Hosted the talk. Thank you for that brief introduction. I know everyone appreciates that. Welcome to georgia. I know many of you are traveling and are in our state probably for the first time. We specially ordered this weather for you. I know you have been on battlefields and im glad it has cooperated and we have been able to provide you with a great experience. We hope you will come back. I want to thank the Shenandoah Valley battlefields association for asking me to speak about somebody and something i have no idea when i started hitting my phd would become such an important part of my life. I cannot get away from general sherman. Topics ate to change some point and move into another area, but he is a fascinating person. A fascinating topic. I am delighted to see so many folks here. That you care this much about the civil war, battlefields, and preserving the battlefields. One of my favorite things to do is to hike battlefields. When you can unite the outdoors and the study of the civil war, theres nothing else like it. Thank you for all you do come and the association does, to preserve our battlefields and to teach civil war history. He has been called the savior of the union and the ruthless destroyer of the south. The prophet of 20th century warfare. A sadist who waged war on women and children. A modern soldier. And a terrorist. Few names from the past invoke as much emotion as William Tecumseh sherman. If you think history does not matter or sherman has faded from memory, walk into any place in georgia and proclaim sherman is a hero and atlanta got what it deserved and see what happens. His is a true story i first moved to georgia 21 years ago, i was on my way to atlanta from savanna. I passed a pickup truck on i16. The Bumper Sticker said general sherman where are you now that atlanta really needs you . [laughter] thing i want to show you is this wonderful piece of civil war memorabilia. Are those of you in the back, you may not be able to read this. This was given to me as a gift. It says general william t sherman, still wiping up the self. The south it comes with a dispenser. Every time you tear off a piece of the paper, it plays dixie. That gives you some idea of the fame of general sherman. Possible exception of property league, no civil war general is so well known by the public. There is no soldier more associated with georgia than the hand that became infamous as its destroyer. What i would like to do during the time allotted to me this afternoon is to cut through some of the myths, folklore, and distortion surrounding sherman and the march to the sea. To that end, i will attempt to answer three broad questions about the man, the march, and the memory. The man, the march, the memory. Who was sherman, what were his reasons and motivations for waging what has come to be called hard war . What was the nature and impact of the march to the sea. Was it necessary . What is the legacy of sherman and the march to the sea in modern america . What influence did he and the can we learnhat from the man and his march . Lets talk to the man. Historians disagree. Lach said it was his search for order that defined his life as he tried to find stability following the death of his father and separation from his mother in early childhood. Others say that his life was defined by the overwhelming fear of mental instability that plagued his motherss family. His maternal grandmother, uncle, all died ortom spent years in insane in insane asylums. One of his brothers died the delay in stable while the other died an alcoholic. There is general agreement that he was a brilliant but tormented sadnesso knew and only occasional happiness. His early life was chaotic. His father died when he was nine years old and his mother turned him over to another family. The combination of losing his parents and the mental problems he inherited from his mothers side contributed to the depression he suffered from as an adult. Although many biographers ignore or reject the notion that he was plagued by mental illness, symptomsxhibited many of depression. On at least 2 occasions he suffered a nervous breakdown. Notably during the winter of 1862 and he was relieved from command for showing acute paranoia over the Confederate Forces raid against him, exaggerating their numbers. He was sent home in disgrace and almost committed suicide. Sherman was essentially a conservative. He believed in the rule of law, warning the mayor of atlanta in 1864 that the easiest way to end the war would be for those in a billion to obey the laws and the constitution. He was an admirer of southern planters. He felt no moral revulsion over the institute of slavery. In the army he spent time in the south, where he felt at home and was truly happy. On the eve of the civil war he was appointed superintendent of a new military school in louisiana, which is today Louisiana State university. Shermans racism made him comfortable with slavery, but he had little patience with southerners who resorted to disunion to protect the institution. For him it represented treason and anarchy. On american soldiers and the American Flag at fort sumter was to him an attack on the constitution and an insurrection against the laws of the United States. When the United States conceded the right to break away, sherman feared the process would go on perpetually. It states were allowed to break away every time they lost a constitutional election america would end up, like he said, mexico. Continually in the grip a revolution. Be crushed ort the experiment and republicanism would fail discrediting the only example at that time of a successful democratic government. And 11 slaveholding states declared independence following the election of lincoln, sherman looked upon them as resurgent forces needed to be repressed. They had an open antislavery present for the First Time Since the founding of the republic, but he did not give southerners and slave owners provocation to destroy the government. They had no right to seize the board, arsenals, and mints which were property of the United States and placed in the south for the benefit and protection of the people. I the contracts of government, he wrote to the mayor of atlanta, the United States had certain rights in georgia which were never relinquished and never would be through its army. The United States had a right to put down rebellion, reclaim property, and it forced laws. Andring to an end unnecessary and people wore it did not start but would finish. The decision to mark an army from atlanta to the sea was a revolutionary process. Through the first years, sherman watched as the battles became bloodier and seemed to resolve nothing. The search for the battle of annihilation, where one army would destroy the other in an allout decisive engagement was elusive. The bloodlettings at shiloh, even the great twin Union Victories of the when Union Victories of vicksburg and gettysburg. Chairman was not surprised, having lived in the south he knew the southern people intimately. He knew their spirit and pride. The determination to fight. He decided a new way to wage war must be developed. To demonstrate to the supporters of the confederacy that their cause was hopeless and the confederate government did not protect them on the power of the United States. This point was evident when he and his troops were called upon to garrison parts of the mississippi delta that had fallen after the battle of shiloh. Initially sherman went along with the lincolns administrations policy. In the misguided belief that support was shallow among the Common People for the new confederacy. If the federal government treated southerners reasonably, their loyalty would reassert itself. As the Army Advanced into the south, the white population became determined to resist. Many civilians defied federal authority by smuggling medicine, bushwhacking soldiers, and harboring guerillas. The war was no longer a fight between armies where the lines between combatants and noncombatants was clear. Of the on many characteristics of the type of insurgency waged during the 20th and 21st centuries in places like vietnam, iraq, and afghanistan. This was one of the areas where shermans legacy has not been explored. We talk about the march to the sea, but sherman dealing with an insurgency and his attempts at counterinsurgency, something that would he relevant to modern america after what we have been through in the middle east, an area that is rife for historians to explore. Confronted with this hostility on the part of noncombatants, his attitude again to harden. He came to the conclusion that those in rebellion, soldiers and civilians, most feel the hard hand of war. That the United States had the power to penetrate every part of its National Domain to reestablish its authority and destroy insurgent forces. Those termsthey use frequently, insurgent and insurgency. The continued resistance justified it. It made no difference whether it was one year, two years, 10 years, or 20, they would remove and destroy every obstacle, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property that seems proper. They would not stop until the end of the chain. That all who oppose us our enemies and we will not account for them for our actions. Sherman was not the only one coming to the conclusion that if it were to be won the war needed to be harsher. The Lincoln Administration issued special order number 100 entitled instructions for the government of the armies of the United States in the field. A set of rules for the u. S. Army that delineated what types of conduct was permissible and what was not. Called the lever code out a friend after frances labor Francis Lieber it prohibited visitors,xecution of assassination, and the breaking of flags of truce and agreements between warring parties. The code prohibited, as a historian put it, the infliction of suffering for its own sake. Authorizedr hand, it the u. S. Army to destroy civilian property of a star of noncombatants starve noncombatants, free slaves, and summarily execute guerillas if such measures were deemed necessary to winning the war. Country is paramount to all other consideration. I will over p that. To save the country is paramount to all other consideration. Like other wartime chief executives to the present day, lincoln was willing to take drastic measures to ensure the survival of the United States. Sherman could not have agreed more. When he captured atlanta in 1864, his thoughts had matured. The rebel army had been defeated. Another major city had fallen. The confederates would not give up. Rather then continue the futile war against people, he would wage war against property. A shift in objectives sanctioned by the u. S. Government has code. Sed in the lieber it would bring victory with a minimum loss of life on both sides and undermine confederate ,orale on the home front trigger a wave of desertions, destroy the ability to wage war, and prove to the rebels that the confederate government was them andto protect their property. The history of the war demonstrated there could be no peace without making it as harsh as possible. War is cruelty and you cannot refine it he wrote to the mayor and aldermen of atlanta when they protested against the removal of citizens from the city. You may as well appeal against a thunderstorm. The hardships of war are navigable. The only way the people of atlantic and hope to live in peace and quiet at home is to stop the war. We do not want your negroes, horses, houses, land but we do want and will have obedience to the laws of the United States. That, we will have. If it involves the destruction of your property, we cannot help it. It is important to remember the context in which sherman put the code into action. The civil war of 1864 was no longer the gentlemans conflict of 1861. When sherman headed to atlanta, one million u. S. And confederate soldiers had been killed, wounded, or died of disease. Graveyards and hospitals covered the land. The country was drenched in blood. The guerrillas bushwhacked soldiers while other confederate guerrillas and guards robbed, tortured, and murdered southern civilians. Regular horses had burned hampton, virginia and chambersburg, pennsylvania. Confederate officials executed southern civilians for suspected disloyalty, including a mass hanging of 40 texans in october for nothing more than failing to show for the draft. Confederate soldiers murdered hundreds of black prisoners. In accordance with official confederate policy, rebel authorities sent the black soldiers they did not kill back into slavery. Thousands of white u. S. Prisoners were suffering and dying in hell holes. In short, the civil war, like other wars had taken an ugly turn. The United States and Confederate States were struggling for existence. It was life or death. Actions that would have been considered atrocities at the beginning of the war were becoming commonplace on both sides. Sherman thought it was hypocritical or confederates who had plunged the nation into war to appeal to god and humanity when the tide turned against them given their own brutal actions. No one could attack the United States, especially from within, he reasoned, and not expect consequences. Sherman believe there was a broader goal to widen distractions to include noncombatants. Demanding the war become as brutal and painful as possible. In this way the enemies of the United States would never try to break up the country to ensure ends. Political the war, sherman said, was the choice of a minority of disaffected citizens. Having lost the president ial sought to overturn the will of the majority by resorting to succession. Now that the United States were at war, they had to prosecute those who appealed to it and come to the emblem of our nation to sue for peace. I would not coax them are made them halfway, but make them so sick of four that generations would pass away before they would appeal to it. Those were tough words indeed. As usual, with a hyperbolic sherman, his bark was worse than his bite. His rhetoric harsher than his actions. As his troops set out for atlanta in 1864, sherman swore howl. E georgia historical evidence shows the general was neither as destructive as he planned to be, nor as barbaric as he was accused of. Numbercial field order 120 sherman laid out the rules of destruction and conduct. The army was to forge liberally. N the country the details of men and officers sent out each day to gather food. Were not to enter private homes and to discriminate from the rich, who were usually hostile, and of the poor and industrious who were usually neutral or friendly. To be sure, there was more destruction than allowed by the orders. Officers were not always present to control their men. Saw this as as golden opportunity to teach the people of georgia the hardships and terror of war. Which they blamed the confederates for starting and continuing despite defeats on the battlefields. Homes of the wealthy were burned. Private dwellings were entered. Personal property was taken. Civilians were stripped of more food than army needed or could consume. Sherman called this eating out the country. The worst discussion of private are pretty continued after the march to the sea and South Carolina because sherman and his men considered the state responsible for the war. As in georgia, the primary destruction was infrastructure and anything that could be used to continue the struggle. Factories, mills, caught gents, bridges, and railroad. Hundreds of miles of track were torn up. They were wrapped around trees and telegraph poles are they would require a rolling mill to usable. M in georgia and North Carolina, the march to the sea was savannah to atlanta but let South Carolina deal with their own history. Were talking about torture. In georgia and North Carolina few private homes were burned. Those that were belonged to men cobb,ow called howell who sherman considered guilty of bringing on the rebellion. Cribs were and corn put to the torch, but rarely a private home. Compared to were existing structures, finding most along the march were still in existence. The few that were gone had been. Ost to post were accidents despite the commonly held belief reinforced by gone to the wind that sherman reduced atlanta to smoldering ruin, only the business and industrial sections were put to the torch. The residential area and courthouse area were spared. In general, the residential areas survived. Although battered. 60 of the city was Still Standing when sherman set out on his infamous march to the sea. 40 of atlanta destroyed was the confederates burned of chambersburg, previous july. E sherman proved merciful in forgiving when his enemies submitted to the authority of the national government. Savanna is the prime example. In savannah, sherman was offered one of the finest mansions as headquarters. He described mayor arnold as completely subjugated. The citizens as orderly and well behaved. Escaped the fate of others along the march. Jaclyn jones conducted resources from primary sources like diaries and letters, savannah welcomed the army as liberators. They were ready to throw off the yoke of the confederacy. Succession had only brought death and deprivation. Peace. Ple wanted greeted by contrition rather than defiance, sherman changed course. As he said to the mayor of atlanta, if those in rebellion would acknowledge the authority of the national government, i and this army will become your protectors and supporters of shielding you from danger. The mayor of atlanta did not heed the warning. Did. Nahs mayor where the march ended was different than where it began. Another kind of property destroyed during the march to the sea was slavery. The emancipation proclamation, issue two years earlier, freed the slaves in the rebellious states. As they advanced deeper into the south, sherman and the