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The Story of the Great March
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Historical Summary"TO introduce into the philosophy of war a principle of moderation would be an absurdity," declared Clausewitz. "War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost hounds." To the South no campaign of the invaders lived up to this concept as fully as Sherman’s march to the sea. In reality this was a brilliant tactical move—a flank attack made possible by Grant’s fixing of the enemy’s main forces when he crossed the Rapidan. The original objective was the railroad center of Atlanta. When Hood, "a man who would fight," replaced Johnston, whose brilliant Fabian tactics had stalled Sherman’s advance, the South suffered a series of military setbacks. Sherman cut Atlanta’s communications and supplies and forced Hood to evacuate the city. Instead of following the Confederate general into Tennessee, Sherman contented himself with sending a strong detachment in pursuit, but with the main body of his troops he carried out the bold plan of cutting loose from his base of supplies and marching southeast from Atlanta to the sea. The hazards of this venture are best described in Sherman’s own words from his Memoirs, the first selection that follows. Sherman cut a swath to the sea, three hundred miles in length, sixty in width. Wrecked railroads, burned bridges, gutted plantation houses, smashed bureaus, broken trunks, and depleted livestock were left in his wake. His soldiers were ordered to "forage liberally on the country," and wild looting resulted. As Sherman himself confessed: "No doubt many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence were committed by these parties of foragers, usually called ’bummers’; for I have since heard of jewelry taken from women, and the plunder of articles that never reached the commissary; but these acts were exceptional and incidental. I never heard of any eases of murder or rape." Nevertheless, the roads were crowded with refugees, and the woods and swamps concealed others who lived in terror of their lives. One of these refugees, Joseph Le Conte, records in his "Journal" of entering Columbia, South Carolina, and finding "not a house remaining; only the tall chimneys standing gaunt and spectral, and empty brick wails with vacant windows like death-heads with eyeless sockets." The burning of Columbia occurred in the second phase of Sherman’s campaign. After capturing Savannah, Sherman turned northward, crossing into South Carolina to take Lee from the rear. Arson and pillage marked the South Carolina campaign. A Union army chaplain recorded, under date of Februry 2, 1865: "Today passed a splendid mansion. In front was a most beautiful flower garden. In the several rooms was furniture of the costliest kind. I noticed a very fine piano, chairs, mirror, etc. But in a short time, all was demolished, and the mansion was fired, but just about this time, General Ward came up, and ordered the fire put out. While this was being done, the torch was applied in another part of the house, and while this second fire was being extinguished, the match was applied in the garret, and the house was soon one grand mass of flames. "It seems sad to burn such beautiful residences, but our boys reason in this wise, and reason correctly, too, I think. The wealthy people of the South were the very ones to plunge this country into secession. Now let them suffer. Let South Carolina aristocracy have its fill of secession." On the night of February 17, 1865, Columbia was largely destroyed by fire. Southerners charged that this was a deliberate act on Sherman’s part. The Union general placed the blame on Wade Hampton, who commanded the Confederate rear-guard cavalry, and ordered all cotton moved into the streets and fired to prevent the invaders from making use of it. "I disclaim on the part of my army any agency in this fire," Sherman stoutly affirmed. Wade Hampton admitted that he burned the bridge and the railroad depots, but declared that he had countermanded an order to burn the cotton. In any event the cotton constituted a dangerous fire hazard. The Northern journalist, Pike, stated that the exasperated Union troops set additional fires when they entered the burning city. While the exact truth will never be ascertained, the account by Major George Ward Nichols, Sherman’s aide-de-camp and a brilliant journalist, is probably as close to the facts as we will ever get. This eyewitness story follows General Sherman’s own account of the march and is an excerpt from Nichols’ Story of the Great March, published in 1865. The accounts of General Sherman and Major Nichols serve to re-create for us the flight of Scarlett O’Hara and Melanie Wilkes from Atlanta and their return to a mined world.
Key QuoteTo "make Georgia howl" a hard-bitten Union general heaps fire, waste, destruction, and misery on the South: "We do not war against women and children and helpless persons."
Brevet Major George Ward Nichols
New York
1865
Sherman Marches to the Sea
[1864]
II
I began today’s record early in the evening, and while writing I noticed an unusual glare in the sky, and heard a sound of running to and fro in the streets, with the loud talk of servants that the horses must be removed to a safer place. Running out, I found, to my surprise and real sorrow, that the central part of the city, including the main business street, was in flames, while the wind, which had been blowing a hurricane all day, was driving the sparks and cinders in heavy masses over the eastern portion of the city, where the finest residences are situated. These buildings, all wooden, were instantly ignited by the flying sparks. In half an hour the conflagration was raging in every direction, and but for a providential change of the wind to the south and west, the whole city would in a few hours have been laid in ashes.
As it is, several hundred buildings, including the old State House, one or two churches, most of the carved work stored in the sheds round about the new capitol, and a large number of public storehouses, have been destroyed. In some of the public build-hags the Rebels had stored shot, shell, and other ammunition, and when the flames reached these magazines we had the Atlanta experience over again—the smothered boom, the huge columns of fire shooting heavenward, the red-hot iron flying here and there.
But there was one feature, pitiable indeed, which we did not find at Atlanta. Groups of men, women, and children were gathered in the streets and squares, huddled together over a trunk, a mattress, or a bundle of clothes. Our soldiers were at work with a will, removing household goods from the dwellings which were in the track of flames, and here and there extinguishing the fire when there was hope of saving a building. General Sherman and his officers worked with their own hands until long after midnight, trying to save life and property. The house taken for headquarters is now filled with old men, women, and children who have been driven from their homes by a more pitiless enemy than the detested "Yankees."
Various causes are assigned the origin of the fire. I am quite sure that it originated in sparks flying from the hundreds of bales of cotton which the Rebels had placed along the middle of the main street, and fired as they left the city. Fire from a tightly-compressed bale of cotton is unlike that of a more open material, which burns itself out. The fire lies smouldering in a bale of cotton long after it appears to be extinguished; and in this instance, when our soldiers supposed they had extinguished the fire, it suddenly broke out again with the most disastrous effect.
There are fires, however, which must have been started independent of the above-named cause. The source of these is ascribed to the desire for revenge from some two hundred of our prisoners, who had escaped from the cars as they were being conveyed from this city to Charlotte, and, with the memories of long sufferings in the miserable pens I visited yesterday on the other side of the river, sought this
means of retaliation. Again, it is said that the soldiers who first entered the town, intoxicated with success and a liberal supply of bad liquor, which was freely distributed among them by designing citizens, in an insanity of exhilaration set fire to unoccupied houses.
Whatever may have been the Cause of the disaster, the direful result is deprecated by General Sherman most emphatically; for however heinous the crimes of this people against our common country, we do not war against women and children and helpless persons.
Contents:
Chicago: George Ward Nichols, "Sherman Marches to the Sea—II," The Story of the Great March, ed. Brevet Major George Ward Nichols in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed November 23, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L2XEQ833IL37R5L.
MLA: Nichols, George Ward. "Sherman Marches to the Sea—II." The Story of the Great March, edited by Brevet Major George Ward Nichols, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 23 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L2XEQ833IL37R5L.
Harvard: Nichols, GW, 'Sherman Marches to the Sea—II' in The Story of the Great March, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 23 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=L2XEQ833IL37R5L.
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