Cold Open

It’s November 15th, 1864, a chilly autumn evening during the American Civil War. Charles Harding Cox marches along with the Union Army out of Atlanta, Georgia. Charles joined the Indiana Volunteer Infantry two years ago, as soon as he turned 18.

And tonight he and his fellow soldiers are in good spirits. Just this morning, they left the recently captured city of Atlanta, following their leader, General William Tecumseh Sherman to the city of Savannah. And just when it’s getting dark his division comes to a halt at a Confederate train track. This is the perfect spot to stop for the night, but before resting, they have another order to carry out, direct from General Sherman.

First Charles grabs an ax and heads into the woods to chop down a tree for wire wood. The men are building a fire - but not to cook food on or to keep themselves warm. They’re building it directly on top of the railroad tracks - and they’re throwing enough wood on it to make it a huge, roaring bonfire. This is the first step in destroying a Confederate train track and wreaking havoc on the enemy’s transportation system.

Underneath the flames, the iron rails of the tracks begin to glow red with the tremendous heat. When Charles sees this he grabs a pickaxe and helps pry the rails from their wooden ties. Charles’s division engineer has specially made metal grappling hooks, and he tosses them into the flames and attaches them to the scalding iron rails. Charles takes his place alongside his fellow soldiers on the cool end of the chain and pulls hard enough to bend the iron out of shape. Sweat pours down his face from working so close to the blaze.

But just bending the train tracks isn’t enough. Bent rails can simply be bent back and repaired by the enemy. General Sherman doesn’t want to just slow down the Confederate trains, he wants to stop them forever.

So to do this, Charles and the other soldiers wrap the rails around a nearby tree, twisting the hot iron into loops, making it nearly impossible to bend them back to a usable shape. When the task is finally done, Charles stands back to admire his work. 

With the rails tied in a knot around the tree, Charles thinks to himself that they live up to their nickname "Sherman’s Neckties” - an ingenious innovation General Sherman is using to wage a new kind of war against the South, one that will destroy over 100 miles of railroads, and cripple the Confederacy’s infrastructure and morale. 

The Civil War has been raging for three years. The South is at a clear strategic disadvantage, but they've been able to defend themselves long enough for the war to drag on for years.

But Union general William Tecumseh Sherman is about to embark on a campaign that will change the course of the war. And he won’t do it on a battlefield. Instead, General Sherman will take his army to the front doors of Southern plantations, embedding his army in enemy territory and marching across the state of Georgia. His men will steal, burn, and destroy everything in their way. In his own words, General Sherman will “make Georgia howl” with his infamous March To The Sea, which starts on November 15th, 1864.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is November 15th, 1864: General Sherman’s March To The Sea.

Act One

It’s October 12th, 1861, four years before General William Tecumseh Sherman will begin his rampage through Georgia.

It’s after midnight inside a telegraph office in Louisville, Kentucky. The machines click out their messages in dots and dashes of Morse code. As the telegrams roll in, General Sherman paces anxiously.

At this stage in his career, General Sherman is an up-and-coming young officer in charge of the Union army in Kentucky. Tonight, he's receiving updates on the war coming in from all over the country.

As he reads the messages, Henry Villard and William G. Shanks watch him intently. The two men are journalists here to write a story about General Sherman. But if they were expecting him to be a typical military leader, acting with confidence, dignity, and respect, they've found the opposite.

The reporters exchange a look as General Sherman continues his pacing, rambling, and ranting about his army is weak and surrounded. He believes Kentucky is filled with spies, and he doubts the Union can even win, expecting to be defeated by a hidden army any day. He talks non-stop, not listening to reason. All the while he compulsively chain-smokes cigars, stubbing one out before finishing it, then lighting a new one. He also can’t stop pulling at his beard and adjusting the buttons on his coat - in a seemingly involuntary twitch.

General Sherman is tonight especially stressed, still waiting on a response from Washington D.C. He requested reinforcements, asking not just for 5,000 or 10,000 extra soldiers - but for 200,000, nearly every soldier the entire Union army has. This odd request and General Sherman’s erratic behavior bewilders President Abraham Lincoln, who sends the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, to personally travel to Kentucky and check in with General Sherman himself.

During his visit, Cameron concludes that General Sherman is indeed suffering from paranoid delusions. And General Sherman himself admits to not sleeping, not eating, and even contemplating suicide. It's likely that he has bipolar disorder, and is suffering from a bout of mania. But in the 19th century, this behavior is only known as madness. And it’s not long before word gets out, and newspapers all over the country are reporting in banner headlines that General Sherman is insane and unfit for service. It’s a shock and embarrassment to him and his whole family.

It's not a surprise that he is relieved of his command. So, General Sherman returns home to Ohio. But this is just a temporary setback. It takes him only three weeks to recuperate with plenty of reading, rest, and his wife Ellen’s home cooking. He then proves himself to be stable and reliable once more and assumes command of another army in 1862.

Over the course of the next few years, the Civil War claims thousands of more lives, and General Sherman climbs to become one of the highest-ranking generals in the Union Army. And in September 1864, he successfully invades Georgia, captures Atlanta, and has no plans of stopping. There’s no opposing army this deep in the South. All the Confederate soldiers are in the North, on the front lines, leaving Georgia essentially undefended. 

General Sherman takes advantage of this and devises a plan to march his men from Atlanta to the city of Savannah, on the Atlantic coast. But capturing Savannah itself will be just a minor victory. The real goal of the march is to devastate the South’s economy and morale along the way. General Sherman’s goal is to upset the elite Southern slave owners who are prolonging the war with their support of the Confederacy. In General Sherman’s words, this will “demonstrate the vulnerability of the South, and make its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous.”

It’s a daring and original strategy, but there’s a reason General Sherman’s tactic hasn’t been tried before. Maintaining a supply line robust enough to keep General Sherman’s tens of thousands of men fed and fighting, even as they march across the whole state of Georgia through rugged terrain, will be a huge undertaking. It will be costly and slow, which is why General Sherman isn’t going to do it; instead he will march his men forward without a supply line, living off the land as they go.

When President Lincoln hears of this bold new plan, he is unconvinced it will work and admits to being anxious and fearful of General Sherman’s ability to make it back out of the South alive. But General Sherman’s capture of Atlanta helps Lincoln’s popularity in the North, proving to be a major boost to Lincoln in the last weeks of his re-election campaign. So, despite his doubts, Lincoln approves General Sherman’s plan.

With just days to get ready, General Sherman and his army will soon embark on their 300-mile trek, which will become known as The March to the Sea. They’ll have limited supplies and almost no means of communication. If General Sherman and his men encounter any resisting Southern armies, they won’t even be able to telegraph for reinforcements. It will be a gamble, and not even General Sherman himself can be sure it will pay off.

Act Two

It’s November 19th, 1864, outside of Covington, Georgia.

Plantation owner Dolly Sumner Lunt wakes up and gets out of bed, already dressed for the day. She slept in her clothes last night because she heard the Union Army was in the area. She goes to her window to check on her land and is relieved to find it quiet and peaceful. The war hasn’t yet come to her backyard.

Maybe General Sherman’s men won’t find her farm - which she has been running on her own since her husband George died several years ago. So, after breakfast, she and her daughter Sarah walk to the nearest neighbors, to check if they have any news. The neighbors report that they haven’t seen any Union soldiers either, but they are still frightened they could be near.

A short while later, Dolly and Sarah return to their plantation. And they’re horrified to find their front yard is full of Union soldiers. Dolly is terrified for her life. She’s heard nothing but the worst about the brute General Sherman and his horde of Yankee pirates.

And sure enough, the Union soldiers on her property are breaking down doors and throwing open chests. But they’re not looking for gold, they’re looking for food. They steal a thousand pounds of meat, lard, butter, eggs, pickles, jugs of wine, and eighteen turkeys, hens, and chickens. Her cows, mules, and horses are stolen as well. And when Dolly protests to the most senior Union officer she can find, he apologizes and says there’s nothing he can do. They’re acting on General Sherman’s orders.

60,000 men marching 15 miles a day across Georgia need a lot of food to keep them going. With no supply train following them, General Sherman has ordered his men to live off the land and steal whatever they can from plantations. The men ransacking Dolly’s farm are called “bummers" and no pantry or kitchen in Georgia is safe from their stomachs.

But despite Dolly’s fears, the Union soldiers don’t burn down her house, and they don’t take her life - just her property, including what she considers to be her property: her slaves. The newly freed slaves are marched out of her plantation by Union soldiers to join General Sherman’s March To The Sea, where they will start their lives anew.

As Union forces cross Georgia, thousands of other Black men, women, and children become ex-slaves overnight by running off and joining General Sherman’s March. In personal interactions, General Sherman treats these fleeing slaves better than most white men would in 1864. He shakes the hands of those who want to thank him and asks them for information about nearby towns, roads, and landmarks. But General Sherman is not an idealist who wants to rescue slaves. In fact, he does consider Black people to be inferior to whites, and he doesn’t care about freedom or emancipation. He only cares about destroying the Confederacy.

Even so, General Sherman does not glorify murdering unarmed civilians. He orders his men not to attack unless they’re attacked first and prides himself that there are never any reports of rape or murder in his ranks. Instead, his troops stick to destroying railroad tracks, cutting telegraph wires, and demolishing bridges and tunnels. Most importantly, they burn millions of dollars of cotton, the economic lifeblood that keeps the South alive. With the Confederate army engaged on the front lines farther north, the Southern citizens are helpless to defend themselves and their livelihood.

There are, however, some skirmishes between the Union and the Confederacy. On November 22nd, north of Macon, Georgia, a division of General Sherman’s men are eating dinner when a volley of musket fire breaks out. About two and a half thousand Confederates attack, starting the Battle of Griswoldville. Despite their superior numbers, the Confederates are not well trained though. Many are too old or too young, and the rest are armed with guns that are more appropriate for hunting squirrels. General Sherman’s men manage to keep the charging Confederates at bay, killing 51 and injuring 475. The battle is a minor one and fails to stop the March To The Sea.

But hoping to distract General Sherman and divert him away from Georgia, Confederate General John B. Hood’s army invades Kentucky. It was widely publicized in 1861 that General Sherman was so paranoid about an invasion of Kentucky that it drove him to the brink of madness. But General Sherman won’t take the bait. By 1864, he won’t be the same fidgeting nervous wreck he was in Kentucky. He will be a steadfast leader - with Savannah in his sights. By the time he reaches the end of his march, the city will be surrendered to him with little resistance, marking the beginning of the end of the American Civil War.

Act Three

It’s December 18th, 1864, a cold day in Washington, D.C. and President Abraham Lincoln is hard at work. The White House is decorated for Christmas with modest displays of holly, bows, and wreaths, but Lincoln can’t afford to take any time off for the holiday. Not with the country still at war with itself.

There’s a knock at the door, and an aide brings in an important telegram, from General Tecumseh Sherman, who the president hasn’t heard much of since he embarked on his dangerous campaign in Georgia. Lincoln almost winces as he unfolds a flimsy piece of telegram paper. But when he reads the message inside, the President's face breaks into a wry smile. General Sherman has written “President Lincoln - I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah.”

General Sherman has done it, and his March To The Sea is complete. Immediately, Lincoln sends a reply back to General Sherman, telling him the honor is all his. And later that day in Washington, there is a 300-gun salute celebrating the capture of Savannah. The news bolsters the holiday spirit in the North, and President Lincoln begins to believe he'll enjoy this Christmas. He doesn’t know it, but it will be his last. Lincoln will be shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth four months later.

After capturing Savannah, General Sherman and his men turn north and deploy the same tactics they honed in their March to the Sea on the Carolinas. This march is even more physically demanding than the previous one, with soldiers walking 425 miles in 50 days. General Sherman and his men are again pillaging, burning, and destroying everything of monetary or military value with even more brutality than they had in Georgia, especially in South Carolina, a state they hate because it was the first to secede. When General Sherman’s men reach its capital city of Columbia in February 1865, they burn it to the ground. A month later, General Sherman wins the last major battle of the Civil War, at Bentonville, North Carolina. Although it will take another two months for the South’s surrender to become official, the Confederates are defeated.

All told, despite the scorched earth policy and his hatred for the seceding South, General Sherman's campaign produced few casualties. In three days at the Battle of Gettysburg, there were over 45,000 struck down. In the 37 days of General Sherman’s March To The Sea, there were only 3,000 casualties.

In the years after the war, General Sherman will become the Commanding General of the United States Army until his retirement in 1883. But unlike his friend and fellow Union general Ulysses S. Grant, he will never become involved in politics, preferring his hobbies of painting and reading Shakespeare until his death in 1891.

Today, the city of Savannah celebrates General Sherman’s capture of the city - and the emancipation of the slaves living there - with their annual Jubilee Freedom Day on December 21st. And all throughout the state of Georgia, there are still iron rails twisted around tree trunks, reminders of the unique economic warfare General Sherman waged during his March To The Sea, on November 15th, 1864.

Outro

Next on History Daily. November 16th, 1581. Toward the end of a notorious reign, Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible murders his own son in a fit of rage.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Katrina Zemrak.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Jack O’Brien.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.