From the moment the Civil War began, partisans on both sides were calling not just for victory but for extermination. And both sides found leaders who would oblige. In this vivid and fearfully persuasive book, Charles Royster looks at William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson, the men who came to embody the apocalyptic passions of North and South, and re-creates their characters, their strategies, and the feelings they inspired in their countrymen. At once an incisive dual biography, hypnotically engrossing military history, and a cautionary examination of the American penchant for patriotic bloodshed, The Destructive War is a work of enormous power.
Moving and elegantly written, this study is riveting history: a gripping portrait of two men, whose friendship forged under fire on the Civil War's greatest battlefields, would set the stage for the crucial final year of the war.
A wise, uplifting memoir about a rabbi's search for understanding and his discovery of hope and joy after his young son suffered a catastrophic brain-stem stroke that left him a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator for each breath."--Amazon.com.
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Born in 1922, Charles Austin Sherman has written a book about his experiences that few people can ever claim! His mother was a famous American actress of the time. As a child he lived in Manhattan and summered on Long Island. After his parents divorce, his mother met and married Colonel John Bigelow Dodge, an American-educated British citizen who saved her life while she was swimming and was caught in a rogue current. Dodge (Steve McQueen starred as Col. Dodge in the movie, The Great Escape), was a war hero and a good friend of Winston Churchill. John Dodge moved his new family to London where they were to stay. And so the stage was set for meeting famous people and history makers. People who cross the pages of this book include: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Herman Goering, Tito, Mussolinis son-in-law, Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich, General George C. Marshall, King Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, and Eva Peron. Anyone who is interested in the period and in the wars that tore nations apart will find this personal account to be fascinating reading. Mr. Sherman continues to live a charmed life in Tampa, Florida.
The first book to explore the important relationship between Generals Grant and Sherman discusses their pre-war failures, their subsequent career revivals during the Civil War, and most significantly, their relationship, which the author credits with saving the Union. (History -- Military History)
*Includes pictures of the battle's important generals. *Includes accounts of the march written by important participants. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. “I can make this march, and I will make Georgia howl!” – William Tecumseh Sherman “[N]o Civil War commander possessed a more astute appraisal of the nature of the contemporary warfare, how to form and pursue grand strategy, and the critical nexus between war, civil society, popular support, and electoral politics, And few American generals have since.” - Victor Davis Hanson, The Savior Generals William Tecumseh Sherman holds a unique position in American history. Synonymous with barbarity in the South, Sherman is lauded as a war hero in the North, and modern historians consider him the harbinger of total war. As a Union general, Sherman was recognized for his outstanding command of military strategy but criticized for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States, especially in 1864 and 1865. Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general." Both Grant and Sherman shared the same theory of war: anything that might help the enemy's war effort should be considered a military target. Grant explained to Sherman that the Confederates must be “demoralized and left without hope,” and he instructed Sherman, “Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of your command. Such as cannot be consumed, destroy. Leave the valley so barren that crows flying over it...will have to carry their provender with them.” This strategy sought the total economic collapse of the South, as well as completely disabling the South's capability of fielding armies. In addition to the wholesale plundering of Southern resources, including taking them from civilians, the Union reversed its policy of swapping prisoners, realizing it had a far bigger reserve of manpower than the South. The Atlanta Campaign was a perfect example of this, as both sides lost about the same number of casualties. By September 1864, however, Sherman still had about 80,000 men, while Hood's army was reduced to about 30,000. Thus, with his remaining forces, about 60,000 strong, Sherman decided to take the unprecedented step of cutting his own communication and supply lines and commencing a widespread march across Georgia, destroying Southern infrastructure and living off the land until his forces reached the coast and linked up with the Union navy. Aside from those plans, Sherman did not appoint a fixed time for his arrival, and the concept of the march greatly concerned the Lincoln Administration, since his men would virtually be on their own without any contact with the rest of the North as they marched straight through the heart of the Confederacy. Grant expressed his own concerns but eventually gave Sherman a simple go-ahead: "Go as you propose." Foragers known as "bummers" (a group comprised of deserters, criminals, and other miscreants) were assigned to seize food from local farms, while the troops (both left and right wings) moved along the railroad lines, ripping up and burning the track as they advanced, leaving miles of severed telegraph lines in their wake. The troops also adopted the habit of heating the train rails over fires and then wrapping them around tree trunks, which became known as "Sherman's neckties." Ultimately, Sherman's armies cut a path of abject destruction 60 miles wide and 300 hundred miles long from Atlanta to Savannah, which some likened to a Biblical blight. And as Sherman had intended, he did indeed made Georgia “howl.” Sherman's March to the Sea comprehensively covers the campaign, including the fighting and the aftermath of the results. You will learn about Sherman's March to the Sea like you never have before.
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