Um... Atlanta was burned to the ground and was completely rebuilt from its ashes, earning the name "The City of the Phoenix." It also allowed for all the cities in the South that were destroyed to be rebuilt with future technology (ie cars) in mind causing less parking congestion than in many northern cities.
Actually Atlanta was 30% destroyed - mostly factories and warehouses. The destruction of Columbia, NC was largely because of cotton fields and bales set on fire by the retreating Confederates. The South surrendered after Lincoln was assassinated. Since Lincoln was not there to oversee the surrender agreement, the South was "taught a lesson" and very badly treated. This caused very hard feelings against the North - some would say still exists today. Civilian Southeners lost faith in their soldiers, believing that they would protect them and their borders from the Union soldiers.
I would like to improve the answer as follows.
From the strategic point of view the March to the Sea was the decisive factor which sped up the collapse of the Confederacy.
Sherman's victorious army took strategically although not tactically from behind Lee's army and the Confederate, after having been defeated at the battle of Bentonville had no sufficient forces to prevent Sherman from invading North Carolina, capturing its Capital, Raleigh and interrupting the vital railway line Raleigh-Greensborough-Danville.
So Lee's army was hopeless isolated and its surrender was but only a matter of few weeks.
My mom said they burned houses and people in them killing as much as every Pearson in rackdale and that was the end of the civil war
the Phoenix. atlanta was burned to the ground during shermans march to the sea. Atlanta has emerged as the new capital of the south.
I think 2100 union soldiers died/were wounded and roughly 1000 confederacy soldiers died/were wounder --summer =)
he stared in Atlanta and moved to Savannah.
In its' day, it represented "Total War", just as the Atomic Bomb did in WWII.
Sherman's March to the Sea
Savannah
1864
March to Sea
Savannah
savannah
Georgia
From Atlanta to Savannah
no one
1864
Georgia
November and December (1864)