Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

  Grant addressed this concern the next day, sending his message to Lincoln’s chief of staff, Major General Henry W. Halleck, knowing that the president would see every word. “On mature reflection,” Grant began, “I believe Sherman’s proposition is the best that can be adopted.” After pointing out the impossibility of keeping an Atlanta garrison supplied, he observed that by leaving a barren waste in his wake, Sherman would create a buffer zone to impede any enemy pursuit. Properly reinforced, Thomas could hold Tennessee, and even then Sherman would retain enough strength to defeat Hood if he turned on him. “Such an army as Sherman has (and with such a commander) is hard to corner or capture,” Grant concluded.

  Even as this exchange was occurring, Hood and Sherman continued their slow dance in northwest Georgia. As they marched, Sherman’s men foraged extensively, prompting complaints from the affected civilians. “Your friends have broken our railroads, which supplied us bountifully,” Sherman replied, applying his rules of war, “and you cannot suppose our soldiers will suffer when there is abundance within reach.” With Sherman pressing him from the south, Hood veered to the west; by October 15 he had halted at Gaylesville, just on the Alabama side of the Georgia border. Up to now he had closely followed the script he had crafted with Jefferson Davis; although his opponent had not left himself open to any damaging blows, Hood’s men had certainly filled Sherman’s life with vexations. The question Hood now considered was whether or not his accomplishments (and more like them) were enough.

  It was the same day that Hood arrived at Gaylesville that Sherman received the authorization he had been seeking. The message, dated two days earlier, came from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who acknowledged that Grant had decided to let Sherman carry out his plan. “You may count on the co-operation of this Department to the full extent of the power of the Government,” the war secretary promised. Sherman had now acquired all the approvals he needed to set out on his march through Georgia. The only problem was Hood, who still posed a threat to Union interests in northern Georgia. If Hood would commit himself to a movement into Tennessee, then Sherman could retrace his steps to Atlanta without censure. Otherwise it would look as if he was backing away from Hood’s challenge. Sherman let some of his anxiety show in a message to a subordinate commander written on October 16. “I want the first positive fact that Hood contemplates an invasion of Tennessee; invite him to do so,” Sherman instructed. “Send him a free pass in.”

  Hood finally obliged Sherman on October 17 by marching his men farther west, away from the threatened Union supply line. That same day, Sherman, monitoring events from the Georgia border to be sure that Hood’s column was receding, started to get affairs in order for what he was now calling his “grand movement into Georgia.” Orders went out to the various Union commands to begin culling out “the most indifferent wagons and worthless mules and horses,…the sick and wounded, prisoners of war, surplus servants, tents, chairs, cots, and the furniture that now fill our wagons and disgrace the army.”

  Two days passed, and with Hood showing no signs of wavering from his westward course, Sherman could finally exhale somewhat. In a message sent to Lincoln’s military chief of staff, he stated: “I now consider myself authorized to execute my plan to destroy the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta,…[and] strike out into the heart of Georgia, and make for Charleston, Savannah, or the mouth of the Appalachicola [River].”

  Nevertheless, Sherman kept his forces in place until he was certain that Hood wasn’t going to double back or push into Tennessee close enough to him to necessitate he act. The last thing Sherman needed was the perception that he had ignored a threat he could have parried. Sherman wanted Hood to invade Tennessee, but he needed the act to take place far enough to the west that no one would think he had been lax in his responsibilities. As the days ticked off, Sherman watched Hood and fretted that circumstances might not allow him to undertake his cherished plan. “Damn Hood!” Sherman exclaimed. “If he will go to the Ohio River I’ll give him rations!”

  On October 18 Sherman heard from the officer he had left in charge of the Atlanta garrison, who unknowingly proposed to steal his thunder. Major General Henry W. Slocum was not yet included among those whom Sherman believed needed to know of his plans. Slocum reported that matters were so quiet around Atlanta that he thought he might launch his own raid into Georgia with just two divisions. Sherman responded two days later, letting Slocum know that a grand march was in the works and, further, instructing Slocum to prepare “1,500,000 rations of bread, coffee, sugar, and salt, 500,000 rations of salt meat.” Also, Slocum was to have the “lightest pontoon bridges and trains ready.”

  The same day, Sherman received a nervous message from the officer he had left in charge in Tennessee, George H. Thomas. Twenty-four hours later Sherman sought to buck up his subordinate. “If you can defend the line of the Tennessee [River] in my absence of three months, it is all I ask,” Sherman said. He also made clear his intention “to sally forth and make a hole in Georgia and Alabama that will be hard to mend.” On October 20 Sherman sent a long note to Thomas designed to assuage him even more. He revealed a few more details of his planned march, suggesting he might be able to destroy the military production centers of Macon and Augusta. “By this I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the South and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms…. I know I am right in this and shall proceed to its maturity.” Sherman spelled out in no uncertain terms what he expected of Thomas. “I want you to retain command in Tennessee, and before starting I will give you delegated authority over Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, &c., whereby there will be unity of action behind me,” Sherman wrote. “If…Hood turns on you, you must act defensively on the line of the Tennessee [River].”

  Thomas’s first response, sent October 21, did not directly address Sherman’s wishes, but instead enumerated all the units then available to him, which did not match the number Sherman was crediting him with having on hand. Messaging Grant on October 22, Sherman was careful to paint an uncluttered picture. “I feel perfectly master of the situation here,” he declared. “I am now perfecting arrangements to put into Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the Tennessee [River] whilst I break up the railroad [from Dalton to Atlanta]…and push into Georgia, and break up all its railroads and depots, capture its horses and negroes, make desolation everywhere.” On October 23 Sherman made sure that Slocum in Atlanta was filling the larder. “Go on, pile up the forage, corn and potatoes, and keep your artillery horses fat,” Sherman instructed him. “If Georgia can afford to break our railroads, she can afford to feed us. Please preach this doctrine to men who go forth, and are likely to spend it.”

  That same day Sherman continued to buttress Thomas’s confidence. “All Georgia is now open to me and I do believe you are the man best qualified to manage the affairs of Tennessee and North Mississippi,” he told him. Three days later Sherman sent Thomas a pair of messages. The first offered overall advice (“Minor points may be neglected, but the stronger places…strengthened”) and proffered assurances that Sherman’s plan would proceed only “provided always you can defend the line of the Tennessee [River].” In the second note Sherman seemed to forget his pledge. “I must leave it [the defense of Tennessee] to you for the present and push for the heart of Georgia.” Sherman was certain that once he began his movement into the heart of the state Hood would “turn back.” Writing to Lincoln’s chief of staff on October 27, Sherman warranted that the troops he was forwarding to Thomas “will enable him to hold Tennessee.” Thomas, Sherman added, “is well alive to the occasion, and better suited to the emergency than any man I have.”

  The forces Sherman had selected for his Georgia expedition began marching back toward Atlanta on October 29. His next messages to Thomas emphasized all the troops that were being redirected to assist him. Thomas’s responses were more measured, most often identifying only the units that were on hand and their combat readiness. With Hood poised on the sout
h bank of the Tennessee River, first at Decatur, then farther west at Tuscumbia, and displaying every indication of advancing into middle Tennessee, Thomas’s low force inventories began to take on an urgent tone. His uneasiness was discerned by Halleck and especially Grant, who now reconsidered his appraisal of Sherman’s scheme. On November 1 Grant asked Sherman, “Do you not think it advisable now that Hood has gone so far north to entirely settle him before starting on your proposed campaign?” That same day Halleck added his two cents. “I think you should concentrate all you can against Hood,” he urged, reflecting Lincoln’s insecurities.

  Now the time delays inherent in the long communications network began to play their own games. At 9:00 A.M. November 1, even before Grant’s message with its big question started west, Sherman composed a note that anticipated the last-minute objections. He ran through a generous list of troops either with or on their way to Thomas. He reiterated that if he were to reverse course now, “the work of last summer would be lost.” On November 2 Sherman dispatched a direct answer to Grant’s November 1 message. “Thomas will have a force strong enough to prevent [Hood’s]…reaching any country in which we have an interest,” he assured his friend and superior officer. Sherman also advanced the argument that turning toward Hood was exactly what the enemy wanted him to do or, as he stated it, “Jeff. Davis’ cherished plan of making me leave Georgia.”

  The telegram Sherman received from Grant on November 2 answered the note he had sent before getting Grant’s of November 1. Grant, after looking carefully at the information Sherman had provided, decided to set aside his own misgivings by trusting his friend’s judgment. “With the force…you have left with Thomas, he must be able to take care of Hood and destroy him,” Grant said. “I do not really see that you can withdraw from where you are to follow Hood without giving up all we have gained in territory. I say, then, go as you propose.” Grant’s simple approbation took a weight off Sherman’s shoulders and allowed him to regain his sense of humor. Responding to a note from a subordinate, Sherman hinted at the great raid in the offing and forecast, “You may look for a great howl against the brute Sherman.”

  For the next ten days Sherman played a delicate balancing act as he strove to maintain the positive picture he had created for Grant and Lincoln. There was always the chance that Hood would reverse course for a dash back into Georgia that would scuttle Sherman’s plans. There was also the possibility that Thomas would fret enough about the Tennessee situation that Grant would be forced by Lincoln to halt the march. Some elements Sherman could influence or control; for the others he depended on fate.

  On November 9 everything threatened to unravel when a small newspaper, the Indianapolis Journal, printed a brief but remarkably accurate summary of Sherman’s intentions. The story was picked up and amplified the next day by other papers, including the New York Times. The leaks came from officers Sherman had sent up to Thomas in Chattanooga. While Grant and officials in Washington fumed and threatened all sorts of arrests, Sherman (remarkably calm considering the nature of the disruption) proposed to counter information with disinformation. He suggested that the War Department release false intelligence such as “Sherman’s army has been much re-enforced,…and he will soon move by several columns in circuit, so as to catch Hood’s army,” or “Sherman’s destination is not Charleston, but Selma.” The suggestions were ignored, and the incident passed without seriously impeding the operation.

  While his men began actively preparing for the grand movement, Sherman telegraphically held Thomas’s hand. “I hope we shall be ready for him,” Thomas had wired on November 2. The next day Sherman advised Henry Halleck in Washington, “I…feel no uneasiness as to Tennessee.” Even though his preparations for the Georgia march had passed a point of no return, Sherman assured Halleck that he could still intervene in Tennessee if a crisis loomed. Nonetheless, he was not seriously considering canceling the operation. “I propose to adhere as nearly as possible to my original plan,” Sherman told Halleck, knowing he would tell Lincoln.

  Thomas was still hedging his bets, reporting the troop repositioning he was doing, but offering few clues into his state of mind. “I have made great exertions to prevent stampeding,” he confided to Sherman on November 3, “and so far have succeeded measurably well, but I find it hard work.” His messages over the next few days continued in this vein. On November 11, Sherman gave Halleck his nearly final assurances. “I have balanced all the figures well,” Sherman said, “and am satisfied that General Thomas has in Tennessee a force sufficient for all probabilities.” Sherman’s continued solicitation toward Thomas’s concerns paid its dividends on the morning of November 12 when Thomas wired Sherman: “I have no fear that Beauregard [i.e., Hood] can do us any harm now.”

  This message reached Sherman at Cartersville, Georgia. The army commander was resting on the porch of a nondescript wood house, watching with intense interest as one of his signal corps technicians hooked a portable telegraph key to some wires and tapped out a call for messages from Chattanooga. After several minutes of counter-pointed clicking, Sherman was handed the paper with Thomas’s message. Recalled Sherman: “I answered simply: ‘Dispatch received—all right.’ About that instant of time, some of our men burnt a bridge, which severed the telegraph-wire, and all communication with the rear ceased thenceforth.”

  There were no more chances for anyone to call him back. Sherman was now entirely on his own and on his way. “Free and glorious I felt when the magic telegraph was cut!” he exclaimed.

  The Plan—–Precedents and Orders

  The basic template for Sherman’s March had been forged in February 1864, when he led a force of 20,000 men on a raid due east from Vicksburg to Meridian, Mississippi, a one-way distance of some 133 miles. “The expedition is one of celerity,” Sherman announced to his men, and to facilitate rapid movement he divided his force into two wings. Sherman also employed some calculated misdirection prior to setting out, designed to leave the impression that his objective was Mobile, Alabama. As the two wings moved along parallel roads, Sherman saw how hard it was for the enemy to concentrate against him, since any effort to oppose one wing could be undone through the flanking threat posed by the other.

  Sherman made it a point to limit the number of wagons accompanying his columns, so his men lived off the country and did well. Once at the transportation hub of Meridian, his soldiers wrecked everything of possible value to the Confederacy. “I have no hesitation in pronouncing the work as well done,” Sherman reported. Special attention was given to tearing up the railroad lines with specific instructions provided in special field orders. “The enemy cannot use these roads to our prejudice in the coming campaign,” Sherman bragged in his report. There were also directives meant to limit the damage done to civilian buildings, though enforcement was not strict. “When the provisions, forage, horses, mules, wagons, &c. are used by our enemy it is clearly our duty and right to take them,” Sherman argued, “because otherwise they might be used against us.” He concluded that the “government of the United States has…any and all rights which they choose to enforce the war.”

  Another facet of this operation was the presence of sizable numbers of slave refugees. Sherman’s columns penetrated a region not previously visited by Union raiders, so at this first appearance of the blue columns roughly five to eight thousand African-Americans stopped what they were doing to tag along to Vicksburg and freedom, some afoot, some on horseback, others riding in oxcarts. Sherman’s orders and practices provided no support for these noncombatants. When the war was over, the nation could look to the issues regarding blacks; until then they only interfered with his military operations aimed at bringing about that end. Keeping them out of the way would be much on Sherman’s mind as he planned his grand movement into Georgia.

  The operation Sherman now conceived was the Meridian Expedition squared, perhaps even cubed. More men were involved, the distances greater, and the risks higher, since, unlike in the February raid, which returned
to home base, Sherman had no intention of coming back, and this time there was no supply depot waiting for him. After much mulling he boiled the essential elements down into nine instructions, which were codified in Special Field Orders No. 120, issued at Kingston, Georgia, on November 9.

  I. For the purpose of military operations this army is divided into two wings, viz, the Right Wing, Maj. Gen. O.O. Howard commanding, the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the Left Wing, Maj. Gen. H.W. Slocum commanding, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.*

  Sherman’s selection of generals Howard and Slocum to command the respective wings was a key decision, for upon their shoulders would rest much of the responsibility for managing day-to-day affairs. Both were West Point graduates, an accomplishment that ranked high in the way Sherman judged his officers. While he agreed that politically appointed generals could be capable, inspirational, and even courageous, he also believed that their dual nature meant they could never be focused completely on the military job. Sherman viewed the political generals as men who “looked to personal fame and glory as auxiliary and secondary to their political ambition, and not as professional soldiers.” Sherman described Howard and Slocum as “both comparatively young men,† but educated and experienced officers, fully competent to their command.” Each had served in the east in the early part of the war, and both had blemishes on their records.