150th Anniversary of Sherman's March

[Dan T.]

On November 16, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman left a destroyed Atlanta, Georgia to begin his "March to the Sea," during which he cut a 200 mile swatch of destruction through the heart of the American South ending 5 weeks later in Savannah. Sherman's bold feat saved Lincoln's presidency, shortened the war, and earned the eternal enmity of an entrenched segment of the American Southern population

In commemoration of the anniversary the New York Times published a piece by Civil War historian Phil Leigh, entitled "Who Burned Atlanta," which chides Sherman for the destruction of Atlanta prior to the march.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/who-burned-atlanta/?_r=1

In response, blogger Gary Brecher, "The War Nerd," penned a scathing rebuttal.

http://pando.com/2014/11/20/the-war-nerd-why-sherman-was-right-to-burn-atlanta/

Both are impassioned, interesting reads...

[Slateman]

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Funny, just read something about some memorial in Atlanta across the street from Jimmy Carter's library that actually commemorates Sherman. Like last week. Guess it was for the anniversary (don't really remember where/how/why I read it). But yeah, basically argued that Sherman gets a bad rap. Today people's negative opinion is based entirely on Gone with the Wind and that Sherman did absolutely nothing wrong, nothing we would consider a war crime.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Sherman was actually welcomed back as speaker in the South on many occassions after the War. He was not considered a war criminal at all, and was basically treated as a worthy opponent who was still serving his country nobly.

 

It was pretty long after Reconstruction when the myth of "The Lost Cause" really took hold in The South that Sherman became a villain.

 

If you study the March to the Sea, what really stands out is how the destruction pales in comparison to what any kind of similar military action would have looked like in any other country in human history.

[Old Bay]

Second fella could've done a lot better by not calling names.  He's got a valid argument but I couldn't read most of it because of his insults.  Give me reasoning without that, please.

[The 12th Commandment]

Sherman was trying, in everything he did, to wake these idiots from their delusion. That’s why they hate Sherman so much, 150 years after his campaign ended in total success: Because he interrupted their silly and sadistic dreams, humiliated them in the most vulnerable part of their weird anatomy, their sense of valorous superiority. Sherman didn’t wipe out the white South, though he could easily have done so; he was, in fact, very mild toward a treasonous population that regularly sniped at and ambushed his troops. But what he did was demonstrate the impotence of the South’s Planter males.

Very well thought out and apropo insults, IMO. Almost ironic.

[Dan T.]

I may have to do a little reading up on Bill Sherman. My reading about the war has focused more on the northern campaigns. Has anyone read a good biography about him they would recommend?

[endzone_dave]

I may have to do a little reading up on Bill Sherman. My reading about the war has focused more on the northern campaigns. Has anyone read a good biography about him they would recommend?

 

His memoirs are a pretty good read.

 

Sherman pretty much kicked ass.  He didn't play around.

[Dan T.]

Sherman was a smart guy. Soon after South Carolina seceded, in a letter to a friend he wrote this:

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.

which just about perfectly described the course of the next 5 years.

[Old Bay]

I've never read a bio of Sherman, but Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea is a very good book about this subject.  I had a 3x great grandfather in the 18th Kentucky Infantry that was with Sherman (so far as I can tell). 

[thebluefood]

Got around to seeing Ken Burns Civil War mini-series a few weeks ago. Certainly gave me a renewed respect for Sherman. One of my favorite quotes from the series supposedly came from a soldier in Sherman's Army when they finally made their way to South Carolina.

 

"Here is where treason began and, by God, here is where it will end!"

Sherman was a smart guy. Soon after South Carolina seceded, in a letter to a friend he wrote this:

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.

which just about perfectly described the course of the next 5 years.

Sherman was also one of the few people in the North that predicted the war would be long and bloody. No one believed him, as people took the war so lightly at first that people had picnics at the Battle of Bull Run. Sherman's efforts saved this country.

[Dan T.]

Sherman was also one of the few people in the North that predicted the war would be long and bloody. No one believed him, as people took the war so lightly at first that people had picnics at the Battle of Bull Run. Sherman's efforts, both in war saved this country.

He laughed bitterly at Lincoln's call for 3-month Army volunteers to put down the rebellion, commenting "Why, you might as well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun."

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Got around to seeing Ken Burns Civil War mini-series a few weeks ago. Certainly gave me a renewed respect for Sherman. One of my favorite quotes from the series supposedly came from a soldier in Sherman's Army when they finally made their way to South Carolina.

 

"Here is where treason began and, by God, here is where it will end!"

 

Sherman's March to the Sea is what got the songs and poems and stories. But that was a picnic compared to his march from Savannah to Columbia. People have debated for 150 years who burned Atlanta, but it doesn't seem like that was Sherman's intent. And Savannah was left standing when he his soldiers left. They treated Georgia with kids' gloves all things considered.

 

South Carolina was burned to the ground, and no one in command seemed too interested in stopping it. Everyone - including Sherman - seemed to blame the entire war on South Carolina and wanted to punish it. I think his line was that he didn't order Columbia to be burned, but he didn't care that it happened.

 

Once they reached North Carolina, the army started to behave itself again. And by the time he reached Grant, they were on their best behavior.

[Predicto]

Sherman was actually welcomed back as speaker in the South on many occassions after the War. He was not considered a war criminal at all, and was basically treated as a worthy opponent who was still serving his country nobly.

 

It was pretty long after Reconstruction when the myth of "The Lost Cause" really took hold in The South that Sherman became a villain.

 

If you study the March to the Sea, what really stands out is how the destruction pales in comparison to what any kind of similar military action would have looked like in any other country in human history.

 

 

This deserves to be re-quoted.   Sherman is remembered as a villain in the South because of the revisionist effort to justify the Confederacy that began 25 years after the war ended.  He is a villain only if you think that "Birth of a Nation" was a documentary and the South was fighting about tariffs, states rights and "gallantry," rather than to defend slavery.  

 

The determined efforts of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to rewrite history and make sure that their romanticized version of the story was the only one taught to Southern schoolchildren using separate, UDC-approved textbooks went on for a century and it has turned out to be very effective.    People still believe it today.

[PF Chang]

This deserves to be re-quoted.   Sherman is remembered as a villain in the South because of the revisionist effort to justify the Confederacy that began 25 years after the war ended.  He is a villain only if you think that "Birth of a Nation" was a documentary and the South was fighting about tariffs, states rights and "gallantry," rather than to defend slavery.  

 

The determined efforts of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to rewrite history and make sure that their romanticized version of the story was the only one taught to Southern schoolchildren using separate, UDC-approved textbooks went on for a century and it has turned out to be very effective.    People still believe it today.

 

That's the angle that was pushed on my class in high school in central PA. Of course, "Pennsyltucky" and all applies, but I never got the sense that anyone was being intentionally misleading. They all really believed it. It's defended under that umbrella of "let's present everyone's viewpoint" but of course isn't executed that way. Not to mention that some viewpoints simply don't hold up under analysis. 

 

There was another Civil War thread here recently where I was essentially educated for the first time on the actual causes of the war. It was a very unsettling feeling and now I wonder what other history lessons were politicized. 

[Predicto]

That's the angle that was pushed on my class in high school in central PA. Of course, "Pennsyltucky" and all applies, but I never got the sense that anyone was being intentionally misleading. They all really believed it. It's defended under that umbrella of "let's present everyone's viewpoint" but of course isn't executed that way. Not to mention that some viewpoints simply don't hold up under analysis. 

 

There was another Civil War thread here recently where I was essentially educated for the first time on the actual causes of the war. It was a very unsettling feeling and now I wonder what other history lessons were politicized. 

 

 

In this country, there has never been any effort to rewrite history anything close to as systematic and effective as Lost Cause confederacy revisionism.   History is always slightly colored, there are always nuances, but nothing in our history is colored anything close to that level.

 

Southern students learned about the Civil War the way Japanese students learned about WWII.  Or the way Serbian students today learn about their recent history.   From the point of view of a losing side doing everything it can to justify its actions and turn itself into the "good guy," facts be damned.         

[Dan T.]

I learned today about "Sherman's Neckties." In order to cripple Southern railroads - and thus disrupt supply, transport, and communication lines - he had Union troops rip up the iron rails. He sent out an order that detailed how to do so.: 

"...Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again. Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral."

 

The resulting twisted iron rails left behind, often bent around a nearby tree, resembled neckties.  It proved an effective strategy against the iron starved South

 

This photo shows union men, on the left, wielding crowbars, bending heated iron rails:

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I learned today about "Sherman's Neckties." In order to cripple Southern railroads - and thus disrupt supply, transport, and communication lines - he had Union troops rip up the iron rails. He sent out an order that detailed how to do so.: 

"...Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again. Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral."

 

The resulting twisted iron rails left behind, often bent around a nearby tree, resembled neckties.  It proved an effective strategy against the iron starved South

 

This photo shows union men, on the left, wielding crowbars, bending heated iron rails:

 

 

 

I'm nof going to dig for this, but one of the interesting things I read years ago is that Sherman caused the fall of Charleston without every getting anywhere near Charleston on his march through the Carolinas. He simply marched across all its rail lines, which effectively ended any hope of supplying its defenders and it fell almost immediately thereafter.

 

Another book I read made a fascinating point. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Henry V, George Washington, and Napoleon all moved men and supplies at exactly the same speed. At the first Battle of Bull Run, that speed changed as that was the first battle were reinforcements arrived by rail.

 

Sherman seem to instinctively understand how to use (and destroy) railroads better than any General in the war.

[Going Commando]

I get the point about horse and manpower being made. But there is significant difference in the mobility of pre-rail armies to be acknowledged because it helps give you an understanding of the nature of a fighting force.

For instance, I bet Alexander moved his armies at much faster average rates than those other commanders. He made 40+ mile a day marches and probably averaged well over 20 miles a day on some of his campaigns. His armies appear unfathomably fit, professional, and well motivated from a modern viewpoint. And small. I think I remember learning their average size was like 5'4 130 pounds. And their kits would weigh like 70+ pounds. You get a sense that soldiering had a profound impact on the lives of ancient warriors when you realize how much expertise it took, how long it must have taken to gain, and how much it shaped their bodies.

Also seeing how special the mobility and sheer logistical virtuosity of that army was helps you understand how they conquered such a large amount of territory in ten years. It's also a testament to how good the Persian infrastructure already in place was.

It's amazing how much the Macedonians accomplished in such a short time. Alexander was 18 when he started conquering Asia. They didn't waste any time at all.

[Going Commando]

BTW, the second article is trash and looks particularly bad juxtaposed to the NYT op/ed. That one is not history. Not even close. It's just a bunch of snark with arguments that amount to little more than ****y ad hominem attacks.

[Jumbo]

We had a nice picnic with honest to gosh mint juleps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(too soon?)

[Going Commando]

One thing real historians, unlike that war nerd hack, learn to do is to generally avoid passing moral judgments on figures and actions and indeed whole cultures from the past. Hagiography is, obviously, to be avoided. That's what lost cause Confederate apologist pseudo-historians engaged in with Southern leaders, and, ironically, what the war nerd hack is engaging in with Sherman.

Hagiography is not the same thing as claiming a figure was a genius/visionary and detailing how that was true either.

Anyway, making sweeping moral judgments about the past like the war nerd hack does is problematic because it's really really hard to truly understand the context of events from the past and can take a lifetime of work to do so. That's why real historians try and avoid doing it. Otherwise you can end up with a lot of ignorant, lazy crap like what the war nerd hack wrote.

[zoony]

One thing real historians, unlike that war nerd hack, learn to do is to generally avoid passing moral judgments on figures and actions and indeed whole cultures from the past. Hagiography is, obviously, to be avoided. That's what lost cause Confederate apologist pseudo-historians engaged in with Southern leaders, and, ironically, what the war nerd hack is engaging in with Sherman.Hagiography is not the same thing as claiming a figure was a genius/visionary and detailing how that was true either.Anyway, making sweeping moral judgments about the past like the war nerd hack does is problematic because it's really really hard to truly understand the context of events from the past and can take a lifetime of work to do so. That's why real historians try and avoid doing it. Otherwise you can end up with a lot of ignorant, lazy crap like what the war nerd hack wrote.

It always makes the civil war threads entertaining. Bourgeoisie Internet warriors comfortably passing judgement from their work cubicles on entire swaths of humanity

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

It always makes the civil war threads entertaining. Bourgeoisie Internet warriors comfortably passing judgement from their work cubicles on entire swaths of humanity

 

I tend to avoid passing judgment on Confederates.

 

Neo-confederates....all bets are off.

[twa]

he wasn't as incompetent as many of the Union leaders....whether that is a good thing I'll leave to history