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 | | Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea by Noah Andre Trudeau ISBN-10: 9780060598679 ISBN-10: 0-06-059867-0 ISBN-13: 9780060598679 ISBN-13: 978-0-06-059867-9 Hardcover 2008-08-01 Harper Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Award-winning Civil War historian Noah Andre Trudeau has written a gripping, definitive new account that will stand as the last word on General William Tecumseh Sherman's epic march—a targeted strategy aimed to break not only the Confederate army but an entire society as well. With Lincoln's hard-fought reelection victory in hand, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, allowed Sherman to lead the largest and riskiest operation of the war. In rich detail, Trudeau explains why General Sherman's name is still anathema below the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in Georgia, where he is remembered as "the one who marched to the sea with death and devastation in his wake." Sherman's swath of destruction spanned more than sixty miles in width and virtually cut the South in two, badly disabling the flow of supplies to the Confederate army. He led more than 60,000 Union troops to blaze a path from Atlanta to Savannah, ordering his men to burn crops, kill livestock, and decimate everything that fed the Rebel war machine. Grant and Sherman's gamble worked, and the march managed to crush a critical part of the Confederacy and increase the pressure on General Lee, who was already under siege in Virginia. Told through the intimate and engrossing diaries and letters of Sherman's soldiers and the civilians who suffered in their path, Southern Storm paints a vivid picture of an event that would forever change the course of America. | ||
Reviews | ||
Southern Storm: Marching through Georgia with Uncle Billy Sherman and his army of bummers in 1864 William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891)was along with US Grant the commander who won the Civil War for the United States. Noah Andre Trudeau, author of several outstanding books on the Civil War, has published this long book on the famous Sherman March to the Sea which transpired from November 15, 1864 to the capture of Savannah in December 1864. Trudeau has assembled a vast array of first person letters, the Official Records, primary and secondary books and maps to chronicle in detail this amazing odyssey against a faltering and soon to be defeated Confederacy. Sherman achieved victory in the bloody Atlanta Campaign capturing that important city in September 1864. In November his rested, well equipped and well fed army launched out towards the southeast to plunder, punish, burn and destroy all who might stand in their way on the trip to the coast Sherman's blue clad troopers would be asked to forsake long supply lines by foraging off the rich stores to be found in Georgia. Sherman's 60.000 men, thousands of mules and horses along with wagons was divided into two huge wings led by General OO Howard leading the right wing and Henry Slocum the commander of the left wing. These men were good subordinates to Sherman. The campaign was well planned and executed. It has become a template of how a campaign can be organized. They were oppossed by fighting Joe Wheeler and his cavalry force which proved ineffective against the blue clad snake that was Sherman and his forces. Beaureguard was the overall rebel commander but proved inept in marshalling the Georgia State Militia and troops to defeat the Yankees. Trudeau divides his book into the following sections: a. Atlanta to Milledgville (then the state capital) November 15-24 b. Milledgeville to Millen-November 30-December 4th c. Millen to Savannah-December 5-30 d. Savannah-Dec. 11, 1864-January 21, 1865 In an unusual and effective format Trudeau looks in detail at each day of the march through the eyes of soldiers on both sides, civilians, African-Americans and government and military officials. This gives us a new perspective on the march. These accounts run the gamut from the humorous to the tragic. Trudeau also does well portraying the thought, fears and hopes of the thousands of African-American slaves liberated by the Yankees. It is clear from reading this book that: a. it was no cakewalk! Every day the men of Sherman's army faced constant sniping from the enemy and outraged citizens, rain, mud, cold and recalcitrant mules and horses. Destroying railroads was not an easy task. b. Southern leaders did not know where Sherman was heading when he left the Gate City of Atlanta. Macon? Augusta? Savannah? No one knew for sure until the Ohioan left Millen beaded for Atlanta. Sherman was left free to roam through Dixie as Confederate General John Bell Hood had swung his forces north towards Tennessee where he was soundly whipped by Union General George Thomas in the battle of Nashville in December, 1864. c. The march effectively cut the shrinking Confederacy in two. Along with Grant's triumphs against Lee in the Eastern Theatre and the re-election of Lincoln the war would soon end with Union victory. Sherman would leave Savannah after his victory to plunder and punish the South in the Carolinas. d. Sherman made the South howl by taking his destructive brand of warfare against a populace who had not felt the hard hand of war upclose and personal. Over 300 miles were trod by Sherman's boys consisting mainly of boys from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana although there were troops from the east who also served under Uncle Billy. A wide swath of destruction 60 miles wide made Sherman a hated name in the region for a century or more. e. War is hell and these pages testify to that truism. We see people lose their loved ones, homes, farms, livestock and their own lives. War is never glamorous but is always cruel. f. There were small battles which were fought such as Waynesboro, battles in front of Macon and most notably the scaling of Fort McAllister near Savannah which was soon seized by Sherman's army. This book will become the source Civil War scholars and buffs turn to for the latest and best account of this pivotal Civil War campaign. Marching through Georgia will never seem the same to those who enjoy military history spun like a tale well told by a master of the craft. | ||
Disjointed This book is all over the place. The author jumps from one thinig to another. There is no consistent narrative thread between tactics and personal accounts. Most of the personal accounts are colorless and reveal little, saying the same thing over and over... "ate sweet potatoes, buildings burning." Author adopts an a lame ploy of referring to "today" and "tomorrow," to make the reader think they are there, but it just makes the book hard to read. Statements are made with no elaboration. For instance, we are told O.O. Howard assummed command of Sherman's right wing but never told the interesting facts that General Logan was passed up or that the previous commander, McPherson, was killed in battle. The maps are uninformative and impossible to read, often without a legend. | ||
Comparing Southern Storm with Eye Witness Account I have copies of the diaries of Martin Curtis Tyler who served with the pontoon train in the right wing of Sherman's army as part of Company E Fourteenth Wisconsin. On Friday December 9,1864 he wrote " We have traveled through a pine forest all day, the forage is scarce and we have only got 1 load of corn and the mules only get 4 ears of corn each night. We got no sweet potatoes & the 25 Wisconsin was sent from our PT train for stealing ours last night. We came 14 miles & was brought to a halt at 3pm & turned off the road to the right & 1 1/4 mile to the Ogeeche River & laid the PT to let the troops cross that came on the other side of the river & they will not be here until tomorrow morn." If you compare this to Trudeau's description of action on the same day, you can appreciate the work involved in combining the accounts of numerous diaries so that an accurate and consistent description is given of the march. Trudeau gives a very useful overview of the march while providing enough detail to identify the daily account in individual diaries. If you think the book is dull and tedious then you should read one of the diaries to understand that the daily life of the troops was dull and tedious. There are few cheering crowds, a lot of mud that the wagons had to be pushed through and a very uncertain supply of food and clothing. Thank you Noah Trudeau for an honest account of the march to the sea and those responsible for carrying out the necessary work. Marcia Roth | ||
Boring subject, handled well. Sherman's march to the sea was important strategically and psychologically, but as a military adventure it was little more than a logistical achievement. Trudeau captures its essence well - 600 pages of soldier accounts that, "We went foraging today, found some hogs and sweet potatoes." The next day would be the same. After a while, the litany gets tedious. He gives a good sense of Southern outrage at the march, and some sense of the God-awful disorder of the South's military, but i felt he could have done much more with the later. All in all, I do not think the project was either worthy of Trudeau's considerable talents or he would have been better served to raise his sights and assess the march's larger impacts. The march and it's subsequent effort through South Carolina affected the South for generations. It broke the South psychologically. Trudeau kept his writing largely with the foot soldiers, and cavalry skirmishes, because that's about all there was to it militarily. I think that the work suffers for that, because that really wasn't where Sherman's real impact was. I had just finished Trudeau's remarkable book on Gettysburg and was expecting more. | ||
Finally, fact and detail win out over uninformed opinion After his well regarded "Gettysburg," Noah Trudeau's more difficult task in "Southern Storm" is to detail Sherman's 1864 march through Georgia as something more than that infamous affair brought us in Hollywood's version in "Gone With the Wind." Except for the concluding December capture of Savannah, there are no epic battles pitting one general against another, just the daily slog of a 60,000 man Union army reaping a three hundred mile swath of forage, fire, destruction from Atlanta to Savannah. Told mostly from the side of the Union army, each day is different and uniquely described without repetition. Sherman's strategy was to move two separate armies (led by Generals Slocum and Howard)to the southeast with feints towards Macon, thrusts towards Augusta, concealing his intentions, keeping the Rebels confused and his strategies disguised until the end. With numerous maps, fine descriptions and telling cameos, the book excels by avoiding boredom. Scenes, agonizing and enlightening, enliven the book; the joyous support of the slaves freed by the March as they followed the troops, Sherman's well planned tactical maneuvers which enabled his armies to traverse creeks, streams and rivers, and the failure of the Southern leaders especially Jefferson Davis to comprehend the magnitude of Sherman's offensive. Trudeau, to his credit, proves that fact supplants opinion by saving the editorializing overviews to the ending chapter. This is a book which is convincing because of its rigorous attention to detail and the fairness and writing skill of the author. | ||