Riding on the wave of his victory at Atlanta, Union General W. T. Sherman abandoned his supply lines in an attempt to push his forces into Confederate territory and take Savannah. During their 285-mile 'March to the Sea' the army lived off the land and destroyed all war-making capabilities of the enemy en route. Despite the controversy surrounding it, the march was a success. Supported by photographs, detailed maps, and artwork, this title explores the key personalities and engagements of the march and provides a detailed analysis of the campaign that marked the 'beginning of the end' of the Civil War.
The first of two volumes. The Atlanta Campaign (May - September 1864) consisted of wide-ranging maneuvers and a series of battles North Georgia during the Civil War with the intent to capture the important city of Atlanta. Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman launched his three-army invasion from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in early May 1864, opposed by Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee. The Confederates fell back toward Atlanta in a series of withdrawals after Sherman's successive flanking maneuvers. Johnston was replaced by the more aggressive Gen. John Bell Hood in mid-July, who turned to a series of attacks to throw back and defeat Sherman on Atlanta's doorstep. The Army of Tennessee was besieged in the city that August and the city fell on September 2. Original well-researched and written essays by leading scholars in the field on a wide variety of fascinating topics. Contains original maps, photos, and illustrations.
After General William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta in September 1864, General John B. Hood's Army of Tennessee regrouped outside the city and countered the grouped outside the city and countered the Federals by attacking northwest, toward Chattanooga. Rebuffed at Allatoona, Hood withdrew into Alabama as Sherman initiated his grand strategy: Leaving General George H. Thomas in Tennessee to deal with Hood, Sherman led his forces from Atlanta on a march southeastward to the sea.
Following a skirmish on June 28, 1864, a truce is called so the North can remove their dead and wounded. For two hours, Yankees and Rebels mingle, with some of the latter even assisting the former in their grisly work. Newspapers are exchanged. Northern coffee is swapped for Southern tobacco. Yanks crowd around two Rebel generals, soliciting and obtaining autographs.
>"I can make this march, and make Georgia howl." -William Tecumseh Sherman The "March to the Sea" shocked Georgians from Atlanta to Savannah. In the late autumn of 1864, as Sherman's troops cut a four-week long path of terror through Georgia, Sherman accomplished his objective: to destroy civilian morale and with it their support for the Confederate cause. His actions elicited a passionate reaction as tales of his dastardly deeds and destruction burned Sherman's name into the Southern psyche. But does the Savannah Campaign deserve the reputation it has been given? In her new book War and Ruin, Anne J. Bailey examines this event and investigates just how much truth is behind the popular historical notions. Bailey contends that the psychological horror rather than the actual physical damage-which was not as devastating as believed-led to the wilting of Southern morale. War and Ruin looks at the "March to the Sea" from its inception in Atlanta to its culmination in Savannah. This fascinating text is a chronicle of not just the campaign itself, but also a revealing description of how the people of Georgia were affected. War and Ruin brilliantly combines military history and human interest to achieve a convincing portrayal of what really happened in Sherman's epic effort to smash the Confederate spirit in Georgia.
By the time Albert Castel's Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 appeared in 1992, Savas Woodbury Publishers had already made important contributions to the campaign scholarship by publishing a collection of original essays by some of the field's most noted authors, including Steven Woodworth, writing about the Confederacy's command options in the Winter of 1863-64. Editors Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury next assembled another group of articles that included such luminaries as Richard McMurry and William R. Scaife. The pair of paperbacks were published together in 1994 in a special hardcover edition with fold-out maps entitled The Campaign for Atlanta & Sherman's March to the Sea, Volumes I and II. Now, almost three decades later, Savas Beatie proudly announces the publication of its third volume in the series. Once again, cutting-edge scholarship is presented in such essays as Brian Wills' "Forrest and Atlanta" and Larry Daniel's "The Adairsville Affair." Stephen Davis wonders why the battle of Jonesboro (August 31-September 1) still draws so much attention when Federal troops had already cut Hood's last railroad line into Atlanta, sealing the fate of the city even before the battle had begun. Additional essays address the impact of Sherman's campaigns on Georgia women, Joe Johnston's self-aggrandizing campaign accounts, and more. Like its predecessors, The Campaign for Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea, Volume 3 will be highly sought by students of the campaign, and western theatrists in general.
Providing a balanced interpretation of one of the most infamous campaigns of the American Civil War, this book addresses the realities of the March to the Sea that are too often shrouded in myths and misperceptions.
