r hands without touching the ground.The March to the SeaIn September of 1865, General William T. Sherman and his army cleared the city of Atlanta of its civilian population then rested ever so briefly. It was from there that General Sherman and his army began its famous "march to the sea". The march covered a distance of 400 miles and was 60 miles wide on the way. For 32 days no news of him reached the North. He had cut himself off from his base of supplies, and his men lived on whatever they could get from the country through which they passed. On their route, the army destroyed anything and everything that they could not use but was presumed usable to the enemy. In view of this destruction, it is understandable that Sherman quoted "war is hell". Finally, on December 20, Shaman's men reached the city of Savannah and from there Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln: " I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about 25,000 bales of cotton".Grant had decided that the only way to win and finish the war would be to crunch with numbers. He knew that the Federal forces held more than a modest advantage in terms of men and supplies. This in mind, Grant directed Sherman to turn around now and start heading back towards Virginia. He immediately started making preparations to provide assistance to Sherman on the journey. General John M. Schofield and his men were to detach from the Army of the Cumberland, which had embarrassingly defeated the Confederates at Nashville, and proceed toward North Carolina. His final destination was to be Goldsboro, which was roughly half the distance between Savannah and Richmond. This is where he and his 20,000 troops would meet Sherman and his 50,000 troops.Sherman began the move north in mid January of 1865. The only hope of Confederate resistance would be supplied by General P.G.T. Beauregard. He was scraping together an ar...
