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From: Len Riedel
Date: 1/27/2004
Time: 4:52:08 PM
Remote Name: 24.53.132.90
Despite harsh and emotional rhetoric over the past 140 years there were sound military reasons for Sherman moving to Savannah and on to a holding position near Greensboro, NC. Following Sherman's successful campaign against Hood at Atlanta he discovered it was a fool's errand to maintain his Chattanooga supply line. A sea based logistical base was secure. The move through the Carolinas brought overwhelming military force into position to crush the last vestiges of military resistance under Lee and Johnston. The damage to the southern civilian populace was measured and proportional to the support requirements of an army of 60,000 moving through hostile territory. That there was no love lost after Columbia burned is part of the romance and tragedy of this awful conflict. Had the Radical Republican congress's reconstruction not been so harsh the rememberances of the march would likely be less vitriolic. Recent scholarship has lent a great deal of realistic understanding of this regrettably necessary military maneuver to end the war.