On 7th
May Ulysses S. Grant gave William
Sherman the task of destroying the Confederate
Army in Tennessee. Joseph E. Johnston
and his army retreated and after some brief skirmishes the two sides
fought at Resaca (14th May), Adairsvile (17th May), New Hope Church
(25th May), Kennesaw Mountain (27th June) and Marietta (2nd July).
Sherman decided to deprive the South of its resources. He cut a swathe
of destruction 60 miles wide and 40 miles wide. Sherman commented:
"If the people of Georgia raise a howl against my barbarity and
cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking."
His forces moved fast covering 450 miles in 50 days.
President Jefferson Davis was unhappy
about Johnson's withdrawal policy and on 17th July replaced him with
the more aggressive John Hood. He immediately
went on the attack and hit George H. Thomas
and his men at Peachtree Creek. Hood was badly beaten and lost 2,500
men. Two days later he took on William
Sherman at Atlanta and lost another 8,000 men.
The Union Army gradually cut off supplies
to Atlanta from the South and John Hood
eventually decided to abandon the city on 1st September, 1864. The
following day William Sherman entered
Atlanta and set fire to it.
Photograph
by George N. Barnard of Union
Army
troops pulling up railroad tracks in Atlanta
(1864)
(1)
Orders issued by William
Sherman before his Atlanta Campaign (9th November, 1864)
The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To
this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient
foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers,
who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind,
meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by
the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten
days' provisions for his command, aiming at all times to keep in the
wagons at least ten days' provisions for his command, and three days'
forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings they may be permitted
to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in
stock in sight of their camp.
To corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills,
houses, cotton-gins, etc.; and for them the general principle is laid
down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested,
no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas
or bush-whackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn
bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then
army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less
relentless, according to the measure of such hostility. As for horses,
mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and
artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating,
however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor and
industrious, usually neutral or friendly.
(2)
William Sherman wrote about his Atlanta
Campaign in his Memoirs published in 1875.
The skill and success of the men in collecting forage was
one of the features of this march. Each brigade commander had authority
to detail a company of foragers, usually about fifty men, with one
or two commissioned officers selected for their boldness and enterprise.
This party would be dispatched before daylight with a knowledge of
the intended day's march and camp; would proceed on foot five or six
miles from the route traveled by their brigade, and then visit every
plantation and farm within range. They would usually procure a wagon
or family carriage, load it with bacon, corn-meal, turkeys, chickens,
ducks, and every thing that could be used as food or forage, and would
then regain the main road, usually in advance of their train. No doubt,
many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence, were committed by these
parties of foragers, 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
cases of murder or rape; and no army could have carried along sufficient
food and forage for a march of three hundred miles; so that foraging
in some shape was necessary.
(3)
Statement issued by the members of the Georgia Congress (19th November,
1864)
We have had a special conference with President Davis and the
Secretary of War, and are able to assure you that they have done and
are still doing all that can be done to meet the emergency that presses
upon you. Let every man fly to arms! Remove your negroes, horses,
cattle, and provisions from Sherman's army, and burn what you cannot
carry. Burn all bridges, and block up the roads in his route. Assail
the invader in front, flank, and rear, by night and by day. Let him
have no rest.
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