How are Sherman's Atlanta campaign and march to the sea connected?

Answer 1

Good question.

Grant had not ordered any Atlanta campaign, as such. Unlike the previous General-in-Chief, Halleck, he was not interested in occupying territory or capturing famous landmarks with ringing names. His aim was purely and simply to destroy the two main Confederate armies, wherever they might be.

So Sherman had been told to destroy Joe Johnston's Army of Tennessee, but he never succeeded in accomplishing this. He had chased them as far as Atlanta, which they had fortified (under Johnston's replacement, John Hood). But when Sherman started to surround the city, they managed to escape into the mountains, where Sherman could not locate them.

To deliver something that sounded like a victory, Sherman decided to occupy, and largely destroy Atlanta itself. This did indeed revive Northern civilian morale at a crucial moment, when Lincoln was facing a General Election, apparently at a disadvantage.

Meanwhile Sherman was worried about his long and vulnerable supply-line, and decided on his entirely new strategy (the opposite of what Grant had ordered) - to attack the infrastructure that supported the Confederate armies in the field, living off the land as he went. This was his 5-week March to the Sea, where he destroyed farms, crops and livestock at a cost of almost nil casualties, and finally liberated the port of Savannah.

It undoubtedly shortened the war by months.