Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea (Hardcover)

by Noah Andre Trudeau (Author)
Key Phrases: cotton gins burn, irae filled, local defense battalions, Fourteenth Corps, Major Hitchcock, Twentieth Corps (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Trudeau, a prize-winning Civil War historian (Gettysburg), addresses William T. Sherman's march to the sea in the autumn of 1864. Sherman's inclusion of civilian and commercial property on the list of military objectives was not a harbinger of total war, says Trudeau. Rather, its purpose was to demonstrate to the Confederacy that there was no place in the South safe from Union troops. The actual levels of destruction and pillage were limited even by Civil War standards, Trudeau says; they only seemed shocking to Georgians previously spared a home invasion on a grand scale. Confederate resistance was limited as well. Trudeau praises Sherman's generalship, always better at operational than tactical levels. He presents the inner dynamics of one of the finest armies the U.S. has ever fielded: veteran troops from Massachusetts to Minnesota, under proven officers, consistently able to make the difficult seem routine. And Trudeau acknowledges the often-overlooked contributions of the slaves who provided their liberators invaluable information and labor. The march to the sea was in many ways the day of jubilo, and in Trudeau it has found its Xenophon. 16 pages of b&w photos, 36 maps. (Aug.)
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From Booklist
It’s still impolitic in Georgia to mention General William T. Sherman, so synonymous with wanton destruction is his fabled march from Atlanta to Savannah of November-December 1864. A historian of several Civil War campaigns, Trudeau avers that such popular beliefs about Sherman’s plan to vanquish the South require a corrective in the form of a day-by-day chronicle. That approach certainly reveals that Sherman’s orders allowed his subordinate officers and their soldiers leeway about what to burn and what to spare, so that the marching routes were not turned completely into swaths of utter desolation. But his 60,000 men were hardly invited guests, and through their expropriation of Southern food and forage, deliberate destruction of railroads, and defeat of all military opposition, they proved Sherman’s strategic message that resistance was futile. But the Confederates offered it often if ineffectively, by which Trudeau develops a secondary myth-busting theme, that Sherman’s march was not a lark but a complex and risky military operation. Maps of daily marching routes let Civil War buffs follow the action in this detailed narrative. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 688 pages
• Publisher: Harper (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060598670
• ISBN-13: 978-0060598679
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #86,748 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Epic, August 10, 2008

By	James Durney (Tampa Bay area) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Sherman's March to the Sea is a simple story. Hood took off for Tennessee, Wheeler presented no real threat and Confederate leadership dithered. For the men it was a long walk in the sun with ample food taken from the local population. In the process, they tore the heart out of Georgia and broke the moral of the Confederacy. Given such a simple story, how could anyone write a 688-page book that is worth reading?
Noah Andre Trudeau is one of our best authors with a number of excellent books and prestigious awards. His writing style conveys large amounts of information in a readable manner that makes large books easy to read. This skill helps the reader by keeping the story fresh and interesting in this very detailed account of the campaign.
The book opens with an explanation of how Sherman came up with the idea for the campaign and how he talked Thomas, Grant & Lincoln, via Halleck, into approving it. The author says the Meridian Mississippi Campaign provided the idea for The March. I feel that he should have gone back to Grant's Vicksburg Campaign for the idea. The Mississippi Campaign may have proven living off the land is practical but the Vicksburg Campaign started the idea. This is a minor point and subject to debate. The second and equally major idea is the role of civilians in the Southern war effort. The author gives us a detailed description of Sherman's ideas on this subject and how they developed during the course of the war. The selling of his idea presents a side of Sherman we seldom see. Here is an accomplished administrator at his best. Alternating assuring Thomas, watching Hood and explaining things to Grant & Halleck, step by step the project is approved.
The heart of the book is the daily chapters, where the activities of all major formations are detailed. Each chapter has a map, showing weather, marching routes and population centers. This daily map keeps the reader in the story and located in Georgia. Gradually, we see how the march is developing and can trace the major formations' progress. This is a major benefit and one of the books strongest points. In addition to the daily map, any significant fighting has a map too. I want to congratulate HarperCollins Publishing for not stinting on this critical item. They have taken a very good book and made it a great one by including these maps.
Sherman's major formations are the Left Wing, the Right Wing and the Cavalry. Depending on the situation, independent detachments appear as required. The work is marching, destruction and foraging. Each day, miles must be covered, food must be found, regulations enforced, infrastructure destroyed and Confederate forces kept at bay. Very quickly, we come to appreciate how complex this campaign is. The rank & file is required to make a huge effort each day. Protecting the wagon train may be the most wearing duty. Encumbered by the slow moving wagons, mud, poor roads and hills these men alternately stand and run. This is in addition to pushing wagons up hills and pulling them out of the mud holes.
Straying to far from the road leads to death. Straggling leads to death. Confederate response while generally ineffective can be deadly for isolated parties. The author does an excellent job of detailing the problems in mounting a response to Sherman. These problems, while endemic during the war, seem much worse during this campaign. "Joe Brown's Pets", a divided and confused command structure, John B. Hood's Tennessee adventure, States Rights, P.G.T. Beauregard, William J. Hardee and Jefferson Davis all have roles in the unfolding disaster. Joe Wheeler is the only person that tries to mount an effective response. Resources, orders and his problems as a commander limit how effective the response is. This is not a long dull walk in the sun. This is a very difficult, dangerous and somewhat speculative campaign.
This is a detailed account. The daily format ensures the reader will have a full picture of the dangers and difficulties. This sequential approach ensures that the reader instantly understands each encounter or problem. The ugly incident where General Davis strands Afro-Americans on the wrong side of the creek is fully explored with realistic and fair comments by the author.
The last chapter, "At the Right Moment and in the Right Direction", is a fitting finial to the story. The author provides a clear assessment of the campaign from both a Northern & Southern perspective. In addition, he gives us a glimpse of the making of an American epic.
I am a huge fan of Noah Andre Trudeau's books. He is an excellent writer that produces well thought out readable informative histories. This may not be his best book but it is one of his best books and deserves consideration as his best.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Southern Storm is a superb retelling of this iconic Civil War campaign , August 13, 2008

By	Robert Huddleston (Northglenn, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If the average person were to be asked to name an event of the American Civil War, it is likely that Sherman's March would be near the top of the list, possibly ahead even of Gettysburg. A 20th Century series of damaging floods in Georgia were referred to as the "worse devastation since Sherman's Civil War march to the sea," and an Atlanta sportswriter referred to a disgraced Atlanta Braves' player as "the most disliked person hereabouts since William Tecumseh Sherman." During the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, T-shirts were sold, portraying a fiery image of the general, with the legend, "Atlanta's Original Torch Bearer." Routinely, visitors to ante-bellum homes, not only in Georgia but also in Mississippi and Alabama are treated by the docents to gory tales of what Sherman did to their town. They are befuddled when reminded that, (a) obviously the house we are in did not get burned, and (b) Sherman was no where near here.

Noah Andre Trudeau has written a number of books on the Civil War, among them, Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War 1862-1865, an excellent account of the role of the United States Colored Troops, and added to these with Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea.

Trudeau's concern is that most books by and about the March have not tried to nail down exactly what Sherman expected to accomplish and exactly what really did go on. If the destruction was as great as not only remembered by Georgians, but bragged about by Sherman's boys, then why have so many ante-bellum properties survived.

Trudeau argues that the campaign was a highly organized, carefully planned operation, with ample room for Sherman to improvise. When he departed from Atlanta, on November 15-16, 1874, his troops were not travelling lean and mean. "Packed into more than 2500 wagons were a twenty-day supply of bread, forty days or sugar, coffee, and salt and three days worth of animal feed. Moving with the lengthy wagon trains were 5,000 cattle, representing a forty day beef supply." [538] Indeed, his wagon trains were larger per thousand men than were those the Army of the Potomac took into the Wilderness six months before.

Trudeau was also committed to discovering exactly what happened during the march. He dug deeply into writings of both Yankees and Rebels, their letters, their diaries, and to a lesser degree, their reminiscences. His bibliography is thirty-seven pages of fine type, mining numerous manuscript and newspaper sources, as well as dozens of published articles from historical magazines and autobiographies.

Starting with a quick discussion of the post-capture of Atlanta troops movements and the development of Sherman's idea to march to the Atlantic, Trudeau starts Sherman's army from the Atlanta area on November 15, 1864. Each day's march is illustrated by a small quarter page map of that day's troop activities, which would be very helpful if one wanted to drive the March. In addition, Trudeau discovered in his research that the weather was always mentioned by diarists and letter writers, if forgotten by memorialists and autobiographers, so each little map has an inset of that days weather (November 15 was clear, high 40s, low 50s). He argues that the weather played a major role in the campaign with the initial fine weather turning nasty with extensive rains and continued chilly conditions, something Sherman had not counted on.

A typical day, using Tuesday, November 22, went something like this: it snowed in the morning, then cleared in the afternoon with the temperature ranging from upper 20s to low 40s. Henry Slocum's Left Wing moved slowly toward the then-state capitol, Milledgeville, shivering in the cold. Advance units reached the town in the afternoon and evening. The troops moved through, with Slocum making his headquarter's in the local hotel. The residents hung out white flags, a successful protection device for their homes while the inmates torched the state penitentiary. And the blacks greeted their liberators with cheers and dancing in the street. Some African-Americans were not as lucky: an 8th Texas cavalryman recorded in his diary that they "whipped about 1,000 negros, who were on their way to the enemy."

Uncle Billy made his headquarters in the plantation of Confederate politician Howell Cobb, noticing the way the evening sky was lit by the surrounding campfires. Someone turned up a recent Cobb proclamation urging Georgians to assail the Yankees on all sides -- and that was enough to doom Cobb's property.

The Confederates, now convinced that Sherman was not heading to Macon, decided that Augusta with its powder works was the real target and made plans to dismantle the works. The Confederate response to Sherman was hampered by divided command between Wheeler, Beauregard, Hardee and Gov. Brown, each split off form the others by lack of a telegraph, whose lines had been cut by Sherman.

Oliver Howard's Right Wing was sliding past Macon and dealing with the snow and the resulting mud. An important aspect of Sherman's Army were the Pontoon trains that accompanied each wing, waiting to provide instant bridges over any water that could stop the Yankees. The 25th also saw skirmishing at Griswoldville between the Right Wing troops and Confederates from Macon.

Sherman reached Savannah on December 22, occupying the city and making contact with the blockading U.S. Navy ships.

Trudeau is continually concerned with exactly how much damage was actually done to property on the way - not as much as both the Confederate memories and the Yankee boastings would remember - and with the impact of the March on the War.

Where the troops actually passed, damage was extensive: animals killed, fences cut down to build campfires. "Many of us are utterly ruined," one Bulloch County farmer wrote. More fences than houses were destroyed -as is evident by the number of ante-bellum homes that can be toured in the path of Sherman's Boys. The biggest property loss were the slaves who, in the thousands, tramped after the liberating Yankees. Railroads had ties burned and rails bent. Slocum reported that his Left Wing destroyed 119 miles of railroad.

But as soon as the shock passed, people began to rebuild. Telegraph service from Mobile to Richmond had been restored by New Years Day and by January 3, 1865, Confederate engineer, Major General J. F. Gilmer was able to report "cars now run from Macon to Milledgeville."

Ironically, the greatest damage Sherman caused was the exact opposite of what he intended. Trudeau argues that Sherman was a conservative who wanted to end the war as quickly as possible and restore the old world. But the psychological destruction to Georgia society, even more than the physical destruction, made that impossible.

Southern Storm is a superb retelling of this iconic Civil War campaign and will make a welcome addition to your shelves.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Storming Sherman, October 29, 2008

By	George W. Lynn - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A very solid, workman-like account of Sherman's march through Georgia, but not especially emotionally engaging. It does stop at Savannah though, there's nothing on the continuation of the campaign into South Carolina and North Carolina. There are no great battles here, those pretty much ended with the capture of Atlanta. One point made quite clearly in this book is that Sherman did his best to avoid major confrontation with the Confederate forces and split his force into two prongs to at least appear to threaten the maximum number of targets and thin the Southern defences, and he was hugely successful at this, with a great deal of help from the South and its inability to form a united command structure to oppose him. Hood took his substantial forces left after the attacks out of Atlanta and went north to threaten northern supply lines and presumably force Sherman to divert his offensive to follow him, only to succeed in destroying what was left to no particular purpose. The remaining Confederate generals and their forces couldn't decide on what to defend or how to go on the offensive to blunt or stop Sherman. The book gives very clear explanations on what was on the minds of both sides. There's lots to learn here for those sufficiently interested, but little that will stir your blood unless you're a descendent of the folks in Sherman's path.