The March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign

The March to the Sea  -  November 15 - December 21, 1864

Sherman "the pyromaniac" - from The Washington Post 


"Free society! we sicken at the name.  What is it but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists...  The prevailing class [of the North] is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers who do their own drudgery, and yet are hardly fit for association with a Southern gentleman's body servant."  Georgia newspaper, 1856. 


"The great evil of Northern free society is that it is burdened with a servile class of mechanics and laborers, unfit for self-government, yet clothed in the attributes and powers of citizens."  South Carolina journal, 1860.


Preliminaries:

Sherman had taken Atlanta with about 100,000 men.  

John Bell Hood took his army into Alabama and then towards Tennessee to try to draw Sherman out of Georgia.  Sherman did not follow him but sent Gen. George Thomas with 40,000 men to help the armies in Tennessee.  Gen. John Schofield beat Hood at Franklin on November 30 and Thomas crushed the Army of Tennessee at Nashville on December 15 &16.  

The March to the Sea would be about 300 miles.   Sherman studied 1860 census and tax maps to determine what areas had the most food.  His army of 60,000 men will consume 300 tons of food per day.  Confederate cavalry leader Joe Wheeler has the largest amount of soldiers in Georgia - 3,700.

William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

At the very beginning of the march, Sherman's troops burned several towns, including residences, but Sherman put stop to it allowing the troops to only destroy mills, factories, munition dumps, bridges, railroad tracks and depots, etc. unless guerillas or townspeople attacked Sherman's men.

In Georgia, the troops mostly pilfered or destroyed personal items of the wealthy (the slaveholders).  There are numerous accounts of Sherman's troops destroying pianos after playing them.  Jewelry and silver are taken, but large numbers of soldiers were prosecuted for stealing.  Provost officers checked for and confiscated stolen items hidden in supply wagons.  Numerous soldiers were sentenced to jail sentences of one to two years. 

The 1st Alabama (Union) cavalry was notorious for destroying Confederate property.  As southern Unionists, they felt entitled as Confederates had destroyed their families' property, imprisoned them, and drove them from their communities.
 
Other sources of destruction:

   Gen. P.T.G. Beauregard urged civilians to destroy resources to keep them from Sherman.  The people largely ignored the request.

   Confederate General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry pillaged through Georgia and into South Carolina while sniping at Sherman's troops.  Wheeler was replaced by General Wade Hampton on Feb 11. 

   Georgia Unionists retaliated against their Confederate neighbors.  Bands of Confederate guerrillas and deserters pillaged civilians.

   Slaves helped themselves to food and property. 
 

The Carolinas Campaign -  January 25?  - April 26, 1865

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Sherman's troops were much harder on South Carolinians than they had been on Georgians because it was the state that had started secession and the war.  Security was loosened on the troops.  Several towns were burnt and also numerous plantations (including Confederate General Wade Hampton's).

The capital city of Columbia was burnt on February 17 - 18.  It has been debated for 150 years who started it, but most likely it was Union troops without Sherman's authorization.  There are many reports of the Union troops setting the buildings on fire and also many of Union troops trying to put them out.  Anger over the high concentration of Confederates in Columbia, the liberating of 1,000 Union POWS from Camp Sorghum, and lots of alcohol influenced the torching. Despite over 1/3 of the city being destroyed, there were no reported deaths.

Often the destruction in South Carolina was done to cries of "Remember Chambersburg" for the summer 1864 burning of the Pennsylvania town.
 
Once the troops reached North Carolina (a state that was reluctant to secede and had many Unionists), Sherman ordered his troops to restrain themselves. For the most part they did.  N.C. was treated similar to Georgia.

Conclusion: 

There are many letters written by Sherman's troops justifying their behavior but also many condemned the pillaging and "needless" theft and destruction.

On two occasions Sherman ordered the executions of Confederate soldiers when execution of Union soldiers were done in eyesight of the his troops.  When Union soldiers were found hung, Sherman had every building in the vicinity destroyed.

Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his army on April 26 at Durham, N.C. over six weeks after Robert E. Lee surrendered.  On June 23, Confederate general and Cherokee chief Stand Waite was the last general to surrender his army.

The overall success of Sherman's marches is hard to judge.  The March to the Sea seems to have encouraged a large number of Lee's Georgia's soldiers to desert to go home to see to their families (some seem to have returned to Lee's army after seeing their families were safe).  Many Georgians and South Carolinians wrote of feeling demoralized and defeated, yet many also seemed become more intractable. 
  
Total food consumption:

    March to the Sea = 36 days = over 6 million meals.

    The Carolinas Campaign = 120 days = over 20 million meals.

"New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll by 20%"  (to 750,000) - N.Y. Times, April 2, 2012

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”--Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865