Sherman's March to the Sea

Savannah Campaign (Sherman's March to the Sea)
Part of the American Civil War
Union soldiers destroying telegraph poles and railroads, and freeing slaves, who are assisting Union soldiers in making their way to safety.
Date November 15 – December 21, 1864 Location Georgia Result Union victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	CSA (Confederacy)
Commanders and leaders
William T. Sherman	William J. Hardee Joseph Wheeler
Units involved
Army of the Tennessee Army of Georgia	Confederate militia
Strength
59,545–62,204	12,466
Casualties and losses
?	?

Sherman's March to the Sea, more formally known as the Savannah Campaign, was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces destroyed military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property and disrupted the Confederacy's economy and its transportation networks. Sherman's bold move of operating deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be one of the major achievements of the war.

Sherman's "March to the Sea" followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. He and the Union Army's commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would come to an end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken. Sherman therefore planned an operation that has been compared to the modern principles of scorched earth warfare, or total war. Although his formal orders (excerpted below) specified control over destruction of infrastructure in areas in which his army was unmolested by guerrilla activity, he recognized that supplying an army through liberal foraging would have a destructive effect on the morale of the civilian population it encountered in its wide sweep through the state.

The second objective of the campaign was more traditional. Grant's armies in Virginia continued in a stalemate against Robert E. Lee's army, besieged in Petersburg, Virginia. By moving in Lee's rear and performing a massive turning movement against him, Sherman could possibly increase pressure on Lee, allowing Grant the opportunity to break through, or at least keep Southern reinforcements away from Virginia.

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