As troops of Major-General William T. Sherman’s Federal armies herded the civilians out of Atlanta, Sherman reported to General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, “The exodus of people is progressing and matters coming into shape.” Sherman received congratulations from Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck on September 16:
“I have watched your movements most attentively and critically, and I do not hesitate to say that your campaign has been the most brilliant of the war. Its results are less striking and less complete than those of General Grant at Vicksburg, but then you have had greater difficulties to encounter, a longer line of communications to keep up, and a longer and more continuous strain upon yourself and upon your army.”
Grant sent congratulations as well, but he also noted that it was “desirable that another campaign should be commenced… We want to keep the enemy constantly pressed to the end of the war. If we give him no peace while the war lasts, the end cannot be distant.”
Grant had hoped that Major-General E.R.S. Canby, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, could send troops east to reinforce Sherman in Georgia. However, Major-General Sterling Price’s Confederate incursion into Missouri prevented that. Instead, Grant proposed sending one of his staff officers to Sherman’s headquarters, “not so much to suggest operations for you as to get your views and have plans matured by the time everything can be ready.”
Colonel Horace Porter of Grant’s staff arrived at Sherman’s headquarters on the 20th to deliver Grant’s congratulations and consult with Sherman on future strategy. Grant was considering sending an army down the Atlantic coast to capture the vital blockade-running seaport of Wilmington, North Carolina. Sherman suggested that if that happened, Grant could send that same fleet down to Savannah, and “I would feel pretty safe in picking up the bulk of this army and moving east, subsisting off the country.”
Such a move might prompt General John Bell Hood, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, to go north and threaten the Federals in Tennessee, but this would not bother Sherman. “I would be willing to give him a free ticket and pay his expenses,” Sherman said, because he could detach a force to stop Hood and at the same time “with the bulk of my army I could cut a swath through to the sea, divide the Confederacy in two, and be able to move up in the rear of (Robert E. Lee’s Confederates at Petersburg, Virginia) or do almost anything else that Grant might require of me.” All that would be needed was a naval force to secure a base on the coast from which Sherman’s army could be supplied.
Sherman wrote a long letter for Porter to deliver to Grant, in which Sherman offered all his ideas and suggestions on not only the Georgia situation but all others as well. He expressed hope that Grant would soon capture Petersburg, and he wrote that overall, “We ought to ask our country for the largest possible armies that can be raised, as so important a thing as the ‘self-existence of a great nation’ should not be left to the fickle chances of war.”
Regarding Grant’s idea of capturing Wilmington, Sherman wrote, “If (Admiral David G. Farragut’s naval fleet) can get across the bar, and the move can be made quick, I suppose it will succeed.” If that happened, the fleet could then move to capture Savannah. If the Federal navy captured Savannah, Sherman stated that he “would not hesitate to cross the State of Georgia with 60,000 men, hauling some stores and depending on the country for the balance.”
Sherman wrote, “Where a million of people live my army won’t starve, but as you know, in a country like Georgia, with few roads and innumerable streams, an inferior force could so delay an army and harass it that it would not be a formidable object.” If the navy held Savannah, “I could rapidly move to Milledgeville, where there is abundance of corn and meat, and would so threaten Macon and Augusta that he would give up Macon for Augusta; then I would move to interpose between Augusta and Savannah, and force him to give me Augusta, with the only powder mills and factories remaining in the South, or let us have the Savannah River.”
According to Sherman, he could “start east and make a circuit south and back (to Atlanta), doing vast damage to the State.” This would “hold a rod over the Georgians who are not overloyal to the South.” However, Sherman also wrote, “The more I study the game the more am I convinced that it would be wrong for me to penetrate much farther into Georgia without an objective beyond.”
This “objective beyond” involved Canby being “reenforced to the maximum; that after you get Wilmington, you strike for Savannah and the (Savannah) River; that General Canby be instructed to hold the Mississippi River and send a force to get Columbus, Ga., either by the way of the Alabama or the Appalachicola, and that I keep Hood employed, and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbia, and Charleston, to be ready as soon as Wilmington is sealed as to commence, and the city of Savannah is in our possession.”
Sherman concluded, “The possession of the Savannah River is more than fatal to the possibility of a Southern independence; they may stand the fall of Richmond, but not of all Georgia… know that I admire your dogged perseverance and pluck more than ever. If you can whip Lee and I can march to the Atlantic, I think Uncle Abe will give us a 20 days’ leave of absence to see the young folks.”
Grant was doubtful because he envisioned the Federal navy focusing on Wilmington, and considering that it had not been able to capture Charleston, he did not think it could capture Savannah. Also, a march of the kind that Sherman proposed had not been done since General Winfield Scott abandoned his supply base at Veracruz and moved inland to capture Mexico City 17 years earlier. Such a move was risky then and would be riskier now. The strategy discussion would continue.
Bibliography
- Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Nevin, David, Sherman’s March: Atlanta to the Sea. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Vol. I. New York: D. Appleton and Co. (Kindle Edition), 1889.