American History Tellers - Civil War | March To The Sea | 6

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant took charge of the entire Union Army and laid out his ambitious plans to finally win the war. Grant pursued Lee in Virginia in a campaign unrivaled in the history of the war for its brutal, savage fighting. In the Election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln battled Democratic General George McClellan for the presidency. And that fall, General William Tecumseh Sherman launched his infamous March to the Sea, determined to spread misery through the Georgia countryside.Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/historytellersSupport us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's the evening of May 6, 1864, near the front lines of the Civil War in Virginia. You're a brigadier general in the Union's Army of the Potomac, and for the past two days you've been fighting Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces in an area called the Wilderness. Right now you're galloping toward the headquarters of your new commander, General Ulysses S. Grant. Panic courses through your body. The rebels have just delivered a crushing blow, and you have the unfortunate job of General Grant. Grant, leaning up against a tree, huffing a cigar, and looking like a man without a care in the world.

You rush toward him. General Grant! I fear all is lost. Lee has rolled up our right flank and halted our offensive. They've captured two of our generals. Grant fixes you with a cold stare. And? Lee's repeating Jackson's tactics from last year, in these same woods. Please, General, tell me your orders. Our army's in crisis. What crisis would that be? I've seen these moves before. I know Lee's methods. He'll throw his whole army between us and the river.

He'll cut us off completely from our communications and supply lines. Grant takes a short, sharp puff of his cigar and glares at you. You know, I'm sick and tired of hearing what Lee is going to do. Some of you seem to think he's suddenly going to grow wings, fly his whole army behind our rear. No, sir, I... But he has outmaneuvered us. Shouldn't you order a retreat? No, of course not. Nothing Lee does is going to change our plans or make us turn back. We'll keep bringing the fight to him. You're momentarily stunned. You've been an officer in the Union Army for over two years, under a string of generals whose only strategy was to retreat at the first sign of trouble. A grant is clearly made of sterner stuff. Sir, you think we can still defeat him? Of course we can. We have the superior weapons and numbers.

All we need is the resolve. Now go back to your command, General, and get busy thinking about what you're going to do, instead of what Lee's going to do. You quickly compose yourself and give Grant a salute. As you walk back to your horse, you feel a new sense of confidence. Faced with bleak news, you expected Grant to wither, just as General Hooker did at Chancellorsville a year ago. Instead, he's convinced you that even after his latest setback, victory might still be within your grasp. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White

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Buy it now. Stream free on Freeview and Prime Video. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history. Your story. In the spring of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant traveled east to become general-in-chief of the entire Union army. Grant stunned his subordinates with his refusal to back down in combat, even in the face of heavy losses. He had resolved to crush Robert E. Lee's forces, no matter what the cost. The previous summer, the tides of war had finally turned in

the Union's favor. Many thought the North was on the verge of victory. But as the Civil War entered its fourth year, Union fortunes reversed. Progress stalled, and the mounting death toll put President Lincoln's re-election at risk. Lincoln and his fellow Republicans knew that the stakes had never been higher. If Lincoln lost the election, anti-war Democrats called Copperheads might win the White House and petition for peace, leaving the nation permanently split in two. To save the Union, Lincoln needed more battlefield victories, and he needed them quickly.

That fall, he would get one. In Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman would capture Atlanta, then blaze a trail of destruction to destroy the state's resources, break the will of its people, and attempt to bring the war to its bloody conclusion. This is Episode 6, March to the Sea. On a clear and cool afternoon in November 1863, 15,000 dignitaries, soldiers, and civilians gathered at a new cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. President Lincoln rose from a rocking chair and looked out at the crowds and freshly dug graves dotting the hillside. He was there to dedicate a national cemetery for Union soldiers killed there in Gettysburg

in the bloodiest battle of the war. Lincoln rose and spoke for just two minutes, finishing with a clarion call to save the Union. He declared, We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. At the time, Lincoln's words received little attention. Few newspapers even printed his brief remarks. But the Gettysburg Address would live on as a powerful summation of what was at stake in the war. It was not simply a dedication to the fallen.

Instead, it was a stark reminder that the American experiment and self-government was in jeopardy and that it was a cause worth dying for. At the time of Lincoln's address, four months had passed since the Battle of Gettysburg, when Union forces had beaten back General Robert E. Lee's push into Union territory. And since that success, the North celebrated more victories. In late November, Ulysses S. Grant's soldiers drove Confederate troops out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and brought the entire state under Northern control. Now Union forces had a gateway into Georgia and the Deep

South. Adding to the Confederacy's battlefield losses were economic woes. The South suffered growing inflation and shortages in the fall of 1863. Prices jumped nearly 70 percent in the four months after the Battle of Gettysburg. For citizens in the South, things were getting tight. A Virginia resident reported nightly thefts of cows and hogs in the crowded Confederate capital of Richmond. But the South had another urgent problem—desertions. By November, the Confederacy could not account for one-third of its soldiers. So to shore up its fighting force, the Confederate Congress expanded the draft, making white men between the ages of 17 and 50 liable for service.

But it wasn't enough to make up for the South's disadvantage in manpower. Union forces continued to outnumber Confederates two to one. But despite these challenges, Confederate officials still held out hope. They were counting on their armies to hold on long enough to sway the 1864 presidential election in the North. They hoped that if the bloody war dragged on another year, war-weary voters would abandon Lincoln and replace him with someone from his rival party, the Democrats. A so-called peace Democrat might then negotiate an end to the war and recognize Confederate independence. The Confederates had reason to be optimistic this might be the case.

Lincoln faced an uphill battle for re-election, starting with competition from within his own Republican Party. The so-called radical Republicans felt Lincoln was not going far enough to punish the South. They were frustrated by his refusal to impose harsh measures against Southern states now occupied by Union forces. And even after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, some of these Republicans doubted his commitment to more permanent black civil rights. Without support from the radical wing of his own party, Lincoln knew that his chances of re-election hinged on the battlefield. That spring, he looked to a new commander to carry the Union to victory, Ulysses S. Grant.

Following the capture of Vicksburg the previous year, Lincoln had put Grant in charge of the entire Western Theater, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains. Then, four months after his victory at Chattanooga, Lincoln rewarded Grant by promoting him to the position of General-in-Chief. Starting March 9, 1864, Grant now commanded the entire Union Army. The new General-in-Chief traveled east to set up headquarters in Virginia with General George Meade's forces. Meade would continue to lead the Army of the Potomac under Grant. And to direct the Potomac's cavalry, Grant summoned Philip Sheridan, who had fought courageously at Chattanooga.

Grant also named his successor in the West, William Tecumseh Sherman. Together, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan would transform the Union war effort with aggressive tactics. Grant soon outlined a grand plan to win the war by November. He believed that for too long, the various Union armies had acted too independently, with too little thought to how their actions impacted each other. To finish the job, Grant wanted to stage coordinated, simultaneous attacks against the enemy on multiple fronts. That way, the rebel armies would be unable to reinforce one another. Lincoln enthusiastically approved the plan, hoping his new general-in-chief could end the

war before the election. So, in enacting his plan, Grant would remain in Virginia with Meade as he led the massive Army of the Potomac against Robert E. Lee. Grant told Meade to be relentless in his pursuit of the rebel commander, declaring, wherever Lee goes, there will you go also. General Sherman was tasked with invading the heart of the South, starting with Georgia, then moving into South Carolina, which had been the first state to secede. Beyond battling Confederate armies, Sherman's invasion would have the added goal of inflicting as much damage to war resources as possible, including factories, farms, railroads, and supply depots.

Grant wanted to exploit the Union's manpower advantage. He ordered his generals to engage everywhere in order to exhaust Confederate forces into submission. In early May 1864, Grant embarked on his first goal, launching what was known as the Overland Campaign. The Army of the Potomac left their winter camps and set out toward Richmond. They planned to doggedly pursue Lee and make it impossible for him to reinforce Georgia against Sherman's advance. Grant wanted to engage Lee's men near the wilderness, the dense scrub forest where Lee had won the Battle of Chancellorsville the previous year. He hoped to move his army through the thick underbrush as quickly as possible and bring the fight out into the open, where he could better exploit his manpower. He had 115,000 Union soldiers. The Confederates

had only 64,000. But on May 5th, Lee's forces intercepted Union troops before they could emerge from the woods. Over the next two days, frantic, close-range fighting raged over a five-mile front. Gunfire and exploding shells set the scrub growth ablaze, burning hundreds of wounded men alive. And when the Battle of the Wilderness finally ended 48 hours later, neither side could claim victory. There were more than 17,000 Union casualties and a toll for the Confederates of 11,000. But unlike his predecessors, Grant refused to retreat or become paralyzed with fear in the face of Lee. Grant delivered a message to Lincoln, declaring, there will be no turning back. And when night fell on May 7th, Union soldiers were stunned to see Army supply wagons turn south rather than north.

A Pennsylvania soldier later recalled, our spirits rose, we marched free. The men began to sing. And as Grant rode beside the marching columns, cheers rang out and men threw their hats in the air. It was the first time that the Army of the Potomac stayed on the offensive in Virginia. Grant marched his men ten miles closer to Richmond, arriving at Spotsylvania Courthouse. But Lee had predicted Grant's next move and his forces were ready. Lee's veteran soldiers had dug a formidable network of trenches and earthworks in Spotsylvania in preparation. Over 12 bloody days, Confederate forces blunted repeated Union assaults. Union forces finally pulled out of Spotsylvania on May 21st after suffering another 18,000 casualties. Undeterred, Grant continued searching for a clear path toward Richmond. But everywhere he marched his army, rebel troops were waiting

behind elaborate defenses. In June, the two armies clashed near the crossroads inn of Cold Harbor, just 10 miles northeast of the Confederate capital. There, Lee's soldiers had once again built strong defenses, and soon both sides were bogged down in brutal trench warfare. Grant was convinced that Lee's hungry and ragged soldiers were past the point of exhaustion. So on the night of June 2nd, he ordered a massive frontal attack. Union soldiers sewed their names inside their coats, believing they were marching toward certain death. And the next day, Grant's aggressive strategy proved a costly mistake. The attack accomplished little, but in less than an hour, the rebels inflicted 7,000 casualties. The toll of the attack surprised even Grant, who declared, I regret this assault more than any other one I have

ordered. The battles in the Overland campaign exceeded even Gettysburg in their relentless, brutal intensity. One Union officer described the toll on the shell-shocked soldiers, declaring, The experience of those 20 days seemed to have added 20 years to their age. Between May 4th and June 12th, 65,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing. And on the home front, Grant was gaining a reputation for unprecedented carnage. Imagine this June 1864 in Washington, D.C. You're a Republican congressman from Massachusetts,

and you're sitting in your office reading the latest reports from Grant's campaign in Virginia. You're pleased to have a commander who is unafraid to take the offensive, but you can't help but be disturbed by the high cost. The casualties keep piling up. You look up from your desk and see a Democratic colleague walk through the door. He tosses a newspaper on your desk, pointing to a headline about the bloodbath at Cold Harbor. Look at this. Grant the butcher strikes again. A colleague sits down across from you as you lean over to scan the report. I wouldn't go that far, but there's no doubt the casualties are alarming. Worse than alarming. I'd call them appalling.

The man's gone insane. I want a petition for his removal. You lean back in your chair and rub your temples in frustration. No, you can't be serious. Grant is the best thing that's happened to the Army of the Potomac. If Burnside or Hooker had been at the wilderness or Spotsylvania, they would have turned around, run back to Washington as fast as they could. No, no, no. Grant lost 7,000 men in a matter of minutes last week. No victory is worth such reckless loss of life. But we can't change horses midstream. Not again, certainly.

Our army needs stability, and it needs to stay on the offensive. Oh, look, I want victory as much as you do. But we've been fighting this war for more than three years now. And what do we have to show for it? The destruction of countless families? Every day, mothers and children learn about the loss of their sons and fathers. How much longer must this carnage go on? Your colleague's words hit a nerve, and you pound your fist on your desk.

You think I haven't lost anyone? My sister is still wearing black after losing her son last year. I refuse to tell her that he died in vain. Grant has promised to fight to the finish, and we must stand by him. What other hope do we have? Your colleague stands up, looking a bit chastened, and walks toward the door. He leaves behind the newspaper. You pick it up and glance at the article about Cold Harbor.

The casualty count does make you wince. Despite what you told your colleague, you fear there will come a time when the Northern people will reach their breaking point. The soaring death tolls could cost Lincoln his re-election. And if that happens, you worry that your nephew, and every Northern soldier who's given his life to this fight, really will have died in vain. After Cold Harbor, members of Congress called for Grant's removal. But Lincoln stood by his general-in-chief. Despite massive casualties, Grant had put Lee on the defensive and driven his forces 80 miles south. Leaving Cold Harbor behind, Grant moved his army across the James River to assail Petersburg,

an industrial hub and rail center 20 miles south of Richmond. Soon the two armies dug in, and trench warfare would continue near Petersburg for nine long, punishing months. But to the southwest, another Union army was on the move. One day after Grant launched the Overland Campaign, William Tecumseh Sherman marched his army into Georgia. His destination was Atlanta, a vital manufacturing and railroad hub and a symbol of Confederate nationhood. General Sherman would stop at nothing until he had brought that city to its knees. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands.

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Woo! Buy It Now. Stream free on Freeview and Prime Video. In the spring and summer of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant counted on William Tecumseh Sherman to conquer Georgia. Sherman was a grizzled, grim-faced general with red hair and piercing eyes. He was anxious and restless, and some reporters accused him of being unstable. But he and Grant had forged a close partnership during the grueling campaigns in the West, and Grant trusted him more than any other general. Sherman's first target was the city of Atlanta, a prize second only to the Confederate

capital of Richmond. He knew if he took Atlanta, he could deprive the South of critical resources and open up a gateway to march across the rest of Georgia. In May, Sherman set out from Chattanooga, Tennessee, with 110,000 troops. They marched southeast in the direction of Atlanta, 100 miles away, along a railroad that served as their supply line. Standing in their way were 65,000 Confederate soldiers, led by General Joseph Johnston, the largest army in the South. Sherman's tactics differed from Grant's, though. Over the next two months, instead of brutal frontal attacks, Sherman slowly forced Johnston South toward Atlanta with flanking maneuvers that caused minimal bloodshed on either side. Eventually, Johnston pulled his army behind Atlanta's defenses, and civilians in the city began to flee on

southbound trains and newspapers packed up their presses. Confederate President Jefferson Davis quickly lost patience with Johnston for failing to attack Sherman. On July 17, 1864, he replaced him with Lieutenant General John B. Hood, but by then Sherman's troops were just five miles outside of Atlanta. Once Hood took up command, he promptly attacked Sherman's army. But his men were soon forced back into the city at the cost of 15,000 casualties to Sherman's 6,000. Then on July 22, Sherman placed Atlanta under siege. He sent his cavalry to destroy a key railroad to the south, but the Confederates quickly repaired the tracks. Union artillery continued shelling the city for weeks, but with the railroad line to the south still running,

Union hopes for a swift capture of Atlanta were dashed. For the Union, the news from Virginia was not much better. At the end of July, Grant's siege of Petersburg suffered a humiliating defeat. Union forces had spent weeks digging a tunnel under the enemy trenches. On July 30th, they set off a massive explosion inside the tunnel, blowing a 130-foot gap in the Confederate line and instantly killing hundreds of rebels. But their plans went awry. Union soldiers were supposed to advance around the crater, but in the chaos and confusion, they charged straight into it.

The Confederates surrounded the hole and shot down, killing hundreds of trapped Union soldiers and murdering scores of black troops who tried to surrender. Grant called the massacre, the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war. As the fighting continued, the next presidential election drew near, and the Union's faltering war effort became the focus of it. In June 1864, the Republicans met in Baltimore and re-nominated Lincoln. But with the war stalled, they knew Lincoln remained vulnerable at the polls. To attract pro-war Democrats and loyal border state residents to their ranks, the Republicans renamed themselves the National Union Party.

They also selected Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson as Lincoln's running mate. But as the summer wore on, the war's staggering death toll further weakened Northern morale. When Grant took command of all Union forces, Northerners had expected him to swiftly bring the war to an end. But for months, the Union had won no major victories, jeopardizing Lincoln's political fortunes. In early August, one Republican politician declared, Lincoln's re-election is an impossibility. The people are wild for peace. One reason for the sentiment is that Democrats attacked Lincoln for the war's heavy casualties,

as well as his embrace of emancipation. One Democratic editorial declared, Tens of thousands of white men must yet bite the dust to allay the Negro mania of the president. Some Republicans began to talk about calling a new convention and dumping Lincoln from the ticket. Even Lincoln himself was pessimistic about his chances of re-election. He confided in a friend, I'm going to be beaten, and unless some great change takes place, badly beaten. But it wasn't until a month after his selection as the Republican nominee

that Lincoln knew who he would be running against. On August 29th, the Democratic National Convention got underway in Chicago. Many Americans expected General George McClellan to emerge as the nominee. The former commander of the Army of the Potomac may have been cautious and ineffective on the battlefield, but he remained the most popular Democrat in the country. But Democrats were still divided into pro- and anti-war factions. Many Peace Democrats were uncertain about choosing McClellan. The General had a long-standing reputation as a war Democrat, supporting a restoration of the Union through military victory.

But earlier that year, his main advisor reassured Peace Democrats, declaring the General is for peace, not war. And in the lead-up to the convention, McClellan affirmed his change of heart, declaring, if elected, I will recommend an immediate armistice. Anti-war Democrats called Copperheads were led by former Ohio Congressman Clement Vellandigham, who had illegally returned to the United States after being charged with treasonous speech and exiled to the Confederacy. Vellandig Ham continued to insist on ending the war, and he still held so much power among Democrats that he drafted the party platform. The convention ended with McClellan as the nominee, but on a platform denouncing the

war as a failure and calling for immediate peace. The Democratic platform's defeatist tone shocked Republicans and delighted Southerners. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens wrote, It presents the first ray of real light I have seen since the war began. Southerners hoped that if McClellan won, he would end the war and recognize Confederate independence. But while the Democrats were declaring the war a failure in Chicago, General Sherman's artillery continued to bombard Atlanta. But the Union general had little interest in a drawn-out siege. He was determined to cut off the last remaining railroad between the city and the rest of the

South. So on August 25, 1864, Sherman sent most of his infantry corps on a wide swing, sweeping toward the town of Jonesboro, 17 miles south of Atlanta. There, on August 31st, Union troops destroyed the rail tracks that were the last lifeline into the city. To make sure the rails remained unusable, they heated them over bonfires and twisted the iron around trees, creating what became known as Sherman neckties. Now cut off from supplies, General Hood's Confederates in Atlanta had no choice but to abandon the city. The South's prized industrial center was on the verge of collapse. But in the North, not everyone was happy to hear the news.

Imagine it's September 2nd, 1864, in Orange, New Jersey. You're the principal advisor to General George McClellan. And over the past few days, Democratic Party delegates have been meeting in Chicago to nominate McClellan for the presidency. But the general has remained at home in New Jersey, determined to keep his hands clean of the dirty business of politics. Now, however, new developments in the South might force him to enter the fray. You find McClellan in his office, hunched over a desk strewn with papers. Ah, there you are. I've spent the entire morning working on my letter of acceptance for the

nomination. I'm on my sixth rewrite. Would you take a look and tell me what you think? You shake your head and drop down into the leather chair opposite his desk. Well, sir, you might want to hear this first. Apparently, Sherman has captured Atlanta. The city surrendered yesterday morning. McClellan's mouth drops open. Ugh. Well, with that, the tide has surely turned.

What am I supposed to do now? The party has me running on a platform branding the war a failure. Well, General, we talked about this months ago. There's nothing you can do. This is what the party decided, and you're the nominee. You must stay the course. No, no, no. I must repudiate the platform. Doing otherwise would be defeatist. Well, General, I'm afraid that's out of the question. The Landigham and the other Copperheads won't stand for it. They'll say that this is an unforgivable betrayal. They'll try to replace you with someone else. The clone stands and walks over to a framed photograph on the wall.

It's a picture of him with his army staff taken in Virginia back in 62. Well, maybe they should replace me then. Many of the men in this picture are now maimed or dead. They sacrificed too much for me to sell them out now, when victory is within our reach. But General, I promised the doubters that you were for peace, not war. Are you going to make me into a liar? Don't act like this is just about the fallen soldiers. And what's that supposed to mean?

Well, you pretend you're above the business of politics. But I know you better than that. You're making a naked political calculation, plain and simple. You think that by supporting the continuation of the war, you can appeal to disaffected Republicans. Let me tell you, it won't work. I am one of the most popular men in this country. My appeal transcends mere partisanship. Well, I hope you're right, but in these times of war, nothing is more important than loyalty. You walk out of McClellan's office in frustration. You thought you had reined in the general's pro-war sentiments.

But now this news from Atlanta is threatening everything you've worked for. If you can't get your candidate back in line, he could destroy the party's fragile unity and doom the Democrats to defeat in November. But you know you've also got a bigger problem. No matter what your party does, with Sherman's victory in Atlanta, the election might already be lost, even as the war is won. On the morning of September 1, 1864, Atlanta surrendered to Union forces. Soldiers raised the American flag over City Hall,

and General Sherman sent a dispatch to Washington declaring, Atlanta is ours and fairly won. The fall of Atlanta shocked the South and sparked a wave of Confederate desertions, but in cities in the North, cannons boomed 100 gun salutes in celebration. The week before, Union forces had captured a naval victory at Mobile Bay, Alabama, under Rear Admiral David Farragut. At first, Farragut's victory had received little attention, but now it took on new importance as Northerners sensed the war's momentum shifting. Secretary of State William Seward declared,

Sherman and Farragut have knocked the bottom out of the Chicago platform. That platform was the one that Democratic candidate George McClellan had been nominated on, calling for immediate peace. But after Confederate forces surrendered Atlanta, McClellan decided to repudiate his own party's platform. In his letter accepting the Democratic nomination, he wrote, I could not look in the faces of gallant comrades of the Army and Navy and tell them that their labor and the sacrifice of our slain and

wounded brethren have been in vain. McClellan vowed to continue the war effort until the Union was restored. Peace Democrats, including Vlandingham, were bitterly disappointed at their nominee's betrayal. And despite McClellan's new position, they continued to call for peace as the election got underway. For the Republicans, the fall of Atlanta ended all talk of replacing Lincoln. The party rallied around their president, heralding his strengths as commander-in-chief. And then more good news for the Union came in October of 1864.

The Shenandoah Valley in the western part of Virginia had supplied much of the food for local Confederate forces. Grant ordered General Sheridan to lay waste to the valley's resources, burning crops and destroying railroads. He insisted the people must be left nothing, and by October 7th, Sheridan's cavalry had burned down 2,000 barns and 70 mills. Meanwhile, trench warfare continued near Petersburg. In late October, Grant managed to force Lee to extend his defenses. Confederates were now manning a line of earthworks that stretched for 35 miles. Lee feared his forces were being spread too thin.

He urged Confederate President Davis to enlist more soldiers, declaring, I fear a great calamity will befall us. Meanwhile, spirits were rising throughout the Union ranks. The previous spring, thousands of soldiers had left the Army when their three-year terms expired. Now, many decided to re-enlist, sensing that victory was approaching. The fall of Atlanta virtually assured Lincoln's re-election. At November, Lincoln won the Electoral College by 212 votes to 21. Northerners had empowered him to see the war to its end. And Sherman felt the time was right to march his troops out of Atlanta.

A week after the election, his army would begin a 285-mile trek across the Georgia countryside. Sherman was resolved to leave a trail of misery and destruction in his wake, in a campaign that would go down in infamy. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see

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an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get do something. It wasn't a request. It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Even after the fall of Atlanta, Confederate President Jefferson Davis remained defiant. On November 7, 1864, he delivered a message to the Confederate Congress, declaring that the South was still in the fight. He said, Nothing has changed in the purpose of its government, in the indomitable valor of its troops, or in the unquenchable spirit of its people. But Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was determined to break that spirit.

Sherman was a pioneer of what he called hard war. Later, in 1864, he summarized his military philosophy, writing, We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war. Sherman believed that it was not enough to win victories on the battlefield. He argued that the war could not be won until the railroads, factories, and farms that supplied the enemy armies were also destroyed. By draining the Confederacy of its resources, he believed he could sap its will to fight. So after capturing Atlanta,

Sherman told Grant he wanted to march his troops through the heart of Georgia to the coast, destroying all military resources in their path. They would make the risky move of holding no troops back for logistical duties, effectively cutting their own supply lines and living off the land instead. Once Sherman's forces reached the coast, he planned, they would turn north and march through the Carolinas to attack Lee's forces from the rear. Grant and Lincoln were skeptical of Sherman's plan. General John B. Hood's 40,000-strong army had fled Atlanta for northern Alabama, and they were preparing to march to Tennessee. Grant and Lincoln wanted Sherman to defeat Hood before launching his Georgia campaign. In a compromise, Sherman told Grant he would send 60,000 men to chase Hood, but he would take another 62,000 of his best troops through Georgia and lead them himself. He wanted to prove that the Confederacy was powerless to protect its own people.

He told Grant, I can make the march and make Georgia howl. Grant and Lincoln approved of the plan, and Sherman began preparing his troops to head out a week after the election. His army evacuated the few remaining civilians out of Atlanta, then torched the city's industrial sector to destroy its military infrastructure. Nearly 40% of the city was burned to the ground. The next day, Sherman led his hardened veterans out of Atlanta, marching southeast toward Savannah on the coast,

a journey of 285 miles. Along the way, they stripped the Georgia heartland of everything of any military value. They wrecked tunnels, bridges, and mills, and turned more railroads into Sherman's neckties. Sherman ordered every brigade to organize detachments of foragers, whose job was to plunder farms and plantations

that could feed the army without slowing it down. aid to organized detachments of foragers whose job was to plunder farms and plantations that could feed the army without slowing it down. These foraging soldiers, who became known as bummers, responded with enthusiasm. But many soldiers who were not official foragers took it upon themselves to join in the pillaging too. Sherman's army soon gained a reputation for slack discipline and lawless marauding. Imagine it's early in the morning of November 1864 in the Georgia countryside. You're a soldier with a 112th Massachusetts, and you and a comrade are walking down a dirt road. You've just left a plantation, and you're juggling your provisions. A ham is strapped over your shoulder,

and you're holding a large jar of molasses in one hand and a piece of honeycomb in the other. Well, hey, not a bad haul. Lucky it's almost winter. Everyone's gathered their store for the season and it's ours for the taking. Your friend nods as he bites into a carrot. There are dozens of other vegetables tied to his belt.

You turn around to see an officer approaching on horseback. He has red hair and a surly expression on his face. Soldiers, what do you think you're doing? You break off a piece of honeycomb and hand it to the officer. Well, remember what Sherman said, forage liberally on the country. Want a piece, sir? It's real good. The officer shakes his head. No, no, no, you've misinterpreted the order. Foraging must be limited to the regular parties, and all provisions must be delivered to the army commissaries to be fairly distributed throughout the ranks. You look more closely at this strange officer,

with his unkempt hair and irritable demeanor. You don't recognize him as one of your regiment's superior officers, and you're not keen on taking orders from strangers. Oh, don't be a spoilsport. We're just helping out, you know. It's not fair to leave this big job up to just a few raiding parties. The rules are strict. This march is not about all-out plunder. We're trying to keep this orderly. Says who? Says me.

Don't you soldiers recognize your commanding officer? You look again at the officer's red hair and stern expression, and suddenly you realize who you're talking to. General Sherman himself. You straighten your shoulders and drop your honeycomb to raise your right hand in salute. You can feel the sticky liquid running down your forehead. Oh, my apologies, Jim. It's an honor to meet you. Can I offer you some ham? Or my friend has some fine-looking squash. Sherman shakes his head, but his expression softens. All right, now look. Eat whatever you need to sustain you for your walk back to camp, but then turn in the rest to your commissary officer.

Yes, sir. You salute Sherman as he rides off. You know that you might have gone too far, but you have a strong suspicion that Sherman won't punish you. So you bite off a piece of ham, happy to do your part to crush Southern morale. Although Sherman disapproved of unofficial foraging, he also did not punish any soldiers who interpreted his orders too liberally. He knew it helped instill terror in the civilian population and chipped away at Georgians' will to resist. And not all bombers were Union troops. Confederate deserters and stragglers joined in the pillaging, too. One Confederate soldier declared,

I do not think the Yankees are any worse than our own army, who steal and plunder indiscriminately. But while Sherman and his forces were plundering the countryside, they were not fighting. The only battle of Sherman's march to the sea took place on November 22, 1864, near the small factory town of Griswoldville, where Sherman's men easily defeated Georgia militia. Union soldiers were shocked to realize that many of the enemy dead and wounded were only young boys and old men brought in to replenish Georgia's depleted ranks. And after Griswoldville, Confederates made no further

attempts to stop Sherman's march, which was approaching Georgia's capital, Milledgeville. The troops celebrated Thanksgiving there by staging a mock legislative session in which they voted Georgia back into the Union. but their celebrations were interrupted by the arrival of several emaciated Union soldiers who had escaped from a notorious Confederate military prison in Andersonville, 90 miles away. The ragged prisoners wept at the sight of the food and the American flag. Seeing their condition, Sherman's men were furious

and became more determined than ever to exact vengeance. And their ranks were swollen as they encountered thousands of enslaved men and women who had fled their plantations. Many welcomed Sherman's troops as liberators, and some even joined the column of Union soldiers. But for most white Southern civilians, Sherman's troops were nothing but vandals. Long after the war, the march to the sea would loom large in the southern imagination, conjuring visions of Yankee brutality, burning buildings, and weeping women and children. But to Sherman, property destruction was preferable to slaughter on the battlefields.

His goal was not to inflict unnecessary suffering, but to end the war as quickly as possible, minimizing the death toll on both sides. And indeed, although Sherman's troops looted, burned, and plundered, they killed very few. Over the six-week march to the sea, there were fewer than 3,000 Confederate casualties, the vast majority of which were soldiers. On the morning of December 21st, Sherman's army entered Savannah, and the city quickly surrendered. Sherman wired Lincoln the good news, declaring, I present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah,

with 150 heavy guns and about 25,000 bales of cotton. The march to the sea was over. The capture of Savannah came a week after Union forces defeated Hood in Nashville. And with these two latest losses, deep despair spread across the South. Soon, Sherman's army was on the move again, veering north toward South Carolina. His forces were eager to punish the state that started the rebellion, and finally bring the war to its conclusion. From Wondery, this is Episode 6 of The Civil War from American History Tellers.

On the next episode, Sherman's troops set out to capture Columbia, South Carolina. Confederate generals desperately try to negotiate with President Lincoln for peace. And in Virginia, Robert E. Lee makes his final stand. American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton,

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