TRAIL OF FURY
Disaster!
Sherman's March to the Sea 
November-December, 1864

Sherman Cut Brutal Swath From Atlanta to the Atlantic

Editor's Note:  While Sherman's historic March to the Sea was not an act of God, like flood or storm, it was easily the worst disaster ever suffered by Georgia.   In future years, Sherman would become a notorious legend in Southerners' minds and his march a benchmark for natural calamities. Beginning today, The Journal reviews the infamous March to the Sea and 16 other calamities which might be called "the worst since Sherman".  Monday's installment details the 1898 hurricane, the last in a series of savage storms that claimed thousands of lives along the Georgia-South Carolina coast.

Editor:  Mike Christensen

On a late December day in 1864, a yound indiana soldier sat in camp outside Savannah and wrote to his family.
"We have covered a strip 60 miles wide on our trip here," Pvt. Ted Upson scribbled, "and although there may be a few houses left, there are mighty few fences and from what I saw of it, I don't think it would be a good place for a poor man to start a farm or a factory".

Upson was one of 62,000 Union solders who had followed Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman from Atlanta to the Atlantic.  They left a 10 million acre wasteland of smoldering ruins, barren fields, mangled railroads and destitute people.

They were the most destructive force to visit Georgia before or since.  The March to the Sea would become the yardstick for all future disasters. 

Unlike whirling hurricanes or the erratic thunder of tornadoes, the march was carefully planned to cripple Georgia, a calculated roundhouse blow to the rich breadbasket of the Confederacy.  

:This may seem a hard species of warfare," Sherman wrote, "but it brings the sad realities of war home to those who have directly or indirectly instrumental in involving us in its attendant calamities.

Sherman, with his seamed, rugged face and ever-present cigar, had been leading Union troops and sending men to their deaths since the first battle of Manassas in July 1861.  

The battles which marked his path from Chattanooga to Atlanta had cost Sherman tens of thousands of casualties.  After nearly 3 years of war, the Union Soldiers who marched behind "Uncle Billy" into Atlanta in early September had seen more misery and brutality than most men could stand in a lifetime.

"Although it is the Sabbath day, we do not realize it.  No church bell resounds through the air," wrote Captain John Carr of the 100th Indiana Infantry from his camp outside Atlanta.  "In this army, we have no sabbath day."  

Carr's unit was part of the 15th Corps, Sherman's old command and one of the four assigned to the upcoming march across Georgia.  His remaining troops had been shipped back to Tennessee.  Embarking on uncharted waters, Sherman wanted only his toughest, most seasoned men with him.  

>From the vantage point of today, the March to the Sea seems like an easy country stroll, for that is almost how it turned out.  But Sherman himself was far from sure he would ever see Savannah.

For several weeks he was deep in enemy territory, cut off from orders, information or reinforcement.  Newspapers at home and abroad were quick to point out unsettling precedents for his march, such as Napoleon's vain trek into Russia. Once he leveled the industrial and railroad center of Atlanta, Sherman planned to divide his army into two  

This article written after 1973 - unknown date - 

Transcribed by Brenda Pierce

In 36 days from Atlanta to Savannah,Maj. General William T. Sherman and his 62,204 Union troups staged a catastrophe unequaled in Georgia history. 

Sherman himself estimated that his month long trip to the coast cost Georgia $100 million dollars.  Of that, 80 percent was pure destruction.

The Union army lost 103 of its own officers and men and sufered 428 wounded and 278 missing.  Bit it killed a substantially larger number of Confederate soldiers and captaured 1,338 of them.  

Marching thru 40 of the state's richest counties, the Union soldiers smashed Georgia's industrial strength and demolished her east-west railroad network.

It began November 9 when Sherman organized his forces into two wings.  It ended Dec 23 after Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln - "I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah --