When was shermans total war

Grants operations against Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Virginia. The focus of the campaigns was to destroy the support base of the Confederacy, railroad infrastructure and material in the Deep South. Shermans application of total war, however, was not only to destroy the support base of the Confederacy but also to take the war to the people of the Deep South, making them feel the hardships of war and breaking their will.

To do this, however, Sherman needed the will of the people of the Union and the enmity of his soldiers in order to wage total war campaigns. Without Shermans use of total war, the Civil War could have lasted longer than it did.

Shermans armies destroyed the railroad networks in Northern Georgia and the Carolinas, consumed or destroyed material intended for the Confederate armies, and achieved Shermans personal intent of punishing the people of the South for their support of the Confederacy. After the April 9, U. He was named for a Shawnee chief. His father gave him his unusual middle name as a nod to the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, a magnetic leader who built a confederacy of Ohio At the Battle of Nashville, which took place from December 15 to December 16, , during the American Civil War , the once powerful Confederate Army of Tennessee was nearly destroyed when a Union army commanded by General George Thomas swarmed over the Rebel With the Confederacy on its last legs, Grant invited Lincoln to visit his headquarters in City Point now Hopewell , Virginia, situated along the James River just a few miles from the front.

Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Sherman's March to Savannah. General Sherman Captures Atlanta. Sherman Closes in on Savannah. William Tecumseh Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman was a Union general during the Civil War, playing a crucial role in the victory over the Confederate States and becoming one of the most famous military leaders in U.

Atlanta Campaign In the summer of , during the U. Long March In October , during a civil war, embattled Chinese Communists broke through Nationalist enemy lines and began an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China.

Sherman would take the remainder of his army of sixty-two thousand men from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, on the Atlantic Ocean. General Ulysses S.

Grant and President Abraham Lincoln opposed this plan at first, but Sherman convinced them of its importance. Sherman left Atlanta with his sixty-two-thousand-man army on November 15, As the Northerners began their mile march south and east to Savannah, Hood led his Confederate army on a raid into Tennessee.

As a result of Hood's action, fewer than five thousand Confederate soldiers under General Joseph Wheeler stood between Sherman's army and Savannah. Sherman left behind his supply train. He decided that he would permit his men to supply themselves from civilians along the march.

His soldiers commonly requisitioned all of the provisions that they could find from the civilian population. Food that the men could not eat or carry away generally was burned.

The Union soldiers even commandeered supplies from the slaves. They also destroyed a number of homes along the way. Sherman's men successfully occupied Savannah in mid-December The use of total war achieved Sherman's desired effect.

While some Confederates remained committed to the struggle, other Confederates began to doubt the Confederacy's chance for victory over the Union.