What did General Sherman's march to the sea entail? Why did it cause long lasting resentment?
2007-02-04 04:59:20 · 7 answers · asked by Sid 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Sherman's army was at Atlanta in 1864. He proposed to break off from his supply lines and march to Savannah, living off the land. This he did. The army cut about a 50-100 mile swath of almost total destruction on their march; they took the crops and horses for their own use. The slaves left their masters and followed them. The armies destroyed railroad tracks by making "Sherman's bow ties"--they would remove a rail, heat it, then twist it around a tree so as to be unusable.
Sherman tried to maintain some form of order, but many stragglers stayed behind and committed many atrocities. Some houses were burned, some women raped--and many tales exaggerated.
Sherman's aim was to "make Georgia howl" and he succeeded. Basically he took away the supplies that would have gone to the Confederate Army and used them for his own. Georgia was the breadbasket of the South, and stripping the already strapped Confederates of this food was devistating.
2007-02-04 05:06:47 · answer #1 · answered by KCBA 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Sherman enacted many ideas that were used in the World Wars and hence total war. Sheridan his second applied a scorched earth policy, which supplied itself with plundered provisions reducing the need and costs for heavy supply trains and whatever was left was destroyed leaving nothing for the enemy. Even railroad lines were dismantled which were then called Sherman Neckties. When they layed seige they had no compunction about harming the civilian population and whenever possible were quick to enlist the help of former slaves. The downside of their policy was the rejection of prisoned exchanges which they enacted as a reaction to the blantent murder of Black Prisoners but as the war wound down so did the food supplied to prisoners taken by the Confederates and the result was massed starvation and disease!
2007-02-04 05:59:44 · answer #2 · answered by namazanyc 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
marched to the Sea and destroyed everything of value while doing so. this scorched earth policy left nothing in the wake of the march for civilian population to eat or provide any comfort with.
2007-02-04 05:03:54 · answer #3 · answered by Marvin R 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
He torched everything he came across. You'd be pissy about it too. Sherman was pretty ruthless when it came to civilian property, whether homes or fields.
2007-02-04 05:02:37 · answer #4 · answered by SnowFlats 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It involved burning as he went (i.e. Atlanta burning) -- and he
cut a pretty long swath to the sea -- folks get pretty upset over
needless wontan destruction.
2007-02-04 05:03:50 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
they destroyed everything they could along the way, tore up rr tracks, burned grain fields, dewstroyed homes killed animals. it was a total war method designed to demoralize the south and get them to surrender
2007-02-04 11:23:31 · answer #6 · answered by cav 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are some GREAT film documentaries you can rent on this!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE7D9143CF936A3575AC0A960948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
for one.
And perhaps this will help?
http://sciway3.net/clark/civilwar/march.html
It was an AMAZING piece of history!
Have fun.
2007-02-04 05:03:29 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋