Major-General William T. Sherman’s plan to advance his two Federal armies from Atlanta to the sea was in motion. On November 10, Sherman issued orders for all units performing garrison duty throughout northern Georgia to head to Atlanta after destroying “all the mills, factories, etc., that could be useful to the enemy.” The Federals also destroyed the Western & Atlantic Railroad connecting Atlanta to Chattanooga.
Troops wrote their last letters home before communications with the North were cut. They would have no more contact with families and friends until they reached the sea. The last trains full of sick and wounded Federals headed north, and one of the final wires received from the home front announced President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection. The soldiers loudly cheered the news.
Meanwhile, General John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee remained stationed around Florence, Alabama. Hood planned to go back into Tennessee and threaten Nashville, where Major-General George H. Thomas’s Federal Army of the Cumberland was based. Thomas waited for reinforcements and informed Sherman on the 11th that two divisions under Major-General Andrew J. Smith had arrived at Paducah, Kentucky, from Missouri. Thomas wrote Sherman on the morning of the 12th:
“I have no fears that (Hood’s superior P.G.T.) Beauregard can do us any harm now, and, if he attempts to follow you, I will follow him as far as possible. If he does not follow you, I will then thoroughly organize my troops, and believe I shall have men enough to ruin him unless he gets out of the way very rapidly.
“The country of Middle Alabama, I learn, is teeming with supplies this year, which will be greatly to our advantage. I have no additional news to report from the direction of Florence. I am now convinced that the greater part of Beauregard’s army is near Florence and Tuscumbia, and that you will have at least a clear road before you for several days, and that your success will fully equal your expectations.”
That same day, Sherman wrote, “the railroad and telegraph communications with the rear were broken, and the army stood detached from all friends, dependent on its own resources and supplies.” Sherman shut down his Kingston headquarters and headed for Atlanta. In that city, the Federals destroyed anything that Sherman feared the Confederates could salvage for military purposes after his army left town. Churches and private homes were to be spared, but many of these burned as well, along with factories, foundries, mills, warehouses, machine shops, railroads, and public buildings.
Sherman went to Marietta on the 13th and saw that his men had already destroyed most of that town. Sherman motioned to the troops still there and said, “There are the men who do this. Set as many guards as you please, they will slip in and set fire. That Court House was put out–no use–dare say the whole town will burn, at least the business part. I never ordered burning of any dwelling–didn’t order this, but can’t be helped. I say Jeff. Davis burnt them.”
Major-General Oliver O. Howard’s Army of the Tennessee camped southwest of Atlanta on the night of the 13th and could see the flickering flames and billowing smoke coming out of the city in the distance. This marked the beginning of Sherman’s legacy of destruction in the South. As the troops assembled in Atlanta for the southeastern movement, Sherman later recalled:
“The most extraordinary efforts had been made to purge this army of non-combatants and of sick men, for we knew well that there was to be no place of safety save with the army itself; our wagons were loaded with ammunition, provisions, and for age, and we could ill afford to haul even sick men in the ambulances, so that all on this exhibit may be assumed to have been able-bodied, experienced soldiers, well armed, well equipped and provided, as far as human foresight could, with all the essentials of life, strength, and vigorous action.”
Sherman allowed slaves who escaped from nearby plantations to join the army if they were able to work as laborers or cooks. But he placed severe restrictions on this to prevent his troops from being bogged down by a mass slave exodus along the way.
The only real opposition to Sherman’s army was Major-General Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry at Jonesboro, south of Atlanta. Wheeler dispatched scouts on the night of the 13th, and they quickly confirmed rumors that Sherman would be heading southeast soon, possibly bound for Augusta or Savannah. Wheeler did not have enough men to stop the Federals, so all he could do was notify the garrison and militia commanders in Sherman’s supposed path and hope for reinforcements.
The next day, Sherman issued specific marching orders:
“The armies will begin the movement on Milledgeville and Gordon tomorrow, the 15th of November as follows: I. The Right Wing (Howard commanding) will move, via McDonough and Monticello, to Gordon. II. The Left Wing, General (Henry W.) Slocum, will move, via Covington, Social Circle, and Madison, to Milledgeville, destroying the railroad in a most thorough manner from Yellow River to Madison. III. The cavalry, General (H. Judson) Kilpatrick commanding, will move in concert with the Right Wing, feigning strong in the direction of Forsyth and Macon, but will cross the Ocmulgee on the pontoon bridge of General Howard. IV. Each column will aim to reach its destination–viz, Gordon and Milledgeville–on the seventh day’s march, and each army commander will on arrival communicate with the other wing and the commanding general, who will accompany the Left Wing.”
Sherman had “55,329 infantry, 5,063 cavalry, and 1,812 artillery in all, 62,204 officers and men.” The wings would move along parallel routes, starting at 7 a.m. each morning and averaging about 15 miles per day. The wanton destruction of civilian property was prohibited, but officers were authorized to order retaliatory attacks against anyone resisting the advance. The Federals had 1.2 million rations, or 20 days’ worth, with orders to live off the land beyond that time.
Sherman reported that by the night of the 14th, the Federals about to leave Atlanta had–
“–leveled the great depot, round-house, and the machine-shops of the Georgia Railroad, and had applied fire to the wreck. One of these machine-shops had been used by the rebels as an arsenal, and in it were stored piles of shot and shell, some of which proved to be loaded, and that night was made hideous by the bursting of shells, whose fragments came uncomfortably near Judge Lyon’s house, in which I was quartered. The fire also reached the block of stores near the depot, and the heart of the city was in flames all night, but the fire did not reach the parts of Atlanta where the court-house was, or the great mass of dwelling-houses.”
The destruction continued through the night, with the long-anticipated march to begin the next morning.
Bibliography
- Angle, Paul M., A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- Nevin, David, Sherman’s March: Atlanta to the Sea. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Rhodes, James Ford, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: The MacMillan Company (Kindle Edition, Reservoir House, 2016), 1917.
- Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, Vol. I. New York: D. Appleton and Co. (Kindle Edition), 1889.
- Woodworth, Steven E., Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2005.