Lincoln and Sherman's March Through Georgia
* This supposed atrocity may be the most overblown case of hysteria and grievance politics in all of American history. Confederate admirers and apologists will tell you endlessly about the supposed horrors of Sherman’s March Through Georgia. To hear them tell it, no people ever suffered so much in all of human history. There was not much to the march besides a lot of property damage, scorched earth tactics designed to deny resources to the enemy that are standard for most armies, both before and since the march. Sherman’s army did destroy railroads. That’s what armies do. They destroyed telegraph lines. Most armies do that. They burned crops, food stores, barns, etc., in order to deny them to the enemy. Again, most armies do that.
* In fact, Confederate armies did exactly the same scorched earth tactics in their invasions of northern states. Confederate armies also did the same in their own states to deny food to the Union. Confederate armies did even worse tactics, enslaving escaped slaves and Free Blacks.
* Truthfully, much of the damage done on the march was simple foraging. Sherman’s men took food to feed themselves rather than relying on federal supply lines. This, if anything, made the march faster and less of a hardship on Georgians. Sherman's orders specifically barred taking goods or destroying property if US troops were not under attack by guerillas. Sherman also ordered enough food always left for civilians.
* There was a famine in Georgia and elsewhere in many southern states. But it began before the march and continued long after. Famine did not come primarily from Union armies or even the war itself. Famine came mostly from Confederate government incompetence and Confederate army seizure of southern crops and animals. One of the lesser known aspects of the Confederacy is, even more than modern conservatism, its abhorrence of taxes, especially high taxes on the wealthy. So where did the Confederate army get its food? It seized it.
* Most Confederate supplies, both for the army and the civilian government, came from direct seizures of individual property. Most Confederate government revenue came from selling seized property taken from southerners. And since Confederate leaders tended to be big plantation owners, wealthy men’s property often went untouched. It was the mid-sized and especially small southern farmer who suffered the most from the Confederacy.
* A lot of southerners starved simply because the Confederate government was so incompetent. Several state governors, notably Texas, refused to allow their foodstuffs to be used to feed people of other states. Ideological stubbornness over states’ rights had the ugly side effect of killing some of its believers. Thus Texas, with all of its cattle, had its beef uneaten while Georgians starved. Normally that Texas cattle went to large northern cities. With that market gone, Texas government and cattle owners refused to let its cattle be given away to feed the hungry, not without a profit to be made.
* What about other atrocities? Surely in its claim of Georgians being so outraged by the dreaded “Yankees,” the Confederate apologists can point to deaths, rapes, wanton violence? No, they cannot. Outright killings of civilians by the Union Army were very few. Even battle deaths were not that high on the march. Confederate troops mostly went north in a failed attempt to draw Sherman’s army away. Sherman had enough men that he could send one part of his army north, his troops defeat the Confederates in Tennessee, and still march through Georgia almost unopposed. Some killings were done by bands of Union deserters, for whose actions the Union Army cannot rightly be blamed.
* The worst atrocities done during the march were by Confederate guerillas, who hung Union POWs or slit their throats, leaving their bodies hanging as a warning. Most Georgians at the time thought General Wheeler's Confederate troops far more savage than anything Sherman's army carried out.
* Even the famed burning of Atlanta, turned into a myth of horrific suffering by incredibly inaccurate books and films like Gone With the Wind, had less harm than most have been led to believe. To start with, Atlanta was actually a small town at the time. About 3,500 residents were evacuated, and much of the public praised Sherman for doing so. The town was far from completely burned down. Many of the wealthiest residents remained, as did most Blacks, loyal Unionists, and workers for the federal government. Much of the looting was done by southern looters, or damaged by Confederate troops themselves carrying out scorched earth tactics to deny the city to the Union.
* Other atrocities? Rapes by Union troops were pretty rare. US were either stayed faithful to their wives, partook of the numerous prostitutes that followed Union armies, or found more than a few willing southern women, both prostitutes and simply willing girlfriends. Rape of southern women in wartime was mostly done by deserters, including Confederate deserters.
* Union troops as a rule had a far better record of humane treatment of civilians and POWs than Confederate ones. Confederate raiders carried out actual terrorism. Notorious outfits like Quantrill’s Raiders and Angry Anderson’s carried out mass murders of civilians that were so horrifying, the Confederate leadership disavowed them. Confederate troops also had the ugly practice of the Black Flag. Flying the Black Flag meant Confederate troops should show No Quarter to Blacks in uniform. Black soldiers were often massacred, as at the Battles of the Crater and Fort Pillow.
* In fact, the greatest damage the Union Army did to southern “property” was also the most noble thing the Union Army did. Everywhere the Union Army went, thousands of Black slaves ran away and sought refuge with them. Many thousands flocked to Sherman’s army. Many found work as laborers, and many more would join the army itself. Black Union soldiers had distinguished records and many decorations, including Congressional Medals of Honor. Many former slaves worked as scouts or spies.
* So why does the legend of Sherman’s March as supposedly so devastating persist? Partly because of inaccurate films like Gone With the Wind. Partly because southern white racists like to pose as being persecuted or imagine themselves to be wronged. But mostly the legend persists because many don’t know any better and have not been taught the truth, that the Confederacy harmed the great majority of southerners far more than the United States ever did. Many still believe the Myth of Southern Unity, that all southerners supported the Confederacy, and the legend of Sherman's March backs up that myth.
* In fact, most southerners supported the United States (i.e. the Union) in the Civil War. Blacks, most Mexicans, and most American Indians in the south were pro-Union. So were most southern whites, just the opposite of what the Myth of Southern Unity claims. Most obviously, the Border States were mostly loyal Unionists by a ratio of three to one in the white population, not “neutral” as Confederate apologists pretend.
* Large sections of the Confederacy itself were pro Union and not treasonous as Confederates were. North Alabama, north Arkansas, south Florida, southwest Georgia, southeast Louisiana, south Mississippi, western North Carolina, east Tennessee, northeast Texas, south Texas, central Texas, and southwest Virginia were all overwhelmingly loyal Americans, and large sections of these areas freed themselves of Confederate rule before United States troops liberated the areas. These regions were made up mostly of poor farmers who had nothing in common with plantation elites, and contempt for the Confederacy as a rich man's government.
* Over 300,000 southerners fought for the Union. Many southerners in the Confederate Army were not there by choice, drafted or kept on after their enlistment expired. Over two thirds of Confederate soldiers deserted, at a rate twice that of American ones. Entire Confederate units switched to the Union side, sometimes mid battle as at the Battle of Pea Ridge. Half of all southern white men dodged the draft, even forming bands that drove away Confederate officials.
* The Confederacy, after all, was founded and led by plantation owners and big slave-owning elites. Most poor white southerners rejected the Confederacy as a rich man's government expecting the poor to fight a rich man's war. But the myth surrounding Sherman's March denies all this. Very few historians now give the myth much credibility anymore, except the few remaining diehard Confederate apologists, most of them outright racists.