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One hundred and forty years ago this month, 100,000 Union soldiers marched into Georgia. Less than eight months later, the Yankees captured Savannah. Along the way, they fought more than 20 major battles, crushed Confederate resistance, destroyed at least $100 million worth of railroads, warehouses, plantations and factories, and left Atlanta in smoking ruins.

It remains one of the most famous military campaigns in American history: Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's March through Georgia. It's still taught to cadets at West Point as an example of how to break an enemy's will to fight. And without the trauma of Yankees plowing from Dalton to Savannah, "Gone With the Wind" could have to be called something like "It's Kind of Breezy." Civil War buffs would consider Georgia to be, well, just Alabama with major league baseball.

But the current consensus of historians and other academics is that Sherman's vilification by the South stems from tall tales. Uncle Billy, the gruff Ohioan who promised to "make Georgia howl," did destroy a lot of infrastructure and military targets in Georgia. He ordered railroads ripped up and food confiscated.

Still, by the standards of war at the time, "that devil Sherman" really wasn't that bad a guy.

"It was pretty scary, but the destruction is not that bad," said Anne J. Bailey, a professor at Georgia College and State University and the author of "War and Ruin: William T. Sherman and the Savannah Campaign."

"If [Sherman] had told his men to lay waste to the land, they could have done a lot worse than they did."

A growing body of research shows that long-standing horror stories about Sherman's pillage and mayhem � everything from widespread reports of rape to pouring syrup into church organs � cannot be documented.

"Sherman's bark was a lot worse than his bite," said Richard McMurry, author of "Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy."

Many Southerners consider Sherman the quintessential villain, sort of a cross between Attila the Hun and Godzilla.

The famous editor of The Atlanta Constitution, Henry Grady, chided Sherman for being "careless with matches." But today the criticism is blunt. On Web sites, in newsletters and in books, Sherman is referred to as "the Nero of the 19th Century" or "the grand arsonist." One Web site has gone so far as to put up a doctored photo of the general with horns and a tail.

"He's a general that many people still love to hate," said Steven Woodworth, a Sherman biographer and associate history professor at Texas Christian University.

Sherman and his men did do a lot of damage in Georgia, as well as the Carolinas. They laid waste to large swaths of countryside. His soldiers ransacked and looted farms for food. They confiscated animals. Newly freed slaves fled farms when his troops showed up.

His artillery bombed Atlanta, which later burned after he captured it. He ordered the destruction of factories, warehouses, railroads and plantations. Battles between Sherman and Georgia's Confederate defenders caused tens of thousands of casualties.

His army slugged its way through North Georgia from May through July, when it surrounded Atlanta. After heavy fighting around the city for the next two months, the Confederates pulled out. On Sept. 2, 1864, Sherman took Atlanta. Later that month, he ordered all remaining civilians to leave.

Sherman wrote a letter at the time to officials in Washington: "If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking."

Selective targets

On Nov. 15, he left Atlanta with about 60,000 men and marched in three columns across Georgia. As he left, much of what remained in Atlanta burned.

Many Southerners have been reared to believe he ordered his troops to burn the entire city. In fact, he ordered soldiers to burn military targets that the Confederates had not destroyed themselves when they abandoned Atlanta, according to his official orders issued at the time.

In his memoirs, Sherman writes that the area of downtown near the depot, where the Confederates had stored supplies, "was in flames all night, but the fire did not reach the parts of Atlanta where the courthouse was, or the great mass of dwelling houses."

According to Sherman biographers, the general personally ordered many of his troops to fight to contain the fires, though other soldiers set fires that he had not authorized.

Sherman's efforts, such as they were, appeared to have little effect in saving Atlanta. The next day, Sherman rode out of town toward Savannah. He wrote in his memoirs: "Behind us lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city."

His march through the rest of Georgia did not involve many major fires. Macon, Milledgeville, Madison and other cities were not burned, though select military targets, including a pistol factory in the now-extinct town of Griswoldville, were destroyed.

Sherman captured Savannah shortly before Christmas. After making arrangements with local authorities, he occupied the city without burning it. From Savannah, Sherman marched into South Carolina, where his troops were much more destructive than they ever were in Georgia.

Mark Grimsley, an Ohio State University professor and author of "The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865," said historical records show that Sherman destroyed accepted military targets.

"What Sherman did was more spectacular than what anyone else did, these marches through whole states," Grimsley said. "It was really dramatic and it arrested people's attention, but his army went after targets that by the standards of the time were considered fair game."

Grimsley, who grew up in North Carolina, said he heard the Sherman-as-devil legends, but historic facts don't support this idea, especially in Georgia. "That's not to say that what Sherman's army did was mild-mannered," he said. "It wasn't. It was destructive, but it was within bounds."

McMurry, author of "Atlanta 1864," and one of the nation's leading Civil War historians, said the lore of Sherman the destroyer was bolstered, in part, by Sherman himself. He used Southern fears to help cow them into submission.

"It's partly his doing," McMurry said. "If he conveys that myth to the Confederate soldiers, he really undermines their will to fight."

Confederate soldiers in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia deserted in larger numbers upon hearing of Sherman's march. Confederate diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she heard all Sherman's army left in its wake were charred chimneys.

Not a one-man gang

Lee Kennett, retired University of Georgia professor and author of "Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians During Sherman's Campaign," said a myth has developed in the minds of many Southerners that "every shell [fired in the campaign] was personally aimed by Sherman."

"It was a nostalgic myth that was added to by succeeded generations," he said.

Elissa R. Henken, a UGA folklorist, has been collecting local tales about Sherman from small towns in Georgia for more than 10 years. She finds Sherman stories are widespread and even crop up in areas the Union army never reached.

In these tales, Sherman appears to serve as a personification of the carnage and cruelty of war. "He still figures so prominently in people's imaginations. He is that devil Sherman," Henken said. "He is this humongous representation of evil."

Against that backdrop, a lot of towns had to invent stories to explain why they had not been ransacked or burned.

"Each town treats itself as the one and only one that was saved," she said. "But they all have similar stories. . . . Why would such evil leave you alone? They come up with all kinds of reasons."

Most "saved from Sherman" stories involve Southern belles charming the general or Masons giving him special handshakes or great cooks serving him special local food. These stories enforce the Southern view of itself as genteel and the North as apish.

"The South has a view of itself, a stereotype of itself, of being civilized, of having good manners," she said. "They may have lost the war, but they have still conquered their enemy."

Lore of Madison

Madison, a hamlet of well-preserved antebellum homes in east Georgia, has at least six legends about how the town was spared Sherman's wrath. The most popular is that Sherman found the town "too beautiful to burn." In truth, the town's military stores and railroad were burned, and the rest of the town was spared by Sherman's soldiers. No one is exactly sure why, but it likely had little to do with the general himself. He never came within miles of the place.

Tina Lilly, director of the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, said Madison residents have a running joke: If they see a pothole in the asphalt street, they say, "The Yankees did it." Visitors come to the center's museum, she said, often arrive looking for evidence of "Yankee destruction."

"They want to see the horrible things the Yankees did," she said, "as if there is still going to be a fiery path all the way from here to Savannah."

Bailey, who lectures on Sherman's march to groups across Georgia and the South, said the myth of Sherman is much more powerful with many Southerners than the historical reality. She said she encounters "real hostility" when she suggests his march was not as devastating as many Southerners have been taught.

"When you talk about Sherman in the Deep South, there isn't really anything you can do to resurrect his reputation with some people," she said.

To defend Gen. Sherman by saying his men did stuff he didn't know about is a deliciously sweet cop-out.

They did it while he was in command and he should have been held responsible and hung.

When every bundle of information on Sherman is taken into consideration & context, the Plains Indian Wars and his atrocious comments on killing women and children included, it is as plain as the nose on your face that he was a monster.

I would still enjoy pissing on his grave.

To claim that Sherman salted fields, shot children for crying, broke every leg of able bodied men for 60 miles is myth, hysteria and bullshit.

You have been able to confirm none of that. All you post is half ass researched columns by some guy on the lew rockwell website.

Looks as though all of your research was done in Wikipedia.

All I can know is what I read by others. I do not own "The Official Record". You are most likely limited to those parameters also.

You haven't even acknowledged his atrocious statements & actions towards the Indians.

DiLorenzo & Fellman are very respected authors.

DiLorenzi is a Professor at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Austrian Economics in Auburn. Maybe you could take up your debate or non-debate with him?

You have already acknowleged that Sherman's campaign was a well designed factor in getting Lincoln re-elected.

You're having a hard time debating because you want to argue instead.

Read between the lines, my friend, it's all there.

I would still enjoy pizzing on his grave.

Oh, and I didn't say he broke the legs of every able bodied man.

There you go making up stuff again.

On December 22 in Savannah, Georgia, Sherman advised Grant, "We are in possession of Savannah and all its forts....I could go on and smash South Carolina all to pieces." On December 24 Sherman wrote Halleck, "The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina."

When Sherman had reached Savannah he was ordered to board ship and sail to Virginia to join Grant outside Virginia. Sherman rebelled in rage. He pledged, "I'm going to march to Richmond...and when I go through South Carolina it will be one of the most horrible things in the history of the world. The devil himself couldn't restrain my men in that state."

And, finally, Gen. Sherman writing to U.S. Major George H. Thomas on November 1, 1864: "I propose...to sally forth and make a hole in Georgia that will be hard to mend."

Seems to me you did say just that Shuter.

I did not say "every able bodied man".

Ya'll been to bed yet???..................

Oh yea.............Piss on Sherman.............

Not the exact words but meant the same. I think maybe you should go piss on Shermans grave. It might make you feel better but it aint gonna change the fact that Sherman did just what he needed to do to bring the war to a halt. Whether you think it was right or wrong really doesnt matter in the least bit. I think you will find that no matter how you feel about it things are not gonna change. I dont like what Sherman did but as a military General he was effective. Whether the things said about him happened or not the enemy believed they did and well thats half the battle right there. If you can make the enemy believe that hell is coming and there no escaping it then you have already beaten them before the fight ever comes. I think alot of Shermans reputation is in fact a myth but it was an effective myth that still lingers today in the minds of many southerners.

DiLorenzen only regurgitates Fellman. Fellman puts forth the myth of salting fields.


I used the term Able Bodied to denote those that are fit for employment or military service. So you say that healthy denotes something more or less or are you just hedging on the visible part? Were there invisible healthy men who got their legs broke?
So lets say that he broke the legs of 6000 men, or 3000 or even 100. Where is the proof of this leg breaking? Point me to a book or whatever your source.

We already can deduce that the salting of the fields were at best a myth. Why take time to try and sow salt across hundreds of acres. They didn't have the benefit of taking time for that. Travel light, travel fast. Did they possibly salt 25 acres of land? That's possible, but considering they had to try to get salt from the dirt of the smokehouse in the South it is highly unlikely.

Lew Rockwell dude tells me there is 1000s of letters and diaries at South Carolina depicting rape blah blah blah.....
well I went and search those documents with the magic of the interwebs.
South Carolina Civil War Letters and Diaries Collection
Rape Appeared Once, 1 time, Uno, loneliest number etc. etc. I even expanded the search and found rape 4 times, the other 3 dealing with the plant.

Delorenzen complains about burning Meridian and Jackson. Both were strategic points for the Confederacy with arsenals, railroads and storehouses. He waged war and the Meridian history says that he did so but no direct personal injury was inflicted.
Meridian History

Shooting Babies? Source? Proof? Anything?

I don't doubt what he said about the Indians. The Whole policy against Indians was horrible. He hated Jews and others. I'm not excusing his comments but you offer no proof of your accusations. You can't prove that he hasn't been studied at West Point, Naval War College and by other prominent Generals in history. I'm more than happy to listen to proof. But to list half truths like the burning or Meridian as fact isn't a valid argument. Did citizens get killed and suffer during the war? Yes. Was is a systematic process that every woman was raped and every "healthy" man had his legs broken? No. Were children killed because they annoyed him? I'm still waiting for the proof on that.
Compared to Mr. Sade by europeans? That's funny. Napolean and others in European warfare would have made Sherman look like a choir boy on a stroll through the country. And again only DeLorenzen quotes this. Nothing by any of the others.

I'm open to proof of all these atrocities.

He did what he said but he didn't do what you said.

Here's one you may enjoy reading:

ISBN: 9781589804661
WAR CRIMES AGAINST SOUTHERN CIVILIANS
By Walter Brian Cisco


The sobering and brutal consequences of the Civil War off the battlefield are revealed in this examination of atrocities committed against civilians. Rationale for the Union�s �hard war� and the political ramifications of such a war set the foundation for Walter Cisco�s enlightening research. Styled the �Black Flag� campaign, the hard line was agreed to by Lincoln in a council with his generals in 1864, when he gave permission to wage unlimited war against civilians, including women and children.


War Crimes Against Southern Civilians is a must-read for anyone who wants to educate themselves about Sherman's "March to the Sea." (For the cartoonish version, see the History Channel rendition.) The true story is a story of the continued plunder and rape of the civilian population, along with the gang rape of mostly black women by Federal soldiers under Sherman's command. "Female servants were taken and violated without mercy" by Federal soldiers, wrote a war correspondent.

South Carolinians were so hated by Lincoln's army that they even killed every dog in sight upon reaching the state on the "march." "The dogs were easily killed. All we had to do was to bayonet them," boasted one brave Union soldier.

Cisco also proves what delusional liars such Lincoln (and Sherman) cultists as Victor Davis Hanson are. Hanson has claimed in print that Sherman was some kind of egalitarian who was motivated by indignation over the degree of racial inequality in the South. The truth, of course, is that Sherman was every bit as much a racist and white supremacist as were virtually all other white Northerners, including Lincoln. He was also an anti-Semite, and of course hated red-skinned people almost as much as he hated South Carolinians � and would later kill them in even greater numbers.

War Crimes of William T. Sherman


by L.R. Olsen (website)

On February 17 the South Carolina Conservative Action Council met in Columbia, South Carolina to recognize the 146th anniversary of one of General William Tecumseh Sherman�s war crimes.

February 17, 1865, in the closing months of Lincoln�s War of Northern Aggression, General William T. Sherman destroyed Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, burning it to the ground. He planned this war crime in advance promising to �make Georgia howl� and �punish South Carolina as she deserves� for her �sins� against the Union. With the blessing of President Abraham Lincoln, General Sherman and his 62,000 battle-hardened Union troops fulfilled his promise, raping, pillaging and burning their way through both states.

After willfully destroying Columbia, Sherman then tried to deflect responsibility onto the Confederates, claiming they set bales of cotton afire, destroying their own capital city at the orders of Confederate Lt. General Wade Hampton III. Yet the last Confederate troops to leave the city insisted that they were given strict orders from Hampton that no cotton was to be fired.

Sherman later recanted this allegation. In his Memoirs, Volume 11, page 287, he writes, �In my official report of this conflagration I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion a braggart and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina.�

Two years later commander of the US 15th Corps, General Howard, also admitted to this heinous act. He openly admitted that, �It is useless to deny that our troops burnt Columbia, for I saw them in the act.�

Even as late as 1965, one hundred years after the event, The State newspaper, Columbia�s daily paper, had a story clearly stating that drunken Union troops who were out of control destroyed Columbia during their rioting and looting of the doomed city.

Civilian homes were looted, graves desecrated, women, both white and black, raped and murdered, thousands of citizens, both white and black, left homeless and forced to forage for whatever morsel of food they could find in the rubble left in the wake of the marauders.

The descendants of these people have been told that their history is of no consequence.

The descendants of the people who were left to forage like animals have been told that their Heritage is not worthy of remembering or celebrating.

Most descendants of these suffering people don�t even know the truth about what happened on February 17, 1865, since history records that the destruction of Columbia is �controversial� and history is written by the victors.

Someone must remember Sherman�s savage act.



Someone must remember the bragging words of Thomas Ward Osborn, a Union Officer who served with Sherman and stated that �The city is built entirely of wood and is in the most excellent condition to burn. The space on fire by midnight had housed thirty-five thousand people. The flames rolled and heaved like waves of the ocean. The scene is splendid, magnificently grand; the scene of pillaging, the suffering and terror of the citizens and of our frantic and drunken soldiers.�

The Heritage and history of our people is constantly under attack. We�re regularly reminded about the terror of September 11. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the great Chicago fire of 1871 are forever burned in the memory of all Americans. We certainly know about the attack at Pearl Harbor and who will ever forget those searing images of Hurricane Katrina?

Yet the willful and deliberate pillaging and destruction of an American city, inhabited by Americans who are raped and murdered, while tens of thousands of other Americans become homeless and destitute � these acts perpetrated by the heartless and inhuman act of their fellow Americans � this part of our history remains buried in the ash bin of time.

Someone must remember. If not you, then who?

One Of History's Worst War Criminals

GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. During the Civil War, General Grant insisted that the defeat of Confederate armies was the first and foremost objective of Union strategy. Disobeying this policy, General Sherman set forth on a march to Savannah and the sea on November 15, 1864. He led his Union troops away from every Confederate army camp or stronghold. Instead, his army proceeded through the soft belly of the South, burning and destroying the civilians, their homes, their property, their farms, their food, their entire countryside. They murdered the children and the elderly, raped the women and then shot them, and stole every valuable they could get their hands on. Today General Sherman is featured in high-school history texts for saying �War is hell.� But nevertheless there is some controversy about him. There are parents who object to the use of the word �hell� in textbooks that their teen-age children are required to read.

So you post some opinion from somebody running a blog about him killing elderly, raping women and then shooting them.

1. All that tells me is that you and the guy running the blog are furthering the myths of Sherman.

2. Its a well known fact that Sherman burned Columbia, barns, crops and houses.

3. What didn't happen was the rape, shooting of children and genocidal killing of civilians as you portray. Oh, and the desecrating of graves is a new one too. Maybe the Union soldiers just stopped to piss on somebody's grave.

Get a fact. Maybe something from a University telling me how many civilians were killed. How many women were raped. How many legs were broken. Not how many dogs were shot. Or why some blog writer hates Sherman. Get a book that has a bibliography.

Killing a dog, smearing jam on the walls and burning fields aren't news. It destroyed the Southern ability to make war. A very few short months afterwards the war was over. Mission Accomplished.

Dustin it is not my intention to start hockey with you........may I ask......where is your birthplace?

Bunch of damn yankee sympathizers.

Alabama

SCV Camp 1612 at one time.

Captain Hiram Whitman Company E / 13th Alabama