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| Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea | 
 enlarge | Author: Noah Andre Trudeau
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $15.35
You Save: $19.65 (56%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (11 reviews)
Sales Rank: 25413
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 688
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.8
ISBN: 0060598670
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7378
EAN: 9780060598679
ASIN: 0060598670
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Release Date: August 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Just didnt flow well, but it's just my opinion November 14, 2008
Let me just say that this opinion is highly subjective. I like a certain type of Civil War book, and this just really wasn't it, but that doesn't mean others won't love this book.
I prefer a steady operational type book, you know, where the divisions, brigades moved, peppered with excellent maps. While this book had both, it is mostly a book of quotes from diaries and contemporaries about the Southern condition. It just didn't "flow", like a Cozzens or Sears or Rhea book does. Maybe just too much description of the "human condition" caused by Sherman's march, interrupting the discussion of troop movements.
Now, I freely grant you that other people whose tastes are different will absolutely love this book. It just wasn't to my taste. Still it was of moderate interest. I can't seem to find a decent book on the march to the sea...
Also, I agree with the reviewer who said the author should have continued with the Carolina operations. Perhaps that's the next book.
Storming Sherman October 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very solid, workman-like account of Sherman's march through Georgia, but not especially emotionally engaging. It does stop at Savannah though, there's nothing on the continuation of the campaign into South Carolina and North Carolina. There are no great battles here, those pretty much ended with the capture of Atlanta. One point made quite clearly in this book is that Sherman did his best to avoid major confrontation with the Confederate forces and split his force into two prongs to at least appear to threaten the maximum number of targets and thin the Southern defences, and he was hugely successful at this, with a great deal of help from the South and its inability to form a united command structure to oppose him. Hood took his substantial forces left after the attacks out of Atlanta and went north to threaten northern supply lines and presumably force Sherman to divert his offensive to follow him, only to succeed in destroying what was left to no particular purpose. The remaining Confederate generals and their forces couldn't decide on what to defend or how to go on the offensive to blunt or stop Sherman. The book gives very clear explanations on what was on the minds of both sides. There's lots to learn here for those sufficiently interested, but little that will stir your blood unless you're a descendent of the folks in Sherman's path.
 You get to join the left and right wings in the march from Atlanta to the taking of Savannah October 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sherman's so-called "March to the Sea" is the stuff of American legend. The popular view of it as Total War with the goal of attacking civilians is utterly wrong. Nor was it, as Sherman later claimed, a mere relocation of headquarters from Atlanta to a port on the sea at Savannah. Noah Andre Trudeau takes us through the entire campaign including its origins, and a very detailed and almost day-by-day and mile-by-mile process of Sherman's forces through the forests and swamps of Georgia in November and December of 1864.
The campaign had a general intention, but not a detailed plan. Sherman's forces were 60,000 strong and hand sufficient food and arms to keep those men fed and armed for more than a month, if need be. The line of marching troops and hundreds of wagons were miles long. At the end, the supplies remained almost completely in tact because of the extensive foraging activities. Sixty-thousand men will eat an enormous amount of food each day and it is these foraging activities that caused most of the destruction of civilian goods. While there were some cities along the way that bore the brunt of Sherman's anger, for example the town of Millen near Camp Lawton, a Confederate prison camp for Union soldiers, was ordered destroyed in a "tenfold more devilish" manner than the commander of the Seventeenth Corps had ever dreamed of. Most of the time, guards were put around the homes and the civilians were protected in their homes and the property in the homes was left in tact. However, many of these people had hidden their goods outside and those, when found, were taken by the soldiers.
The citizens were left very vulnerable when their yams, pigs, beeves, horses, and other goods usable by Sherman's army were taken. These people couldn't simply go and get food at a nearby store and their neighbors surely suffered a similar fate. So, yes, there was terrible civilian hardship after such a large army passed through. But the notion that there was a continuous path of burning and murder from Atlanta to the sea is fantastically overblown. One of the interesting aspects of this campaign is the hundreds and thousands of slaves who left their homes to free themselves and follow the army. However, the army told them to go back home because the army could not and would not provide for them. At times, the army pulled up its pontoons and bridges immediately after crossing to leave slaves on the bank and unable to cross. Yet, many still found ways to cross (some probably drowned) and stayed with the army. Later some were used as laborers to lay corduroy (split logs laid crossways over the road) to enable the army to pass over mud.
The Confederate forces were quite ineffective in trying to stand against or even harass Sherman's army. The author places most of the blame for this on Jefferson Davis's empowering separate armies without a central command. The various commanders did not have sufficient force to do any more than sting Sherman's army and had no one to unify the forces. Nor did the civilians answer the call for 10,000 more volunteers.
The taking of Fort McAllister is fascinating reading. The preparation was extensive and the actual battle was over in less than a half-hour. Most of the fatalities on the Union side were caused by the "torpedoes", the word used at that time for what we call land mines. They were used to impede the progress of the army towards Savannah. Sherman ordered the Confederate prisoners of war be used to dig them up and remove them. This act was controversial then and remains so today. Sherman's view is that if they didn't want their soldiers blown up by the torpedoes they should not have planted them. He certainly wasn't going to endanger his men in that work. The taking of Savannah was more or less an abandonment and surrender. There was no battle and the Confederates scuttled some ships, most notably the spectacular explosion of the ironclad "Savannah", and burned some supplies that might have aided Sherman's army. The Rebels were ineffective in spiking their heavy guns, which the Union easily repaired and took for their own use.
This very interesting, well-written, and informative book also has a section of contemporary images and a list of the forces and their commanders for both the Union and the Confederacy during Sherman's march. There are also extensive footnotes, a detailed bibliography, and a very helpful index.
I think this is a superb book and recommend it strongly.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
Southern Storm: Marching through Georgia with Uncle Billy Sherman and his army of bummers in 1864 September 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 September 19, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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