Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
because Hardee could avail himself of his central position to fall
on this detachment with his whole army. I did not want to make a
mistake like "Ball's Bluff" at that period of the war; so, taking
one or two of my personal staff, I rode back to Grog's Bridge,
leaving with Generals Howard and Slocum orders to make all
possible preparations, but not to attack, during my two or three
days' absence; and there I took a boat for Wassaw Sound, whence
Admiral Dahlgren conveyed me in his own boat (the Harvest Moon) to
Hilton Head, where I represented the matter to General Foster, and
he promptly agreed to give his personal attention to it. During
the night of the 20th we started back, the wind blowing strong,
Admiral Dahlgren ordered the pilot of the Harvest Moon to run into
Tybee, and to work his way through to Wassaw Sound and the Ogeechee
River by the Romney Marshes. We were caught by a low tide and
stuck in the mud. After laboring some time, the admiral ordered
out his barge; in it we pulled through this intricate and shallow
channel, and toward evening of December 21st we discovered, coming
toward us, a tug, called the Red Legs, belonging to the
Quarter-master's Department, with a staff-officer on board, bearing
letters from Colonel Dayton to myself and the admiral, reporting that
the city of Savannah had been found evacuated on the morning of
December 21st, and was then in our possession. General Hardee had
crossed the Savannah River by a pontoon-bridge, carrying off his men
and light artillery, blowing up his iron-clads and navy-yard, but
leaving for us all the heavy guns, stores, cotton, railway-cars,
steamboats, and an immense amount of public and private property.
Admiral Dahlgren concluded to go toward a vessel (the Sonoma) of his
blockading fleet, which lay at anchor near Beaulieu, and I
transferred to the Red Legs, and hastened up the Ogeechee River to
Grog's Bridge, whence I rode to my camp that same night. I there
learned that, early on the morning of December 21st, the skirmishers
had detected the absence of the enemy, and had occupied his lines
simultaneously along their whole extent; but the left flank (Slocum),
especially Geary's division of the Twentieth Corps, claimed to have
been the first to reach the heart of the city.
Generals Slocum and Howard moved their headquarters at once into
the city, leaving the bulk of their troops in camps outside. On
the morning of December 22d I followed with my own headquarters,
and rode down Bull Street to the custom-house, from the roof of
which we had an extensive view over the city, the river, and the
vast extent of marsh and rice-fields on the South Carolina side.
The navy-yard, and the wreck of the iron-clad ram Savannah, were
still smouldering, but all else looked quiet enough. Turning back,
we rode to the Pulaski Hotel, which I had known in years long gone,
and found it kept by a Vermont man with a lame leg, who used to be
a clerk in the St. Louis Hotel, New Orleans, and I inquired about
the capacity of his hotel for headquarters. He was very anxious to
have us for boarders, but I soon explained to him that we had a
full mess equipment along, and that we were not in the habit of
paying board; that one wing of the building would suffice for our
use, while I would allow him to keep an hotel for the accommodation
of officers and gentlemen in the remainder. I then dispatched an
officer to look around for a livery-stable that could accommodate
our horses, and, while waiting there, an English gentleman, Mr.
Charles Green, came and said that he had a fine house completely
furnished, for which he had no use, and offered it as headquarters.
He explained, moreover, that General Howard had informed him, the
day before, that I would want his house for headquarters. At first
I felt strongly disinclined to make use of any private dwelling,
lest complaints should arise of damage and lose of furniture, and
so expressed myself to Mr. Green; but, after riding about the city,
and finding his house so spacious, so convenient, with large yard
and stabling, I accepted his offer, and occupied that house during
our stay in Savannah. He only reserved for himself the use of a
couple of rooms above the dining-room, and we had all else, and a
most excellent house it was in all respects.
I was disappointed that Hardee had escaped with his army, but on
the whole we had reason to be content with the substantial fruits
of victory. The Savannah River was found to be badly obstructed by
torpedoes, and by log piers stretched across the channel below the
city, which piers were filled with the cobble stones that formerly
paved the streets. Admiral Dahlgren was extremely active, visited
me repeatedly in the city, while his fleet still watched
Charleston, and all the avenues, for the blockade-runners that
infested the coast, which were notoriously owned and managed by
Englishmen, who used the island of New Providence (Nassau) as a
sort of entrepot. One of these small blockade-runners came into
Savannah after we were in full possession, and the master did not
discover his mistake till he came ashore to visit the custom-house.
Of coarse his vessel fell a prize to the navy. A heavy force was
at once set to work to remove the torpedoes and obstructions in the
main channel of the river, and, from that time forth, Savannah
became the great depot of supply for the troops operating in that
quarter.
Meantime, on the 15th and 16th of December, were fought, in front
of Nashville, the great battles in which General Thomas so nobly
fulfilled his promise to ruin Hood, the details of which are fully
given in his own official reports, long-since published. Rumors of
these great victories reached us at Savannah by piecemeal, but his
official report came on the 24th of December, with a letter from
General Grant, giving in general terms the events up to the 18th,
and I wrote at once through my chief of staff, General Webster, to
General Thomas, complimenting him in the highest terms. His
brilliant victory at Nashville was necessary to mine at Savannah to
make a complete whole, and this fact was perfectly comprehended by
Mr. Lincoln, who recognized it fully in his personal letter of
December 26th, hereinbefore quoted at length, and which is also
claimed at the time, in my Special Field Order No. 6, of January 8,
1865, here given:
(Special Field Order No. 6.)
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
IN THE FIELD, NEAR SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, January 8, 1864.
The general commanding announces to the troops composing the
Military Division of the Mississippi that he has received from the
President of the United States, and from Lieutenant-General Grant,
letters conveying their high sense and appreciation of the campaign
just closed, resulting in the capture of Savannah and the defeat of
Hood's army in Tennessee.
In order that all may understand the importance of events, it is
proper to revert to the situation of affairs in September last. We
held Atlanta, a city of little value to us, but so important to the
enemy that Mr. Davis, the head of the rebellious faction in the
South, visited his army near Palmetto, and commanded it to regain
the place and also to ruin and destroy us, by a series of measures
which he thought would be effectual. That army, by a rapid march,
gained our railroad near Big Shanty, and afterward about Dalton.
We pursued it, but it moved so rapidly that we could not overtake
it, and General Hood led his army successfully far over toward
Mississippi, in hope to decoy us out of Georgia. But we were not
thus to be led away by him, and preferred to lead and control
events ourselves. Generals Thomas and Schofield, commanding the
departments to our rear, returned to their posts and prepared to
decoy General Hood into their meshes, while we came on to complete
the original journey. We quietly and deliberately destroyed
Atlanta, and all the railroads which the enemy had used to carry on
war against us, occupied his State capital, and then captured his
commercial capital, which had been so strongly fortified from the
sea as to defy approach from that quarter. Almost at the moment of
our victorious entry into Savannah came the welcome and expected
news that our comrades in Tennessee had also fulfilled nobly and
well their part, had decoyed General Hood to Nashville and then
turned on him, defeating his army thoroughly, capturing all his
artillery, great numbers of prisoners, and were still pursuing the
fragments down in Alabama. So complete success in military
operations, extending over half a continent, is an achievement that
entitles it to a place in the military history of the world. The
armies serving in Georgia and Tennessee, as well as the local
garrisons of Decatur, Bridgeport, Chattanooga, and Murfreesboro',
are alike entitled to the common honors, and each regiment may
inscribe on its colors, at pleasure, the word "Savannah" or
"Nashville." The general commanding embraces, in the same general
success, the operations of the cavalry under Generals Stoneman,
Burbridge, and Gillem, that penetrated into Southwest Virginia, and
paralyzed the efforts of the enemy to disturb the peace and safety
of East Tennessee. Instead of being put on the defensive, we have
at all points assumed the bold offensive, and have completely
thwarted the designs of the enemies of our country.
By order of Major-General W. T. Sherman,
L. M. DAYTON, Aide-de-Camp.
Here terminated the "March to the Sea," and I only add a few
letters, selected out of many, to illustrate the general feeling of
rejoicing throughout the country at the time. I only regarded the
march from Atlanta to Savannah as a "shift of base," as the
transfer of a strong army, which had no opponent, and had finished
its then work, from the interior to a point on the sea-coast, from
which it could achieve other important results. I considered this
march as a means to an end, and not as an essential act of war.
Still, then, as now, the march to the sea was generally regarded as
something extraordinary, something anomalous, something out of the
usual order of events; whereas, in fact, I simply moved from
Atlanta to Savannah, as one step in the direction of Richmond, a
movement that had to be met and defeated, or the war was
necessarily at an end.
Were I to express my measure of the relative importance of the
march to the sea, and of that from Savannah northward, I would
place the former at one, and the latter at ten, or the maximum.
I now close this long chapter by giving a tabular statement of the
losses during the march, and the number of prisoners captured. The
property captured consisted of horses and mules by the thousand,
and of quantities of subsistence stores that aggregate very large,
but may be measured with sufficient accuracy by assuming that
sixty-five thousand men obtained abundant food for about forty
days, and thirty-five thousand animals were fed for a like period,
so as to reach Savannah in splendid flesh and condition. I also
add a few of the more important letters that passed between
Generals Grant, Halleck, and myself, which illustrate our opinions
at that stage of the war:
STATEMENT OF CASUALTIES AND PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE ARMY IN THE
FIELD, CAMPAIGN OF GEORGIA.
Killed Wounded Missing Captured
Officers/Men Officers/Men Officers/Men Officers/Men
10 93 24 404 1 277 77 1,261
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, December 16, 1864
Major-General SHERMAN (via Hilton Head).
GENERAL: Lieutenant-General Grant informs me that, in his last
dispatch sent to you, he suggested the transfer of your infantry to
Richmond. He now wishes me to say that you will retain your entire