed to President Grant for military assistance. That fall Kirby Smith ordered the reconquest of Missouri. Hood, who had already lost two limbs in the war. Subsequent historians have objected to the comparison, arguing that Sherman's tactics were not as severe or indiscriminate. 120, regarding the conduct of the campaign. Unbeknownst to Sherman, Grant abandoned his advance, and Sherman's river expedition met more resistance than expected. . One 19th-century source, for example, states that "General Sherman, we believe, is the only eminent American named from an Indian chief". He organized relief for the flood of refugees that had inundated the city. Slocum's wing, accompanied by Sherman, moved to the east, in the direction of Augusta. He captured Savannah, 285 miles (460 km) from Atlanta, on December 21. [242], Sherman's early tenure as Commanding General was marred by political difficulties, many of which stemmed from disagreements with Secretary of War Rawlins and his successor, William W. Belknap, both of whom Sherman felt had assumed too much power over the army and reduced the position of Commanding General to a sinecure. In March, Halleck's command was redesignated the Department of the Mississippi and enlarged to unify command in the West. Now that Sherman had contact with the Navy fleet under Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, he was able to obtain the supplies and siege artillery he required to invest Savannah. 1862 was a tipping point. Sherman further arranged for 50,000 bushels of captured rice to be sold in the North to raise money to feed Savannah. On December 4, Kilpatrick's cavalry routed Wheeler's at the Battle of Waynesboro. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. This war was similar to European wars in that all the fighting was carried out by organized armies. On the periphery of the Confederacy, 43,000 gray-clad soldiers in Louisiana under Smith surrendered to Canby on May 26. Sherman's March to the Sea (and "total war") was a logical extension of the so-called Anaconda Plan for beating the Confederacy. Jackson and Lee in Virginia; Braggand Smith in Tennessee. Sherman conducted the ensuing Jackson Expedition, which concluded successfully on July 25 with the re-capture of the city of Jackson. He and the Union Army's commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would come to an end only if the Confederacy 's strategic capacity for warfare could be decisively broken. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (18611865), achieving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched-earth policies that he implemented against the Confederate States. States of America, was caught fleeing, wearing women's clothing as a disguise, and was imprisoned in leg irons. For other uses, see. 15. [173] Sherman's views on race evolved significantly over time. What had happened in Georgia paled in comparison with the devastation the Yankees wrought in South Carolina. "[294] Following Walters, James Reston Jr. argued in 1984 that Sherman had planted the "seed for the Agent Orange and Agent Blue programs of food deprivation in Vietnam". [237], Displacement of the Plains Indians was facilitated by the growth of the railroads and the eradication of the bison. General Sherman's Destructive Path Blazed a New Strategy On this march, Sherman deployed 62,000 troops in two wings. [14], This was the process by which the 62,000 men (55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 2,000 artillerymen manning 64 guns) Sherman commanded were assembled, and would leave Atlanta for Savannah. [134], During September and October, Sherman and Hood played a cat-and-mouse game in northern Georgia and Alabama, as Hood threatened Sherman's communications to the north. [13], Sherman had ruthlessly cut to the bone the supplies carried, intending as he did for the army to live off the land as much as possible. [86], By mid-December 1861 Sherman had recovered sufficiently to return to service under Halleck in the Department of the Missouri. [45][46] He resigned his commission in 1853 and entered civilian life as manager of the San Francisco branch of the Bank of Lucas, Turner & Co., whose corporate headquarters were in St. Louis. At Franklin, Hood was checked for a day with severe casualties by a Federal holding force under John M. Schofield. While Howard's wing was delayed near Ball's Bluff, the 1st Alabama Cavalry (a Federal regiment) engaged Confederate pickets. In 1875, Henry V. Boynton published a critical review of Sherman's memoirs "based upon compilations from the records of the war office". All Rights Reserved. The second objective of the campaign was more traditional. Nashville, Tennessee Hood had sought unsuccessfully to lure Sherman out of Georgia and back into Tennessee by marching northwestward with nearly 40,000 men toward the key city of Nashville, the defense of which had been entrusted by Sherman to George H. Thomas. [138], After November elections, Sherman began marching on November 15 with 62,000 men in the direction of the port city of Savannah, Georgia,[139] living off the land and causing, by his own estimate, more than $100million in property damage. The purpose of Shermans March to the Sea was to frighten Georgias civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. [195], Liddell Hart credited Sherman with mastery of maneuver warfare, also known as the "indirect approach". In 1948, Walters published an article, "General William T. Sherman and Total War," that Shermans men blamed South Carolina for bringing on the war and sought to punish them for their actions. W. T. Sherman (1887)[286], In the years immediately after the war, Sherman was popular in the North and well regarded by his own soldiers. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster dispatched 5,500 men and 10 guns under Brig. 380 Words2 Pages. North Carolina, unlike its southern neighbor, was regarded by the Union troops as a reluctant Confederate state,[153] having been second from last to secede from the Union, ahead only of Tennessee. Johnston, ignoring instructions from President Davis, accepted those terms on April 26, 1865, formally surrendered his army and all the Confederate forces in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. [128][129] Meanwhile, in August, Sherman "learned that I had been commissioned a major-general in the regular army, which was unexpected, and not desired until successful in the capture of Atlanta". To free them was to violate their assets. Sherman commanded a brigade of volunteers at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 before being transferred to the Western Theater. [210] Consuming supplies, wrecking infrastructure, and undermining morale were Sherman's stated goals, and several of his Southern contemporaries noted this and commented on it. John Bennett Walters, Total War, and the Raid on Randolph, Tennessee Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. "Lick 'em tomorrow, though. MOOC | Grant, Sherman, and Total War | The Civil War and - YouTube This Union and its Government must be sustained, at any and every cost, explained one of Shermans subordinates. "[92], Despite being caught unprepared by the attack, Sherman rallied his division and conducted an orderly, fighting retreat that helped avert a disastrous Union rout. VII. "[27] Sherman was later stationed in Georgia and South Carolina. Nonetheless, Sherman pushed on into North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville on March 11 and, after an initial setback, repulsing the counterattacking Johnston at Bentonville on March 1920. Harrison, in a message to the Senate and the House of Representatives, wrote that: He was an ideal soldier, and shared to the fullest the esprit de corps of the army, but he cherished the civil institutions organized under the Constitution, and was only a soldier that these might be perpetuated in undiminished usefulness and honor. [253], On June 19, 1879, Sherman delivered an address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy, in which he may have uttered the famous phrase "War is Hell". Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S. Confederate States presidential election of 1861, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea&oldid=1161688494, Campaigns of the Western Theater of the American Civil War, Military operations of the American Civil War in Georgia (U.S. state), Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking reliable references from March 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, Nevin, David and the Editors of Time-Life Books (1986).