It was very demoralising for the Germans, who now had to fight face to face wit Allied sodiers

A costly defeat of the newly-promoted Union General, Ambrose Burnside, followed by his demoralising 'Mud March', which caused Lincoln to replace him with Joe Hooker.

The practice of providing separate amenities, segregation and discrimination was already well entrenched before 1948 by the British colonialists. The Nationalist government made the segregation more extensive and more demoralising, and gave it the name Apartheid, to promote their view that there should be separate development between white and non-white races.

It sounded like big news to the war-weary Northern public, and helped Lincoln win re-election in November 1864.

Atlanta was actually not such an important military objective. Grant had told Sherman to destroy the Army of Tennessee under John Hood, but they managed to escape.

Sherman then made his plan to ignore Hood altogether and cross Georgia, laying waste to the farms and demoralising the civilians.

No direct experience of the others, but my son had a ball in his Navy gap year! Initial training was hard (and sometimes demoralising) but after being posted to a ship and doing training exercises in Australian waters, he had 3 months overseas in waters from PNG to Malaysia (not to mention the shore leave in exotic places). He was definitely lucky in his posting, but I think if you want the possibility of travel in your gap year, the Navy gives you the best opportunity.