Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

  FORT MCALLISTER IS OURS. LOOK FOR A BOAT. GENERAL SHERMAN WILL COME DOWN TO-NIGHT.

  The twilight had deepened to the point that Lieutenant Fisher could barely read the flag waggles, and he realized that he had neglected to pack any torches for night signaling. The officer decided that the tug should retire to the river’s mouth, where he could deliver his news before returning to pick up Sherman.

  The fighting inside Fort McAllister sputtered fitfully for a few minutes as the last defenders were prised out of their hiding places. On his way to the Union rear, POW Major Anderson encountered Colonel James S. Martin, one of the three brigade commanders. Martin afterward claimed to have accepted Anderson’s surrender of the post. Before leaving the fort area, the Confederate commander observed a company of Union soldiers marching out of McAllister on a course that would take them right into the torpedo belt. Anderson, recalled the young lieutenant in charge of the detail, “held out your hand and told me not to go out that way and you told me the way to go out and I found out afterwards that if I had…went out the way I first started I would have been blown up with torpedoes.”

  Instead of destroying their flags, the garrison had tried to hide them, not a smart thing to do when confronted by some of Sherman’s most experienced scroungers. Captain George E. Castle of the 111th Illinois found one stuffed in the fireplace of a bombproof, while Captain J. H. Brown of the 47th Ohio located another tucked away with stored gunpowder, and yet a third was taken by Captain George Nelson, a Third Brigade staff officer.

  In the final accounting, Hazen put his losses at 24 killed (most by the torpedoes) and 110 wounded. The fatalities were especially heavy among the color bearers, who, because their duty put them in the van of the advance, were among the first to reach the torpedoes. Three of them—two in the 48th Illinois and one in the 70th Ohio—died. Major Anderson counted sixteen of the fort’s defenders killed, and twenty-eight wounded. The rest, including himself, were prisoners. Taken also were twenty-four cannon, one mortar, sixty tons of ammunition, some fine Havana cigars, and thirty days of food supplies, including a small but select wine cellar.

  When he had calmed down somewhat, Sherman waved over his aide-de-camp, Major Lewis Dayton, to sketch a note for Major General Slocum, holding down the left flank. “Take a good big drink, a long breath, and then yell like the devil,” read the message. “The fort was carried at 4:30 P.M., the assault lasting but fifteen minutes.” Dayton went on to say that contact had finally been made with the Federal fleet.

  Sherman now committed an act of utter folly. So anxious was he to be in touch with the outside world that he commandeered one of the small boats used by the signal corps men at the rice mill with the intention of reaching Fort McAllister via the Ogeechee River. No one present seems to have calculated the potential risk for a small party in a rowboat on an unfamiliar river in the dark traveling to the site of a fierce battle not thirty minutes ended. Compounding the imprudence, Major General Howard insisted on going along. There was a streak of vanity in the man who, writing long after the war, would take great pains to claim much of the credit for the successful attack. The prospect of Sherman’s going alone to the site of one of his (Howard’s) triumphs was just unthinkable.

  So the pair—representing two-thirds of the top leadership of the forces that had marched from Atlanta to the gates of Savannah—piled into the small skiff that the signal men provided. Somebody had to row, so Major Nichols and Captain Nehemiah Merritt of Sherman’s staff volunteered for the duty, claiming, according to Sherman, that “they were good oarsmen.” Somehow room was also found for Howard’s chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel William E. Strong, and another Sherman aide, Captain Joseph C. Audenried.

  The group set off on a voyage of what Sherman estimated to be six nautical miles, rowing against a flood tide. Strong, Merritt, Nichols, and Audenried constituted the galley, while Sherman—no surprise here—sat in the stern and steered. It was a tough pull against the river current, so to help them ignore their exertions, the rowers sang songs. Strong’s recollection was that “even Generals Sherman and Howard entered into the spirit of it and joined in the chorus of many an old and familiar air.” It was not long after 9:00 P.M. when they somehow found their way to a landing point about a mile and a half above the captured fort.

  Sherman’s luck was still running strong, for the sentry they encountered on the shore was not trigger-happy, and the party was soon brought to Brigadier General Hazen’s Middleton house headquarters. They found the brigadier preparing to eat dinner with his staff; “he invited us to join them,” wrote Sherman, “which we accepted promptly, for we were really very hungry.” Hazen asked permission to allow the fort’s captured commandant, Major Anderson, to join them. Since it was Hazen’s party after all, Sherman offered no objection. The only awkward moment came when Anderson, noticing that among those serving the table was one of his house slaves, asked him what he was doing. “I’se workin’ for Mr. Hazen now,” was the answer that spoke volumes about changing fortunes.

  A group of couriers and aides, riding north from Cheves’ Rice Mill, spread the word of the Union victory. While most would find out next morning, many heard about it this night. “When the news was received we raised such a loud and long cheer that we made the whole country resound,” declared a Seventeenth Corps man. Someone had to come out of the picket line of the 64th Illinois to explain why everyone in camp was celebrating. “I would the world could have heard the whole joyful yells pass around the lines which encircle Savannah,” proclaimed a happy member of the 39th Ohio.

  Word spread through the Left Wing, anchored on the Savannah River. “I hear the troops cheering and the bands playing Yankee Doodle,” noted a diarist in the 38th Ohio. Few were thinking of this in any strategic sense; for most it meant that supplies would soon begin to flow. Near the 74th Ohio the cry was: “Fort McAllister is taken and the cracker line is open!” A Pennsylvanian in the 147th regiment felt that “a great load was lifted from our shoulders, and the rejoicing in our ranks was very great.” In the 21st Michigan, the pickets shouted “Hardtack!” at the doubtless perplexed Confederates opposite them, but the Michigan boys knew full well what it meant. “‘Hardtack’ was really a jubilant cry of real meaning, a just cause of exultation as it foreshadowed the full fruits of victory,” predicted one soldier.

  Sherman was determined to obtain “some news of what was going on in the outer world.” Having already survived one foolhardy adventure this night, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t undertake another. Hazen, remembering that the spoils of war included a yawl in good condition tied up on the far side of the fort, led his guests toward it. As they crossed along the causeway, a guard warned them to watch out for torpedoes. It was Sherman’s recollection that a soldier seeking a wounded pal had actually been killed while he was there, though Howard remembered it as being “an ambulance with mules hauling it” that triggered the explosion. Either way, Sherman promptly authorized Hazen to use some of the captured garrison to clear the minefield in the morning.

  This infuriated Major Anderson, who branded it “an unwarrantable and improper treatment of prisoners of war.” Perhaps as a sop to the offended commander, or maybe as a little psychological warfare, Brigadier General Hazen allowed McAllister’s Confederate signal officer to send news of the surrender to his counterpart at the Rose Dhu Island battery. The unsigned message quickly worked its way up the Confederate chain of command, “reporting the loss of the work and representing the officers unhurt [save one].”

  Sherman and Howard clambered aboard the yawl, which was crewed by fresh arms provided by Hazen, leaving the former rowers—Strong, Nichols, Audenried, and Merritt—on shore. Once again the brain trust of a major military operation was committing risky business, but Sherman was adamant. Luckily for all involved, Lieutenant Fisher was a responsible and proactive officer. After delivering word of the army’s arrival to the other vessels in Ossabaw Sound, he returned with the Dandelion to a point just below the captured for
t. They had not been on station very long when the splash of oars heralded a small craft heading toward them.

  “What boat is that?”

  “Sherman.”

  The yawl scraped alongside, allowing the generals to climb onto the deck. The two, noted Fisher, “were welcomed with twice three cheers by those on board.” Fisher launched into a short briefing of current events, indicated that Major General Foster was eager to get in touch, and that he had sent back word of Sherman’s arrival. The generals also learned that the intrepid Captain Duncan, Sergeant Amick, and Private Quimby had, recalled Howard, “succeeded in avoiding all dangers and hindrances and had reached the fleet the morning of the 12th.” Asking for paper and a place to write, Sherman sat down to personally compose dispatches to the secretary of war and the army’s chief of staff. Lieutenant Fisher also remembered notes for Major General Foster and Rear Admiral Dahlgren.

  Sherman’s dispatches opened with news of McAllister’s capture, then summarized his forces’ position outside Savannah. He declared that his “army is in splendid order, and equal to anything.” He went on in more detail in the note intended for Major General Halleck (knowing it would be shared with Lincoln and Grant), adding that the newspaper “editors in Georgia profess to be indignant at the horrible barbarities of Sherman’s army, but I know the people don’t want our visit repeated.” Typical of Sherman’s rapid-fire mind, suggestions were advanced for the next phase—either a course reversal to Montgomery, Alabama, to draw Hood down from Tennessee; or a march into the Carolinas to force General Robert E. Lee to abandon the fortifications protecting Richmond and Petersburg.

  Before that, however, Sherman wanted to finish with Savannah. “I will try and see Admiral Dahlgren and General Foster before demanding the surrender of Savannah, which I do not propose to make till my batteries are able to open,” he said. Sherman closed each missive with the confident assertion: “I regard Savannah as already gained.”

  Leaving the dispatches for delivery with Lieutenant Fisher, Sherman and Howard returned to their yawl to be rowed back to Fort McAllister. Once ashore, they were guided again to the Middleton house, where, said Brigadier General Hazen, they “shared my blankets, spread upon the floor.”

  It had been a very long day.

  An anticlimactic footnote to this tumultuous day was provided by Brigadier General Kilpatrick, who, following his brief conference with Brigadier General Hazen, took his troopers south to the mouth of the Medway River in St. Catherines Sound. There, at Kilkenny Bluff, he spotted some Federal warships on patrol. According to a soldier with the party, “Signals, shots and fires failed to attract any response from them. A six-oared boat was soon found, and when the tide set out [Captain Lewellyn G.]…Estes, with seven volunteers (six at the oars and one at the helm) started for the ship. They beat a cavalry march for speed, too. In about an hour we received signals that they were there and in communication with Uncle Sam’s jolly sailors.”

  Estes carried a copy of Howard’s dispatch already delivered by Captain Duncan. In a message to Sherman time-dated 1:30 P.M., Kilpatrick made a case for setting up the army’s supply base in the St. Catherines area, a suggestion that became moot once Fort McAllister fell. Howard’s note was forwarded to Major General Foster by the USS Fernandina, while the unidentified contact vessel remained in touch with the shore. Even though nothing would come of this exchange, it did demonstrate that Sherman had more options than connecting with the fleet via Ossabaw Sound.

  The happy cavalrymen at Kilkenny Bluff entertained some of the boat’s crew the next day. “The officers and sailors wanted to ride our horses, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing them do so,” said a Michigan trooper. “When they left us many of them were sore and lame from the tumbles they had received while riding.”

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1864

  Major General Sherman had been sleeping one, maybe two hours when he became aware that there was someone in the room asking for him. Sherman called the stranger over and rubbed the exhaustion from his face while the messenger explained that a staff officer from Major General Foster was waiting with a boat at Fort McAllister. Foster wished very much to see him, but he was incapacitated by an old war wound, so could not come ashore. Could Sherman come to him? “I was extremely weary from the incessant labor of the day and night before,” recalled Sherman, “but got up, and again walked down the sandy road to McAllister, where I found a boat awaiting us.”

  The man who greeted him aboard the revenue cutter Nemaha had a very mixed war record. He was the kind of officer who stood out while acting as a subordinate, but when promoted to top command fell prey to excessive cautions and concerns. “He may have been a lion in his day,” observed a soldier who had served under him, “but his day is past.” Thus far Major General John G. Foster had fumbled his two military missions connected with Sherman’s March. The expeditionary force he had dispatched under Brigadier General John P. Hatch to cut the Charleston-Savannah railroad at Grahamville had been repulsed at Honey Hill. A follow-up effort (also led by Hatch) against the railway farther north had been stopped short of the goal, though within extreme cannon range, allowing Foster to claim that his guns now “commanded” the passage. Foster’s hope was that Sherman would be too preoccupied with resupplying his army, capturing Savannah, and moving to the next phase of his campaign to take him to task for his failures.

  An officer with Foster’s staff recalled Sherman as “the most American looking man I ever saw, tall and lank, not very erect, with hair like a thatch, which he rubs up with his hands, a rusty beard trimmed close, a wrinkled face, sharp, prominent red nose, small, bright eyes, coarse red hands, black felt hat slouched over the eyes…, brown field officer’s coat with high collar and no shoulder-straps, muddy trousers and one spur.”

  By Sherman’s account the meeting was amicable. Foster, after providing the most up-to-date intelligence he had regarding Savannah’s defenses, indicated that troops under his command were “strongly intrenched, near Broad River, within cannon-range of the railroad.” The officer hastened to assure Sherman that the warehouses at Port Royal contained “ample supplies…awaiting your orders.” For his part, Sherman told Foster about the capture of Fort McAllister, indicated his army’s positions, and was, according to Foster, “perfectly sure of capturing Savannah.” Sherman’s shopping list included bread, sugar, coffee, and heavy-caliber siege guns. Foster added that twenty tons of mail were at Port Royal awaiting delivery to his men.

  From the moment he arrived before Savannah, until just a few hours prior to meeting with Foster, Sherman had been obsessed with taking Fort McAllister. With that accomplished, he immediately segued to a new all-consuming focus: capturing Savannah. The rough plan he shared with Foster would have the bulk of Sherman’s force blocking all western approaches to the city, while one division would be detached to cut off Hardee’s escape route north to Charleston. The staff officer present recollected the strategizing in more colorful terms. Sherman, he wrote the same day of the meeting, “says the city is his sure game and stretches out his arm and claws his bony fingers in the air to illustrate how he had his grip on it.”

  Sherman’s problem now was logistical. Capturing Fort McAllister was a step—albeit an important one—toward setting up the supply pipeline. The Ogeechee River still needed to be swept clear of torpedoes, and obstructions had to be removed, plus a flotilla of shallow-draft craft was necessary to carry the goods as far as King’s Bridge, where Sherman expected to establish his distribution hub. Getting the navy’s help was, as Sherman put it, “indispensable.” He agreed to journey with Foster into Ossabaw Sound in the hope of meeting the commander of the blockading squadron, Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren.

  The fifty-five-year-old naval officer was on station outside Savannah, supervising the placement of buoys to guide an attack in which he was planning to use his ironclads. At 8:00 A.M., after being informed that communications had been opened with Sherman, he made the decision to steam down to Ossabaw Sound in his flag
ship, the USS Harvest Moon. Not long after reaching the sound, he spotted Major General Foster’s steamer and learned that Sherman was aboard. “Anchored immediately,” Dahlgren wrote in his diary, “and in a few minutes the steamer came alongside, and I jumped aboard, walked into the cabin, and met General Sherman.” The rear admiral, quite Sherman’s equal when it came to self-confidence and vanity, added: “He had left his army to see me.”

  “I was not personally acquainted with him at the time,” reflected Sherman, “but he was so extremely kind and courteous that I was at once attracted to him.” Dahlgren had come to his sea command through his brilliance at a Washington desk job as director of naval ordnance development and manufacture, a position that placed him in regular contact with President Lincoln, who took a personal interest in furthering his career. His appointment to take command of the South Atlantic Squadron had been over the objections of the secretary of the navy, backed by many serving admirals who felt that Dahlgren had not earned his spurs. Like his predecessor, Dahlgren had been unable to conquer Charleston from the sea, so it is not improbable that he saw a partnership with Sherman to capture Savannah as beneficial to his record of achievement.

  According to Sherman, “There was nothing in his power, he said, which he would not do to assist us, to make our campaign absolutely successful.” The rear admiral could not have been more cordial, even when Sherman touched a traditional rivalry by commenting that his “division had just walked into McAllister…, but that no ships could have taken it, so powerfully was it fortified toward the water.”