CH. XIII] SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA 401 North from November 12 to December 14. "I will not at- . tempt to send carriers back," he had written to Grant, “but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well advised." For these thirty-two days, Lincoln and Grant had no other information of this important movement than what they could glean from the Southern `journals. Sherman's imagination was vividly impressed with the strangeness of the situation: "two hostile armies were marching in opposite directions, each in the full belief that it was achieving a final and conclusive result in the great war. It would be impossible to show an entire consistency in the utterances of this great general; a single aspect of the campaign often claimed his attention to the exclusion of all others and he was so fertile in thought and fluent in expression that the idea uppermost in his brain was apt to burst forth without regard for what else remained behind. As with almost all men of action, the speculation of to-day might supersede that of yesterday only to disappear under that of to-morrow, yet this did not impair his capacity for making a correct decision nor his steadfastness in the execution of a plan. Grant, more reticent and not at all expansive, is not chargeable in the same degree with inconsistency in his written words. He lacked imagination and did not worry. A remark of Sherman's provides an acute estimate of their different temperaments: Grant does not care "for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me.' 11 3 While the army was concentrating at Atlanta, the railway station, machine shops and other buildings of that city which might be useful to the enemy in his military operations were destroyed. The right wing and one corps 10. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 661. 2 W. Sherman, II, 170. 3 Wilson's Under the Old Flag, II, 17. 402 SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA 1 [1864 of the left wing having started the day before, Sherman rode out of Atlanta on November 16 with the Fourteenth Corps: he had in all 62,000 "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." One of 'the bands happening to play "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,” the men sang the well-known song, giving to the chorus, "Glory, glory hallelujah, his soul is marching on," a force full of meaning, as their minds reverted to the events which had taken place since that December day in 1859 when he who was now a saint in their calendar had suffered death on the scaffold. When the march to the sea began, the weather was fine, the air bracing and the movement to the south and east exhilarated the men. Many of the common soldiers called out to their general, “Uncle Billy, I guess Grant is waiting for us at Richmond." "There was a 'devil-maycare' feeling pervading officers and men," related Sherman, "that made me feel the full load of responsibility."2 The tale of the march is not one of battle and inch-by-inch progress as was the campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta. "As to the 'lion' in our path," wrote Sherman after he had reached Savannah, "we never met him." 3 Officers and men looked upon the march as a "picnic," "a vast holiday frolic." The burden was on the general in command. He was in the enemy's country; he must show his skill by keeping this large army supplied. When the army set out it had approximately supplies of bread for twenty days, sugar, coffee and salt for forty and about three days' forage in grain; it had also a sufficient quantity of ammunition; all this was carried in 2500 wagons with a team of six mules 4 1 W. Sherman, II, 172. 2 Ibid., II, 179. CH. XIII] SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA 403 to each. Droves of cattle, enough to insure fresh meat for more than a month, were part of the commissariat. The ambulances were 600 in number; the artillery had been reduced to 65 guns. Pontoon trains were carried along, as the invading host had many rivers to cross. The right wing was composed of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps, the left, of the Fourteenth and Twentieth; each corps marched on a separate road. The division of the wagon trains gave each corps about 800 wagons, which occupied on the march five miles or more of road. The artillery and wagons with their advance and rear guards had the right of way, the men taking improvised paths at their side. The troops began their daily march at dawn and pitched their camp soon after noon, having covered ordinarily ten to fifteen miles. Milledgeville, the capital of the State, was reached by the left wing in seven days. This march through the heart of Georgia so alarmed the Confederates lest either Macon or Augusta or both might be attacked that they divided their forces; and, when it finally became clear that Savannah was the point aimed at, they found it impossible for various reasons to concentrate a large number of troops for defence. By December 10, the enemy was driven within his lines at Savannah, the march of 300 miles was over and the siege began. The special field order of November 9 said, "The army will forage liberally on the country during the march.”1 As the State was sparsely settled and the plan of making requisitions on the civil authorities therefore impracticable, this was the only possible mode of supplying the troops. The arrangements for the foraging were made and carried 10. R., XXXIX, Pt. 3, 713. "We give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language." Henry V, Act III, sc. VI. 404 LIVING ON THE COUNTRY [1864 out with military precision. Each brigade sent out a party of about fifty men on foot who would return mounted, driving cattle and mules and hauling wagons or family carriages loaded with fresh mutton, smoked bacon, turkeys, chickens, ducks, corn meal, jugs of molasses and sweet potatoes. As the crop was large, and had just been gathered and laid by for the winter, and as the region had never before been visited by a hostile army, the land was rich in provisions and forage. While Sherman and his officers sincerely endeavored to have the foraging done in an orderly way, the men were often riotous in seizing food on their own account. "A soldier passed me," so related the General, “with a ham on his musket, a jug of sorghum molasses under his arm and a big piece of honey in his hand, from which he was eating and, catching my eye he remarked in a low voice to a comrade, 'Forage liberally on the country. Sherman reproved the man as he did others when similar acts of lawlessness fell under his observation, explaining that "foraging must be limited to the regular parties properly detailed." Full of pride in his soldiers and elated at their manifestations of confidence in him, he had for them after the completion of the march only this mild censure, "A little loose in foraging they 'did some things they ought not to have done.'" 2 A spirit of fun pervaded the army which exhibited itself in innocent frolics, typical of which was the meeting of some officers in the Hall of Representatives at Milledgeville where they constituted themselves the Legislature of the State of Georgia, elected a speaker and after a formal debate repealed by a fair vote the Ordinance of Secession. 1 Destruction was a part of the business of the march, especially as Lee's army drew its supplies of provisions 2 Jan. 1, 1865, O. R., XLIV, 14. 1 W. Sherman, II, 181. CH. XIII] DESTRUCTION 405 largely from Georgia. "The State of Georgia alone," said Jefferson Davis in a speech at Augusta, "produces food. enough not only for her own people and the army within it but feeds too the Army of Virginia." It became of the utmost importance to sever the railroad communication between the Gulf States and Richmond and to this Sherman gave his personal attention. The bridges and trestles were burned, the masonry of the culverts blown up. In the destruction of the iron rails mechanical skill vied with native ingenuity in doing the most effective work. The chief engineer designed a machine for twisting the rails after heating them in the fires made by burning the ties: this was used by Michigan and Missouri engineers. But the infantry with the mania for destruction which pervaded the army joined in the work, carrying the rails when they came to a red heat to the nearest trees and twisting them about the trunks or warping them in some fantastic way so that they were useless except as old iron and, even as such, in unmanageable shape for working in a mill. About 265 miles of railroad were thus destroyed. This in the heart of Jeff. Davis's empire, as Sherman called it, effected a damage almost irreparable owing to the scarcity of factories which could make rails for renewals and to the embargo on imports by the blockade of the Southern ports. Stations and machine shops along the lines were burned. Many thousand bales of cotton and a large number of cotton gins and presses were destroyed. At Milledgeville, Sherman reported, "I burned the railroad buildings and the arsenals; the state-house and Governor's mansion I left unharmed." 1 The penitentiary had been burned by the convicts before the arrival of the army. A negro, from whom Sherman asked information regarding the operations 1 O. R., XLIV, 789. |