General Shermans Letters Home PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ... THE WAR ENDED 1865 A Vivid element of the picturesque, all that contributes to song and story, has given to Sherman's march across Georgia a distinction somewhat out of proportion with the fame of his other campaigns. The Campaign of the Carolinas, which immediately followed the March to the Sea, holds a far less conspicuous place in popular knowledge and esteem. Yet the latest testimony of General Sherman's son confirms much that has been printed before: "My father always rated this campaign as his greatest military achievement, and believed that it settled the fate of the Confederacy." 1 "The March to the Sea," says Mr. James Ford Rhodes, "was a frolic, that northward a constant wrestling with the elements."2 Leaving Savannah with sixty thousand men on February 1,1865, Sherman reached Goldsboro, North Carolina, on March 23, having marched, in the face of a resourceful enemy, four hundred and twenty-five miles, across swamps, rivers, and mountains, and having done the Confederacy incalculable harm in 1 See "General Sherman in the Last Year of the Civil War." An address delivered at the Thirty-eighth Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee at St. Louis, Mo. By P. Tecumseh Sherman. Nov. 11, 1908. * See Rhodes's History of The United States, Vol. V, p. 85. the destruction of property and lines of transportation. From the last important stopping-place before reaching Goldsboro, he wrote to Mrs. Sherman as follows: "in The Field, Fayetteville, N. C, Sunday, "March 12, 1865. "We reached this place yesterday in good health and condition. We have had bad roads and weather but made good progress, and have achieved all I aimed to accomplish. Our main columns came through Columbia and Cheraw, South Carolina. We have had no general...