From Western Deserts to Carolina Swamps: A Civil War Soldier's Journals and Letters Home

7: The March to the Sea, November 10–December 14, 1864

135 CHAPTER SEVEN The March to the Sea, November 10–December 14, 1864 I n the two months following the capture of Atlanta, Sherman planned his next campaign. This evolved from a proposal to strike other industrial cities in Georgia to marching to the coast, while leaving Maj. Gen. George Thomas in Chattanooga to counter what would become Confederate General Hood’s invasion of Tennessee. General Ulysses S. Grant, initially reluctant to have Sherman turn his back on Hood, finally agreed with his western commander’s proposal to “make Georgia howl.”1 For his March to the Sea, William T. Sherman mustered some 62,000 troops, organized as a Left Wing and a Right Wing. The Left Wing had the 14th and 20th Corps under Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, while Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard led the 15th and 17th Army Corps in the Right Wing. Howard’s command still bore the name Army of the Tennessee; the Left Wing came to be called the Army of Georgia. Maj. Gen. Peter Osterhaus led Roe’s corps, the 15th.2 George Thomas retained the 4th Army Corps, and Maj. Gen. John Schofield still commanded the 23rd Army Corps, the Army of the Ohio. Together with two divisions drawn from Missouri, they held the line in Tennessee. Sherman, who also had Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s 5,000 cavalrymen, now faced only the 3,500 horsemen under Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler plus whatever opposition the Georgia militia might offer.3 The 50th Illinois began its march at a camp four miles east of Rome, Georgia, on November 10. This division (4th Division, 15th Army Corps) under Brig. Gen. John Corse joined Sherman the next day at Kingston, Georgia. Early on the 12th, this part of the army set off with “Weather superb, roads mostly good.” Only those fit to travel accompanied the 136 Chapter Seven campaign; the sick, wounded, nonveteran volunteers, and others had been sent to the rear (to Chattanooga).4 Everybody moved out on the 13th. The 15th and 17th Corps departed from a place south of Marietta , Georgia, known as Smyrna Camp Ground; the 14th Corps from Cartersville (south of Kingston), and the 20th Corps from Atlanta. Kilpatrick and Sherman made their departure from Marietta.5 Lewis Roe never actually saw Atlanta; his corps passed around to the right (west) of the burning city. Only Sherman knew the destination of his columns, and he initially had the Left Wing make a deliberate feint, toward Augusta, Georgia, then turn south and converge at Milledgeville, at that time the state capital. The Right Wing appeared to be heading toward Macon but then veered east in the direction of the rail junction at Gordon, south of Milledgeville.6 Despite Sherman’s secrecy and deceptions, the Chicago Times broadcast his plans to march through Georgia on November 9. Almost before it began, the South knew what was coming.7 Map 7. The March to the Sea, November–December 1864. Courtesy of author. The March to the Sea 137 The columns moved along in rough alignment and within supporting distance of one another. Always in contact, they followed the sparse roads and at times cut through fields and forests. Kilpatrick’s cavalry, shadowed by Wheeler, served as a shield to the Right Wing as far as Griswoldville, then moved east to screen the Left Wing’s movements as it advanced to Savannah. Sherman himself traveled with the Left Wing as far as Tennille Station, then with the Right Wing and the 17th Corps.8 Lewis Roe and the 15th Army Corps continued east from Gordon to the Oconee River crossing at Balls’ Ferry, thence toward the Ogeechee River by way of the Louisville Road. The 4th Division marched through a wilderness along the southern side of a tributary and then the Ogeechee itself all the way to Savannah. The 2nd and 3rd Divisions took a parallel route as much as a dozen miles to the south.9 Roe’s comment, “Into the swamp again,” pretty much said it all. The March to the Sea is easily followed on the excellent maps in a recent title.10 Roe apparently never saw Sherman himself on this march, although the general’s entourage joined Brigadier General Corse’s 4th Division for part of the day on November 27.11 For most of the infantry, the March to the Sea was a figurative walk...