Total War and Sherman’s March to Sea Article Total War
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Total War and Sherman’s March to Sea Article 1. Total War *from http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=551 Ohioan William Tecumseh Sherman, a general in the Union army during the American Civil War, is best known for his March to the Sea. On September 1, 1864, Sherman and his army captured Atlanta, Georgia, an important transportation center in the South. Despite this important Northern victory, the Confederate government and many of its citizens remained committed to the war effort. Sherman intended his March to the Sea to break the will of the Southern people. Sherman was a believer in total war. He said that the Northern military was "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war." Sherman realized that the Southern civilian population provided most of the supplies that Confederate forces needed to wage war against the North. To speed the defeat of the Confederacy, Northern forces needed to prevent Southern civilians from supplying their armies. The Northern military needed to wage war against both the Confederate military and Southern civilians. To break the will of the Southern population, Sherman proposed a March to the Sea. . . Sherman left Atlanta with his sixty-two-thousand-man army on November 15, 1864. . . Sherman left behind his supply train. He decided that he would permit his men to supply themselves from civilians along the march. His soldiers commonly requisitioned [seized] all of the provisions that they could find from the civilian population. Food that the men could not eat or carry away generally was burned. The Union soldiers even commandeered supplies from the slaves. They also destroyed a number of homes along the way. Sherman's men successfully occupied Savannah in mid-December 1864. The use of total war achieved Sherman's desired effect. While some Southerners remained committed to the struggle, other Confederates began to doubt the South's chance for victory over the Northerners. Sherman's use of total war helped the North win the American Civil War. Article 2. William Tecumseh Sherman 
Perhaps the originator and the first practitioner of what the twentieth century came to know as "total war," William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 commanded the Union armies of the West in the decisive drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the famous "march to the sea" across Georgia. In these campaigns and his later push northward from Savannah through the Carolinas, Sherman's troops carried the war to the Southern home front and blazed a wide path of destruction that delivered the death blow to the Confederacy's will and ability to fight. For the accompanying destruction, his name is still cursed in some parts of the South; but he is also recognized as a great strategist, a forceful leader, and--together with Ulysses Grant --the ablest Union general of the war. The partnership of William Tecumseh Sherman (known to friends as "Cump") with Grant helped bring both out of early obscurity, until Grant commanded all Union armies and Sherman led all federal forces in the West. . . His military career had not always been outstanding; as commanding general of the Department of the Cumberland, 1861-1862, he feuded with the press, displayed emotional problems, and suffered accusations of insanity. Only after this ordeal did he begin his long and fruitful association with Ulysses Grant. Sherman's influence, for example, helped stop Grant from resigning when the latter felt himself hamstrung by orders from Washington. In the 1884 battles before Atlanta, Sherman's opponent was Joseph E. Johnston; but Johnston's skilled retreats before Sherman's turning tactics exasperated President Jefferson Davis, who replaced Johnston with the belligerent [quarrelsome] John B. Hood. Sherman soundly defeated Hood in several engagements and occupied Atlanta early in September 1864. On November 15, in perhaps the boldest act of the war, he led an army of sixty-two thousand men in two wings, with thirty-five thousand horses and twenty-five hundred wagons, on an overland march to Savannah--cutting himself off from his line of supply and sustaining his army on the land. "The utter destruction of [Georgia's] roads, houses and people," he had written, "will cripple their military resources. . . I can make Georgia howl!" Encountering little organized opposition, Sherman took Savannah on December 21, 1864, and later turned north for the Carolinas, covering 450 miles in fifty days. 
The results of this remarkable march justified Sherman's strategic expectations and, together with Grant's victories in Virginia, destroyed the Confederacy's ability to carry on the war. It is still disputed, however, whether the burning of Atlanta, the later burning of Columbia, South Carolina, and the depredations of "Sherman's bummers" were either necessary or unpreventable. For his military prowess [skill; expertise], Sherman is justly renowned [famous]; he succeeded Grant as commander in chief [of the United States army] in 1869 and remained in that post until 1883. Two memorable remarks of his also have entered history. Having written to Mayor Calhoun of Atlanta in 1874 that "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," he sharpened this definition in a commencement address at the Michigan Military Academy in 1879 to the oft-quoted phrase "War is hell." Five years later, when he was frequently talked of as a prospective Republican nominee for president, Sherman sent the Republican National Convention of 1884 the most famous of all rejections: "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." Even today, "a Sherman" is well-understood slang for a firm refusal. Perhaps the greatest tribute to William T. Sherman was paid by his old Civil War opponent Joe Johnston, who had fought him in Georgia and had signed with him an armistice after the Battle of Bentonville in April 1865. The two became friends. General Johnston attended Sherman's funeral in New York in 1891, stood in the rain to watch the cortege pass, and caught a cold. It caused Johnston's death two weeks later. TOM WICKER The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Article 5. Sherman- Hood Correspondence A. HOOD TO SHERMAN HDQRS. ARMY OF TENNESSEE, OFFICE CHIEF OF STAFF, September 9, 1864. Maj. Gen. W. T. SHERMAN. Commanding U.S. Forces in Georgia: GENERAL: Your letter of yesterday's date [7th] borne by James M. Ball and James R. Crew, citizens of Atlanta, is received. You say therein "I deem it to be to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove," &c. I do not consider that I have any alternative in this matter. I therefore accept your proposition to declare a truce of two days, or such time as may be necessary to accomplish the purpose mentioned, and shall render all assistance in my power to expedite the transportation of citizens in this direction. I suggest that a staff officer be appointed by you to superintend the removal from the city to Rough and Ready, while I appoint a like officer to control their removal farther south; that a guard of 100 men be sent by either party, as you propose, to maintain order at that place, and that the removal begin on Monday next. And now, sir, permit me to say that the unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war. In the name of God and humanity I protest, believing that you will find that you are expelling from their homes and firesides the wives and children of a brave people. I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., September 10, 1864. General J. B. HOOD, C. S. Army, Comdg. Army of Tennessee: GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date [9th], at the hands of Messrs. [messengers] Ball and Crew, consenting to the arrangements I had proposed to facilitate the removal south of the people of Atlanta who prefer to go in that direction. I inclose you a copy of my orders, which will, I am satisfied, accomplish my purpose perfectly. You style the measure proposed "unprecedented," and appeal to the dark history of war for a parallel as an act of "studied and ingenious cruelty." It is not unprecedented, for General Johnston [Southern commander Sherman had been fighting for some time] himself, very wisely and properly, removed the families all the way from Dalton [[a city in Georgia] down, and I see no reason why Atlanta should be excepted. Nor is it necessary to appeal to the dark history of war when recent and modern examples are so handy. You, yourself, burned dwelling-houses along your parapet [fortifications], and I have seen today fifty houses that you have rendered uninhabitable because they stood in the way of your forts and men. You defended Atlanta on a line so close to town that every cannon shot and many musket shots from our line of investment that overshot their mark went into the habitations of women and children. General Hardee did the same at Jonesborough, and General Johnston did the same last summer at Jackson, Miss. I have not accused you of heartless cruelty, but merely instance these cases of very recent occurrence, and could go on and enumerate hundreds of others and challenge any fair man to judge which of us has the heart of pity for the families of a "brave people." I say that it is kindness to these families of Atlanta to remove them now at once from scenes that women and children should not be exposed to, and the "brave people" should scorn to commit their wives and children to the rude barbarians who thus, as you say, violate the laws of war, as illustrated in the pages of its dark history. In the name of common sense I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious [against God; blasphemous] manner; you who, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a nation into war, dark and cruel war; who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left in the honorable custody of peaceful ordnance sergeants; seized and made "prisoners of war" the very garrisons sent to protect your people against negroes and Indians long before any overt act was committed by the, to you, hated Lincoln Government; tried to force Kentucky and Missouri into rebellion, spite of themselves; falsified the vote of Louisiana, turned loose your privateers to plunder unarmed ships; expelled Union families by the thousands; burned their houses and declared by an act of your Congress the confiscation [elimination] of all debts due Northern men for goods had and received. Talk thus to the marines, but not to me, who have seen these things, and who will this day make as much sacrifice for the peace and honor of the South as the best born Southerner among you. If we must be enemies, let us be men and fight it out, as we propose to do, and not deal in such hypocritical appeals to God and humanity. God will judge us in due time, and He will pronounce whether it be more humane to fight with a town full of women, and the families of "a brave people" at our back, or to remove them in time to places of safety among their own friends and people.
OrdersHeadquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Kingston, Georgia, November 9, 1864 IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled. V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility. VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate [take as their own] freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or bridges. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance. VII. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along, but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one and that his first duty is to see to them who bear arms. — William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864 Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 57.58 Kb. Share with your friends:
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