Sherman's army burns everything from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga.Sherman's army burns everything from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga.Sherman's army burns everything from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga.
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
War of Plunder
Historians call Sherman 'the father of total warfare' - a distinction viewed rather differently, according to which side you're on. His job was to shorten the war, and there is no question that he saved America from many months of futile combat. To the North, he was the heroic saviour of the union. To the South, he was a monster of cruelty and wanton destructiveness. This programme evaluates both views, and seems to conclude that it is the Southern one that has festered into a grotesque mythology, quite unconfirmed by the facts. (A professor from Mississippi State University heard one claim that Sherman destroyed a farm a hundred miles off his route.)
Most of the horror-stories can be rationalised as what Cromwell called 'cruel necessity'. The Confederates had wrecked Sherman's supply-line, so his army would have to live off the land, and the standing order was "Forage liberally". Sherman was actually quite puritan in his way, and strictly forbade offences against the person. Any violence, especially against women, was usually the work of the rag-bag of deserters from both sides who rode alongside the army for the sake of the forage, which they had a hand in collecting.
More heartbreaking was the plight of the slaves - simple, trusting folk who crowded around the troops who had liberated them. But what could be done with all these unskilled people with their extended families? They could only impede the march, which was moving into less fertile country anyway. The brigadier who dismantled a pontoon-bridge at Ebenezer Creek to prevent the slaves from following the army, leaving them with a choice of drowning or facing the murderous Confederate cavalry behind them, can actually be shown to have had little choice.
This edition of Civil War Journal on the History Channel differs from other videos about the March to the Sea by including the fall of Atlanta that preceded it and the Carolinas campaign that followed it. This somewhat distracts from the main topic, though the narrative and the commentary are fortunately strong enough to hold the attention. (And at least we are spared yet another lusty refrain of 'Marching Through Georgia', a tune that would follow him wherever he went, and which he learned to loathe.) Meanwhile he gets credit, not only for devising the whole risky scheme but for selling it to a sceptical Grant and Lincoln. But I wish that one of these videos would explain why Sherman didn't simply capture the small Confederate army in Savannah, when it was in the palm of his hand, instead of allowing it to escape into Carolina, where he then had to spend many weeks pursuing it. Last word goes to an Afro-American from Washington and Lee University who said he would rather witness the destruction of property than the destruction of humans.
Most of the horror-stories can be rationalised as what Cromwell called 'cruel necessity'. The Confederates had wrecked Sherman's supply-line, so his army would have to live off the land, and the standing order was "Forage liberally". Sherman was actually quite puritan in his way, and strictly forbade offences against the person. Any violence, especially against women, was usually the work of the rag-bag of deserters from both sides who rode alongside the army for the sake of the forage, which they had a hand in collecting.
More heartbreaking was the plight of the slaves - simple, trusting folk who crowded around the troops who had liberated them. But what could be done with all these unskilled people with their extended families? They could only impede the march, which was moving into less fertile country anyway. The brigadier who dismantled a pontoon-bridge at Ebenezer Creek to prevent the slaves from following the army, leaving them with a choice of drowning or facing the murderous Confederate cavalry behind them, can actually be shown to have had little choice.
This edition of Civil War Journal on the History Channel differs from other videos about the March to the Sea by including the fall of Atlanta that preceded it and the Carolinas campaign that followed it. This somewhat distracts from the main topic, though the narrative and the commentary are fortunately strong enough to hold the attention. (And at least we are spared yet another lusty refrain of 'Marching Through Georgia', a tune that would follow him wherever he went, and which he learned to loathe.) Meanwhile he gets credit, not only for devising the whole risky scheme but for selling it to a sceptical Grant and Lincoln. But I wish that one of these videos would explain why Sherman didn't simply capture the small Confederate army in Savannah, when it was in the palm of his hand, instead of allowing it to escape into Carolina, where he then had to spend many weeks pursuing it. Last word goes to an Afro-American from Washington and Lee University who said he would rather witness the destruction of property than the destruction of humans.
- Goingbegging
- Mar 11, 2018
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime1 hour
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content