From Atlanta to Savannah, passing through rich farmland after a good harvest, and with very few Confederate troops to slow them down. The telegraph lines had been cut, so Sherman was incommunicado for almost six weeks, before making contact with the US Navy, who were able to signal Washington.
William T. Sherman was a West Point graduate and in charge of a military college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the start of the war. Confederate President Jefferson Davis offered Sherman a commission in the Southern army. Both men were West Point graduates. Also, generals from both sides had joined the opposition, so there was a precedent for this. Sherman declined the offer.
It is not certain that he did so deliberately. But he was determined to punish South Carolina for being the first state to secede, and so he continued the destructive course he had started in Georgia. He would certainly have intended to leave his mark on the state capital. The reason for burning cities was to kill the Confederacy's ability to wage war and to destroy the will to fight.
Under the direction of General US Grant, General William T. Sherman, led a campaign that captured and destroyed Atlanta in 1864. Shortly thereafter he began his infamous "March to the Sea". Sherman's troops destroyed all they could so that Southern forces could not salvage supplies from Sherman's campaign. At that point in time the war, Lincoln, Grant and Sherman believed that "total war" was the fastest way to end the US Civil War. There was a good deal of controversy over the humanity of the devastation that Sherman's troops laid on Georgia.
Union General William Tecumseh's so called "March to the Sea" campaign was a"scorched earth" campaign. The main objective was to capture Atlanta. Sherman did that and many historians say that the fall of Atlanta saved President Lincoln's Republican nomination for the November 1864 election. That was due to the ever growing "peace movement" in the North. The war was taking a terrible toll on life and some Unionists wanted an end to it, which meant that Lincoln would either not get the Republican nomination or that the Democrat "peace candidate" George McClellan, former head of the Army of the Potomac might win the election. Sherman made his Southern headquarters in Atlanta for almost 8 weeks. He then finished his march to the sea to capture Savannah, a port city in Georgia. The South was not destroyed by Sherman. The war would last another 6 months, however, losing Atlanta was a strategic blow to the Confederacy.
Use of nicknames was popular during the 19th century. As a boy and young man, William Tecumseh Sherman was typically called "Tecumseh" (his given name) and "Cump" (his nickname). During the Civil War, he was called "Uncle Billy" by his troops, although never to his face. Following the Civil War, it was rare for anyone other than immediate family and closest friends to call him anything other than General Sherman, as he was so highly respected by the majority of Americans including a substantial number of former Confederates.
His father highly respected the great Native American leader, Tecumseh, so they made that his middle name. In General William Tecumseh Sherman's own words (from his 1875 Memoirs), " ... Hardly was [my] family established there when the War of 1812 caused great alarm and distress in all Ohio. The English captured Detroit and the shores of Lake Erie down to the Maumee River; while the Indians still occupied the greater part of the State. Nearly every man had to be somewhat of a soldier, but I think my father was only a commissary; still, he seems to have caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, 'Tecumseh.'" "... When, in 1816, my brother James was born, he insisted on engrafting the Indian name 'Tecumseh' on the usual family list. My mother had already named her first son after her own brother Charles; and insisted on the second son taking the name of her other brother James, and when I came along, on the 8th of February, 1820, mother having no more brothers, my father succeeded in his original purpose, and named me William Tecumseh." The following link is to Memoirs of General William T. Sherman at Project Gutenberg.
He was called "Cump" by his close friends and family. This nickname came along as his younger siblings could not pronounce his full name at the time, Tecumseh, and so he was simply called Cump. The name William came along when he was adopted by Thomas Ewing after his father's death. He was to be baptised into a different religion, and the priest doing his baptism refused to baptise him under Tecumseh, which was the name of an Indian chief that opposed and attacked America during the war of 1812, killing many.
Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating campaign through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 is known as "Sherman's March to the Sea" . So called, because W.T.Sherman's goal was the port city of Savannah,Georgia .A remarkable , and infamous to some , campaign to wage war essentially behind Confederate lines relying upon those supplies found along the line of march . He and his army conducted what we know today as a "Scorched Earth" policy where any and all resources available to the enemy (In this case , the Confederacy.) to conduct the war is destroyed/eliminated .
Sherman's Total War did not start until just after the election, so there was no connection there. His earlier capture of Atlanta, however, was one of the three significant Union victories that restored civilian morale, just in time. The others were Farragut's liberation of the blockade-runners'port of Mobile, and Sheridan's wrecking of the Shenandoah farmland (which could also be described as Total War.)
William T. Sherman was against slavery because he was on the Union side. The Union side was against slavery. When the Confederate side was for slavery. So since Sherman's on the Union side, he was against it.
Union General William T. Sherman played an important role in the US Civil War. His efforts helped in a large way to defeat the Confederacy. His early life is ofter overlooked. Here are some interesting parts of his background before the US Civil War:* Sherman was raised as a ward of a prominent lawyer and politician, Thomas Ewing;* Sherman's widowed mother was unable to properly raise her eleven children so the Roman Catholic Ewing family agreed to raise Sherman;* Sherman's original name was only Tecumseh, for the Native American chief. People referred to Sherman as Cump;* Sherman acquired his Christian name when Ewing's priest baptized him on St. Williams Day;* As a youth, Sherman hated his natural red hair and tried to use a dye to change the color;* Sadly, this turned his hair to a strange looking green color; and* He graduated from West Point and was known there as a prankster and drinker.
! because when he lost he was so ashamed of himself and quit the union army.
From Atlanta to Savannah, passing through rich farmland after a good harvest, and with very few Confederate troops to slow them down. The telegraph lines had been cut, so Sherman was incommunicado for almost six weeks, before making contact with the US Navy, who were able to signal Washington.
William T. Sherman was a West Point graduate and in charge of a military college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the start of the war. Confederate President Jefferson Davis offered Sherman a commission in the Southern army. Both men were West Point graduates. Also, generals from both sides had joined the opposition, so there was a precedent for this. Sherman declined the offer.
Sherman invaded Georgia, with the "March to the Sea" campaign in order to end the war. He, as well as him men and the Union (U.S.A), were sick of the war and knew that the South would go on forever, for they had almost infinitely amount of people to throw into battle (slaves). He did so because the war needed to end, and if he didn't, then the war would have maybe lasted another 10 years.
It is not certain that he did so deliberately. But he was determined to punish South Carolina for being the first state to secede, and so he continued the destructive course he had started in Georgia. He would certainly have intended to leave his mark on the state capital. The reason for burning cities was to kill the Confederacy's ability to wage war and to destroy the will to fight.