Sherman's March to the Sea (1864): Real Total War Strategy

Military History: The US Civil War

Chapter 8 · Sherman's March to the Sea (1864): Real Total War Strategy

Chapter 7 ended with Grant rising to command all Union armies. His plan for 1864 was simple: attack everywhere at once, so the Confederacy couldn't move troops from one crisis to another. While Grant took on Lee in Virginia (Chapter 9), his closest partner, William Tecumseh Sherman, drove into the Deep South. What Sherman did next is still argued over today.

First, Atlanta

From May to August 1864 Sherman fought his way from Tennessee toward Atlanta, Georgia, a major railroad hub and manufacturing centre. It was a campaign of manoeuvre: Sherman kept moving around the flanks of Joseph Johnston's Confederate army, which kept falling back. Frustrated, Jefferson Davis replaced Johnston with the more aggressive John Bell Hood, who attacked and lost heavily.

"Atlanta Is Ours, and Fairly Won" — 2 September 1864

After Sherman cut its last railroad, Hood abandoned Atlanta. The timing mattered enormously. In summer 1864, with casualties soaring in Virginia, many Northerners, and even Lincoln himself, expected him to lose the November election to George McClellan, the Democratic candidate running on a platform that called for peace talks. The fall of Atlanta changed the mood. Lincoln was re-elected in November.

A Military Victory That Was Really Political Chapter 1 noted the Confederacy only needed to outlast the North's will to fight. Atlanta is where that hope effectively died: with Lincoln re-elected, there would be no negotiated peace.

The Plan: Leave the Enemy Army Behind

Hood took his army north into Tennessee, hoping to draw Sherman after him. Sherman did something unusual: he sent part of his force back to defend Tennessee under George Thomas, and with the rest — about 62,000 men — he cut his supply line completely and marched toward the Atlantic coast.

No Supply Line

Where Grant had only reduced his supply line at Vicksburg (Chapter 7), Sherman abandoned his altogether. His army would eat what it found in the countryside.

A Wide Path

The army marched in two wings across a band of Georgia roughly 60 miles wide, covering about 300 miles from Atlanta to Savannah.

The Real Target

Not a Confederate army, but the South's ability to wage war: its railroads, factories, food, and belief that the Confederacy could protect its own people.

Hood Is Destroyed Anyway Hood's invasion of Tennessee ended in disaster: a suicidal frontal attack at Franklin (30 November 1864), then near-destruction by Thomas at Nashville (15–16 December). Sherman's gamble that Thomas could handle Hood alone paid off.

The March: 15 November – 21 December 1864

Sherman's orders (Special Field Orders No. 120) told the army to "forage liberally," but also said soldiers weren't to enter private homes, and that destroying property should depend on whether locals resisted. In practice, discipline was loose. Groups of foragers, nicknamed "bummers," often took far more than food, looted houses, and were joined by deserters and outlaws from both sides.

What was destroyed	Detail
Railroads	About 300 miles. Rails were heated over bonfires of the wooden ties and twisted around trees so they couldn't simply be straightened and reused — "Sherman's neckties"
Food and animals	Thousands of horses, mules, and cattle, and millions of pounds of grain and other food
Industry	Cotton gins and mills, depots, and anything useful to the Confederate war effort
Total damage	Sherman himself estimated $100 million, of which he said only about a fifth was of real military value; the rest was "simple waste and destruction"

"Total War" or "Hard War"? The march is often called the first example of "total war." Many historians, notably Mark Grimsley, prefer the term "hard war": Sherman's army destroyed property and supplies on a huge scale, but civilians were very rarely killed, and there was no systematic violence against the population. It was devastating and frightening, but it wasn't the indiscriminate killing of civilians that "total war" came to mean in the 20th century.

Sherman in His Own Words

Sherman explained his thinking bluntly: "We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war." Replying to Atlanta's mayor in 1864, he wrote that "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." The shorter phrase "War is hell" is usually traced to a speech he gave years later, in 1879, as remembered by people in the audience.

The People Who Followed the Army

Tens of thousands of enslaved people left the plantations to follow Sherman's columns to freedom. For an army that had cut its supply line, they were a real burden, and many Union officers didn't want them.

Ebenezer Creek, December 1864 At Ebenezer Creek near Savannah, Union General Jefferson C. Davis (no relation to the Confederate president) had the army's pontoon bridge taken up after his troops crossed, stranding hundreds of freedpeople on the far bank as Confederate cavalry approached. Many drowned trying to swim across; others were captured and returned to slavery. It caused outrage in the North.

"Forty Acres" In January 1865, partly in response, Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 15, setting aside confiscated coastal land for freed families in plots of up to 40 acres — the origin of the phrase "forty acres and a mule." After the war, President Andrew Johnson reversed the policy and most of the land was returned to its former owners. The rest of that story belongs to US History.

Savannah and the Carolinas

21 December 1864 Savannah is taken almost without a fight. Sherman telegraphs Lincoln, offering him the city "as a Christmas gift."
January–March 1865 Sherman marches north through South Carolina — where secession began (Chapter 2) — and the destruction is noticeably harsher.
17 February 1865 Much of Columbia, South Carolina's capital, burns. Who started the fire is still disputed: burning cotton left by retreating Confederates, drunken Union soldiers, and high winds all played some part.
March–April 1865 Sherman moves into North Carolina, closing in on Joseph Johnston's last remaining army.

What the March Proved Sherman's army crossed the heart of the Confederacy almost unopposed. The Confederate government could no longer protect its own territory or people, and letters from home made that clear to Lee's soldiers in Virginia, where desertion rose sharply that winter. The march did more to break Confederate morale than to destroy Confederate armies.

Questions to Sit With

Was the capture of Atlanta more important for its military value or its effect on the election? Can the two be separated?

Is "hard war" a meaningful distinction from "total war," or does it soften something that was genuinely brutal for the people who lived through it?

How did the march treat the freedpeople who followed it, and what does Ebenezer Creek reveal about the Union army's attitudes?

Quick Reference — Chapter 8

Grant's 1864 strategy: attack everywhere at once; Sherman advanced on Atlanta while Grant faced Lee
Atlanta fell on 2 September 1864, turning Northern opinion and helping Lincoln win re-election in November
Sherman left Hood behind (Hood was crushed at Franklin and Nashville) and marched about 62,000 men 300 miles to the sea, 15 November – 21 December 1864, with no supply line
About 300 miles of railroad were destroyed ("Sherman's neckties"); Sherman estimated $100 million in damage, only about a fifth of it militarily useful
Historians debate "total war" vs "hard war": property destruction was vast, but civilians were rarely killed
Ebenezer Creek stranded hundreds of freedpeople; Special Field Orders No. 15 (January 1865) promised 40-acre plots, later reversed
Savannah fell on 21 December ("a Christmas gift"); the march continued through the Carolinas, where Columbia burned in February 1865

What's Next

Chapter 9: Grant vs. Lee: The Overland Campaign & the Real Road to Appomattox (1865).