2. The Wilderness
• Early 1864, Grant attacked Lee’s army in Virginia
– Wanted to keep Lee engaged while Sherman advanced on
Atlanta
– Told Gen. Meade: “Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.”
– 100,000 Union soldiers v. 70,000 Confederates
– Lee forced to fight defensively to conserve men
• Met in a wooded area a 50 miles north of Richmond
– Horrific battle
• Vegetation caught fire
• Many of the wounded burned to death
• People couldn’t see; some shot their own comrades
• Both armies lost all organization
• 18,000 Union soldiers died
– Grant privately wept; yet told a reporter to tell Lincoln
“whatever happens, there will be no turning back.”
3. Overland Campaign -- Grant in VA
• But that was just the beginning of a 6 week campaign
– Sent subordinates to Spotsylvania Court House
• 14,000 men died over 10 days of fighting
– Meanwhile, he went pursued Lee to Cold Harbor
• Another 13,000 men killed
– 7,000 men fell in the first 30 minutes of battle
• Soldiers began refusing to advance, begging not to go into battle
• Over 6 weeks, Grant lost something like 65,000 men;
Lee lost 36,000
• North horrified by losses; press again turns against
Grant
– “The Butcher”
5. “Army of the Potomac – our Wounded escaping the
Fires of the Wilderness” Alfred R. Waud, Harper’s
Weekly on June 4, 1864
6. Blows to Confederacy
• As late of August 1864, Confederacy still mounting
defenses
• North still despairing over heavy losses
• But tide really turned with the fall of Atlanta in early
Sept. 1864
– Remember it came right before the election
– Chicago Tribune: “The dark days are over. We see our way
out.”
• Lincoln’s re-elections caused southerners to despair
– They had been banking on McClellan winning, and popular
dissent in the North forcing a negotiated peace
7. Atlanta Campaign (May 7 – Sept 2, ’64)
• 3 month campaign
• Laid siege to Atlanta for 5 weeks
– Covered nearly 100 mile stretch; men fought
continuously
• Upon taking the town, Sherman expelled the
civilians still residing there
– Didn’t want to waste manpower garrisoning the town
– Outraged protest from Confederate General J.B. Hood
and from civic leaders in Atlanta
• See correspondence (on course website)
8. Sherman’s evacuation of Atlanta
• Sept. 9, ’64, Confederate Gen. J.B. Hood re.
Sherman’s insistence on relocating the civilian
population:
– “And now, sir, permit me to say that the
unprecedented measure you propose transcends,
in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever
before brought to my attention in the dark
history of war. In the name of God and humanity I
protest, believing that you will find that you are
expelling from their homes and firesides the wives
and children of a brave people.”
9. Sherman defends evacuation
On September 11, Sherman writes to the Atlanta Mayor and
two councilmen in response to a similar protest:
“I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot
impart to you what I propose to do, but I assert that my
military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go
away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their
exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is
cruelty and you cannot refine it, and those who brought
war into our country deserve all the curses and
maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in
making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-
day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have
peace and a division of our country.”
10. Lieber Code
• First modern codification of the laws of war
– Concise, clear restatement of accepted customs
– April 1863: Issued as General Order No. 100
• Written by German immigrant and scholar Francis
Lieber
– Had fought in Napoleonic Wars
– 1861 began giving lectures at Columbia: “The Laws
and Usages of War”
• How soldiers should conduct themselves
• “Tough humanitarianism”
– Violence had to be justified by military necessity
11. Lieber Code, cont.
• Defined military necessity as “… consist[ing] in the
necessity of those measures which are indispensable
for securing the ends of war, and which are lawful
according to the modern law and usages of war.”
• “Military necessity does not admit of cruelty—that is,
the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for
revenge … [and] does not include any act of hostility
which makes return to peace unnecessarily difficult.”
• “The more vigorously wars are pursued the better it is
for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.”
16. Sherman’s March to the Sea
• Began in Atlanta; ended in Savannah
– 5 weeks: November 15 to December 21, 1864
• Defied military principles
– By operating deep within enemy territory
– By cutting loose from supply and communication lines
• Army of 62,000 “bummers” foraged and lived off the land
• Sherman consulted census records to determine which
routes would best supply his troops
• Lincoln had been reluctant to give permission;
refused to do so before the election
17. March to Sea, cont.
• Goal was as much psychological and military
– To demoralize civilians; show them the Confederate
Army could not protect them
• In a letter written Xmas eve to Gen. Henry Halleck: “We are
not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old
and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”
• “Scorched earth policy”
– Faced little resistance until reaching Savannah
– Left trail of destruction
• Railroad tracks; burned food stores, etc.
• Remains hugely controversial to this day
18. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 120
November 9, 1864
“Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or
commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be
permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to
drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be
instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance
from the road traveled.”
“To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to
destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general
principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the
army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be
permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our
march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or
otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should
order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according
to the measure of such hostility.”
19. Sherman’s Order No. 120, cont.
“As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the
inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may
appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating,
however, between the rich, who are usually hostile,
and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or
friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or
horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or
to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades.
In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties
engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening
language, and may, where the officer in command
thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts,
but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with
each family a reasonable portion for their
maintenance.”
20. “Marching Through Georgia” (1865)
• Marching song written near the war’s end
• Very popular among veterans after the war
• Sherman himself disliked the song
– “If had thought when I made that march that
it would have inspired any one to compose the
piece, I would have marched around the
state."
• Widespread appeal outside the US
21. “Marching through Georgia”
Verse 2
How the darkeys shouted
when they heard the joyful sound
How the turkeys gobbled
which our commissary found
How the sweet potatoes
even started from the ground
While we were marching through Georgia.
Verse 3
Yes and there were Union men
who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag
they had not seen for years
Hardly could they be restrained
from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.
Verse 4
"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys
will never reach the coast!"
So the saucy rebels said
and 'twas a handsome boast
Had they not forgot, alas!
To reckon with the Host
While we were marching through Georgia.
Verse 5
So we made a thoroughfare
for freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude,
three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us,
for resistance was in vain
While we were marching through Georgia.
22. Prisoner exchanges resumed in early
1865
• Recall that Confederates’
refusal to treat black
soldiers as POWs had led
to breakdown of system
• Prisons swelled
• Southern prisons
especially horrific
– Andersonville
• Seeing emaciated
comrades infuriated
Union soldiers
26. Primary source: Children of Pride
• Diary entries you read are from December 13,
1864 through January 27, 1865 (includes the
period when Savannah is taken)
• Written by two different women, a mother (Mary
Jones) and a daughter (Mary Mallard)
• Mary Mallard had previously fled Atlanta to the
family plantation (Montevideo) in Liberty County,
Georgia
• What sense do the diaries give you of the
women’s treatment by Union troops? How might
the same events been narrated by the slaves?
28. Sherman’s March through SC
• Sherman inflicted even more destruction in
South Carolina (1st state to secede)
– December 1864 – Sherman reached Savannah and
turned north to go help Grant fight Lee
– Followed by 25,000 former slaves
– Burned almost every house in his path in SC
– Burned Columbia, SC
– Stopped destroying private homes when he reached
North Carolina (last state to secede)
– Began handing out food & supplies (realized the war
was almost over)
29. Jane Evans Elliot, March 25, 1865.
This day two weeks since, 12 of March was a day of sorrow and
confusion never to be forgotten. Sherman’s army reached
Fayetteville the day before, and at 9 o’clock Sunday morning, a
party of raiders rushed in upon our peaceful home. They pillaged
and plundered the whole day and quartered upon that night and
staid [sic] until 5 o’clock Monday evening. Some part of the time
there were at least three different parties. The house was rifled
from garret to cellar. Took all our blankets and all [my husband’s]
clothes, all our silver and knives and forks, all our luxuries, leaving
nothing but a little meat and corn. They threatened [my
husband’s] life repeatedly and one ruffian galloped up to the door
and pulled out his matches to fire the house. Oh! it was terrible
beyond description. It seems ever present to my mind. One night
they strung fire all around us and we took up the children and
dressed them and watched all night fearing the fire might
consume our dwelling.
32. Siege of Petersburg (June-March ’63)
• Not a classic siege of encircling the city
• Critical city for supplying Lee
• Grant used hundreds of miles of trenches to place Petersburg under
siege for nine months
• Supply lines to Richmond were broken
• April 2, 1865, Petersburg and Richmond fell to the Union
• On April 4, Lincoln visited Richmond – walked the streets
– Descriptions of him being greeted by former slaves
• Robert E. Lee retreated and fled towards the town of
Appomattox
• By this time, Lee’s army was down to 30,000-50,000;
deserting at a rate of 10,000 a month
35. Dénouement
• End comes when Petersburg and then
Richmond finally fell
• Surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865
– Grant allowed the Confederate soldiers (only
20,000 at this point) to leave with their arms and
their horses
– Provided the Confederate troops with rations
• April 14, 1865: Just five days later, Lincoln was
assassinated
39. Lincoln delivers the Second Inaugural,
March 4, 1865
• One month before the fall of Richmond, Lincoln
had delivered his 2nd Inaugural Address:
• “With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are
in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and for his widow
and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves
and with all nations.”
40. Review of readings
• How does Mark Neely answer the question posed
in the title of his essay: “Was the Civil War a Total
War?”
• According to Lance Janda (“Shutting the Gates of
Mercy”) how does the kind of warfare developed
(by generals like Grant, Sherman and Sheridan) in
the Civil War compare to that seen in the Indian
Wars of the 1870s-90s?
• What was sequestration? What does Brian Dirck
argue about the South’s record on the protection
of civil liberties, particularly property ownership?
