Describe the military strategy that General William T. Sherman used across Georgia and South Carolina. Explain how the strategy affected the South, as well as how Southerns reacted.

Question

Describe the military strategy that General  William T. Sherman used across Georgia and South Carolina. Explain how the strategy affected the South, as well as how Southerns reacted.

lposton · Answer

From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman’s soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were “not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people,” Sherman explained; as a result, they needed to “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.”