How long did shermans march take

As the main columns had been marching all day, organized soldiers and others fanned out in all directions, looking for food and booty. They wandered out five or more miles from the main columns and became experts at finding hidden food, horses, wagons and even slaves. Whether it was a plantation manor, a more modest white dwelling or a slave hut, any residence encountered by these bummers stood a chance of being utterly ransacked.

Barns, gardens and farms were overrun. Although many of the houses were damaged — and a minority put to the torch and totally destroyed — others were left essentially untouched, an unpredictability that became a source of great fear.

Still, sexual violence, especially in wartime, remains an underreported crime up to the present. Perhaps in denial of this reality, they came to accuse Sherman of carrying out countless grim acts. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and as he grew ever-larger in the Southern imagination, rumors about where he was and what he did to white women and slaves came to be accepted as fact.

The arrival of the main columns was even more frightening to the Georgians in their path than the passage of the foragers. Soldiers dug up buried food, valuables and keepsakes, seemingly at will. They searched hollow logs and any hiding place imaginable. Sometimes the slaves would volunteer information, and other times the foragers would force it out of them. As the marching Federals progressed, they attracted a growing throng of ex-slaves, who greeted them as emancipators.

Although he personally considered them inferior to white men, Sherman treated the blacks he met with courtesies not widespread in the 19th century, shaking hands and carrying on conversations to glean their knowledge of the area. While many blacks became laborers and performed tasks necessary to the advance, others simply followed in the wake of the column. This caused Sherman, who was trying to move quickly and live off the land, to worry about their impact on his speed and the supply of food meant for his soldiers.

And even in this Union army of liberation, the racism of the age was still prevalent throughout the ranks. The former slaves grew increasingly hesitant about getting too close to the white soldiers, who might be their source of freedom, but who often treated them with harshness and disrespect. Yet, whenever they had a choice, they preferred the Federals to Confederate soldiers and civilians who had no compunction about killing them or returning them to slavery. It was just such a conflict of interest that caused one of the most horrific events of the campaign.

Acting as the rear guard for the army, on December 9, , Federals under the command of Maj. Jefferson C. Davis were crossing the flooded Ebenezer Creek on a pontoon bridge. The long line of fugitive slaves, some of them, was ordered to await a signal before crossing. The pontoons floated away, leaving the slaves unable to cross the deep water. Knowing that Confederate cavalry was nearby, the fugitives, fearful of being captured and killed or re-enslaved, panicked. They jumped into the water, frantically trying to swim across and evade Wheeler.

Seeing their terror and desperation, some Federals began throwing logs and anything else they could find toward the drowning people. Although some were saved on makeshift rafts or by soldiers who waded into the creek, a huge number drowned and others were captured by the arriving Confederate troopers. Davis, who was no stranger to scandal — he was arrested for murdering fellow Union general William Nelson in August , but escaped court martial — took a great deal of blame for this horror, but Sherman defended him.

He blamed the ex-slave refugees for ignoring his advice not to follow the army. Two weeks after this incident, and 20 miles removed, the march ended in Savannah. Almost miraculously, damage and destruction immediately ceased. Soldiers became model gentlemen, no longer foraging, but paying for what they wanted or needed. Sherman had his favorite regimental band present a concert for the city and brought supply ships from the North to help the city and its people regain a sense of normality.

The general himself was a model of deportment. It was a strange end to a destructive month, but perhaps it should not have been unexpected. When Sherman instituted his destructive war, he told Southerners that as long as they continued their resistance, he would make them pay dearly, but that the process would stop when they quit the fight. As soon as the mayor of Savannah surrendered his city, Sherman the fiend became Sherman the friend.

When it came time to march through the Carolinas, states still in rebellion against the United States, however, destructive war returned.

Sherman demanded surrender, and he would accept nothing less, so his men tore through the Palmetto State. North Carolina suffered less because it was not viewed as responsible for the rebellion, as South Carolina was. When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered at Durham Station, N. In reality it was a final iteration of his campaign to show mercy immediately upon surrender. In short, the March to the Sea demonstrates not that Sherman was a brute, but that he wanted to wage a war that did not result in countless deaths.

He saw destruction of property as less onerous than casualties. It hurt morale, for civilians had believed the Confederacy could protect the home front. Sherman had terrorized the countryside; his men had destroyed all sources of food and forage and had left behind a hungry and demoralized people.

Although he did not level any towns, he did destroy buildings in places where there was resistance. His men had shown little sympathy for Millen , the site of Camp Lawton, where Union prisoners of war were held.

Physical attacks on white civilians were few, although it is not known how enslaved women fared at the hands of the invaders. Often enslaved men posted guards outside the cabins of their female friends and relatives.

Sherman, however, burned or captured all the food stores that Georgians had saved for the winter months. As a result of the hardships on women and children, desertions increased in Robert E. Sherman believed his campaign against civilians would shorten the war by breaking the Confederate will to fight, and he eventually received permission to carry this psychological warfare into South Carolina in early By marching through Georgia and South Carolina he became an archvillain in the South and a hero in the North.

Bailey, Anne. Bailey, A. In New Georgia Encyclopedia. The March to the Sea, the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War , began in Atlanta on November 15, ,…. General William T. Sherman captured Savannah in December and presented the city along with 25, bales of cotton to President Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present.

Sherman set up temporary headquarters in the Green-Meldrin House. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the rights holder. Sherman devastated the Georgia countryside during his march to the sea.

His men destroyed all sources of food and forage, often in retaliation for the activities of local Confederate guerrillas. Sherman's commanders on the March to the Sea were: standing left to right Oliver O.

Howard, William B. Hazen, Jefferson C. Davis, Joseph A. Mower, seated left to right John A. Logan, Sherman, Henry W. Slocum, Francis P. Most government records are in the public domain. Please consult the National Archives and Records Administration for more information. Ohio native and Union general William T. Sherman lost the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June In September of that same year his army captured Atlanta before embarking on its March to the Sea, from Atlanta to Savannah, in November.

Sherman later chronicled his wartime experiences in a memoir, published in By this time Gen. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate troops were evacuating the capital of North Carolina, and Johnston was seeking permission from President Jefferson Davis to contact Sherman about ending hostilities. The generals met on three occasions at the James Bennett home west of Durham.

The surrender terms drafted at the first two meetings, on 17 and 18 Apr. The terms were similar to those Lee received from Grant at Appomattox. Except for the stacking of arms at Greensboro and a few minor skirmishes between Union and Confederate troops, the war in North Carolina was over. Johnston surrenders to Union General William T.

Sherman at Bennett Place, April Excellent synopsis; it might be appropriate to stress Sherman took steps to prevent destruction of private property except when those assets could be used against Federal troops. He quite literally told them not to burn private property. Just things that could be used against them. Comments are not published until reviewed by NCpedia editors at the State Library of NC , and the editors reserve the right to not publish any comment submitted that is considered inappropriate for this resource.

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Skip to main content. Is anything in this article factually incorrect? Please submit a comment. Printer-friendly page Sherman's March by John G. Barrett, References: John G. Barrett, Sherman's March through the Carolinas Mark L. Lloyd Lewis, Sherman: Fighting Prophet William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs , vol.