On May 7, 1864, Sherman set out from Chattanooga with armies commanded by Generals Thomas, Schofield, and McPherson. Remembered for his famous march through Georgia, Sherman's reputation suggests that he was cold-blooded and ruthless. In fact Sherman was a very skillful commander who did not spill blood, neither his or the enemy's, carelessly. In his movement from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Sherman avoided direct attacks on heavily defended positions and instead used flanking movements to advance in a less costly manner. Sherman surrounded the city of Atlanta and accepted its surrender on September 2. He ordered the city evacuated, and in a famous letter to the mayor and city council, he gave his reasons why he would not honor their request to rescind the order. Realizing that his demand for evacuation of the citizens was harsh, he nevertheless promised to "make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible." His response is regarded as a clear definition of what modern total warfare had become. He was sympathetic but blunt in his purpose: "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out." (See full letter in Appendix.)
Sherman spent two months in Atlanta preparing for his "March to the Sea." Keeping his promise to make Georgia howl, Sherman's men cut a path across Georgia destroying everything of possible military value and much that was probably not. Although Sherman cautioned his men against unnecessary violence to civilians, the march was nonetheless harsh and brutal. Arriving outside Savannah shortly before Christmas, Sherman allowed a weak defending force to escape rather than fight what would surely be a losing battle.
Sherman and his staff moved into the city, but the Army bivouacked outside and Savannah was left for the most part untouched. Several weeks later Sherman's army crossed the Savannah River into the state which his men knew had been the source of all the rumpus, the first-to-secede state of South Carolina. Sherman's march through Carolina was more fierce and brutal than his march through Georgia, but by that time Lee was in serious trouble in Virginia and was unable to help. Sherman captured the capital of Columbia in February 1865 and proceeded northward, planning to link up with Grant.
The Election of 1864. President Lincoln may have had reason to worry about being reelected, though his concern was less for his own political future than for the outcome of the war. He feared that if the Democrats won with their candidate, General McClellan, the Confederacy might be allowed to go its way with the Union permanently severed. All the sacrifices made to that point would then have been for naught. Lincoln rejected suggestions that the election ought to be postponed or canceled on the grounds that he was fighting to save a democratic society. Denying people the vote would controvert the purpose for which he was fighting.
Lincoln did, however, decide not to run as a Republican but rather on a National Union Party ticket. (The Republican Party changed its name for the election.) He replaced Vice President Hannibal Hamlin with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a Southern Democratic senator who had remained loyal to the Union. Lincoln instructed that all soldiers who could be spared should be allowed to return home to cast their votes. Some states allowed their soldiers to cast their votes in the field. Those who were able to do so voted overwhelmingly for the president over the general who had formerly commanded many of them. The same sentiment that had propelled many soldiers to extend their service also worked for Lincoln—his fighting men wanted it to see the job done.
As late as August, 1864, the election may well have been in doubt, for Grant's Virginia campaign was proving to be extremely costly. But Sherman's capture of Atlanta, a major Southern city, in September gave renewed hope for a successful conclusion to the conflict to the northern people, and they reelected Lincoln by a comfortable margin. He won 55% of the popular vote and captured the electoral college by 212 to 21.
World History
