William Tecumseh Sherman fought for the Union and did more than almost anyone to break the Confederacy's will to fight. Alongside his friend Ulysses S. Grant he helped win the war in the West, then cut a swath of destruction across the South that made him one of the most argued-over generals in American history.
War in the West
Sherman rose through the hard western campaigns, held on stubbornly at Shiloh in 1862 after his division was caught by surprise on the first day, and shared in the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 that split the Confederacy along the Mississippi2. When Grant went east to command all the Union armies, he left Sherman in charge of the western effort1.
General William Tecumseh Sherman photographed by the studio of Mathew Brady, between 1865 and 1880. Public domain
Atlanta and the March to the Sea
In 1864 Sherman drove on Atlanta, the South's great rail and industrial hub, and took it in September, a victory that helped re-elect Lincoln1 and doom the Confederacy. He then cut loose from his supply lines3 and marched his army to Savannah on the coast4, the famous March to the Sea, destroying railroads, farms and factories5 to wreck the South's ability to keep fighting.
Plate from the War Department atlas to the Official Records of the Civil War, mapping Sherman's march from Atlanta through Georgia to Savannah and the coast. Public domain
Hard war
This was Sherman's idea of "hard war": aimed less at killing soldiers than at breaking the economy and morale6 that fed the Confederate armies. It shortened the conflict and helped bring the end of slavery, but the deliberate destruction of civilian property, though his men were ordered to spare lives, made his campaigns bitterly controversial then and since7. "War is hell," he is supposed to have said, and he meant it as a warning.
Sherman's men tearing up the railroad at Atlanta in 1864, photographed by George N. Barnard. Wrecking the South's railways was central to his hard war. Public domain
Lee Kennett, Sherman: A Soldier's Life (HarperCollins, 2001). ↩
William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, 2 vols., D. Appleton and Company, 1875; vol. 2 covers the Atlanta campaign and the March to the Sea. ↩
He was a Union general in the American Civil War (1820 to 1891), best known for capturing Atlanta in 1864 and for the March to the Sea across Georgia.
What was Sherman's March to the Sea?
After taking Atlanta, Sherman marched his army to Savannah on the coast in late 1864, cutting loose from supply lines and destroying railroads, farms and factories to break the South's war economy.
What did Sherman mean by 'hard war'?
He aimed to defeat the Confederacy by wrecking the economy and morale that supported its armies, rather than only by battle; his men targeted property and infrastructure, with orders to spare civilian lives.
Was Sherman a war criminal?
Historians debate it. His campaigns caused great destruction of property but were aimed at war-making capacity, not at killing civilians; they remain controversial while widely credited with shortening the war.
Did Sherman say 'war is hell'?
He is famously associated with the phrase, which captured his grim view that war should be ended quickly and its horrors not glorified.
How did Sherman help end the war?
The fall of Atlanta helped re-elect Lincoln, and Sherman's march wrecked the Confederate heartland, hastening the collapse that ended the war and slavery in 1865.
Win the war in the West
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